CREATIVE SUCCESS NEWSLETTER, NUMBER 12-MAY 31, 2001

CELEBRATION TIME

We are now up to Creative Secret Number 12! What an exciting year it has been! By the way, all of our newsletters from this past year are archived on my website. Next month we will begin The Power of Positive Choices series to celebrate its publication (the book is in bookstores now). To help you support your creativity with positive life choices we start with P for Priorities! By now, you have had the opportunity to try out all 11 creativity secrets and this month you can play with the 12th which is the perfect bridge to learning a Positive Choices lifestyle. Our new series will further expand your imagination and reinforce all that you have gained this past year. I hope you all had success last month trashing those Serenity Stealers to create room for new adventures and dreams!

SECRET # 12: PLANNING TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Over the past 11 months, this newsletter (as a companion to reading/studying my book The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women) has outlined a process to help you to engage with your creative ideas and develop them. Now that you have discovered your inspirations, it is time to decide on some goals and move forward to achieve them. It is imperative that you also make some critical decisions about with whom and in what form you want to share your creative work. Are you doing your creative work for pleasure or profit or both? If you already own or plan to make a business out of your creative endeavors, what is your vision of success? Be sure to include both your personal as well as professional goals in your goal-setting explorations. To be effective, goals must be the following:

Specific
Measurable
Realistic
Written Down
Time-Targeted
Positive
Action Oriented with Steps

A key partner in the goal setting process is commitment to what you desire. Many creative people suffer from what is called Ideaphoria-an abundance of ideas. This is both a gift and a curse-I know--as I am in the 99th percentile on Ideaphoria skills. Like many of you, I have more ideas than lifetimes. Many creative people need to operate in what I call an "expansive umbrella" where they can link multiple ideas together and work in a big picture arena. Ultimately though, we need to choose a focus and experience the power of COMPLETION. Then we can move on to link our completed projects together under a central theme or experience each one as a completely new learning adventure. I challenge you to declare your creative goal in writing as well as to your significant others and charge ahead. The world needs your creative brilliance-please share it with us!

EXERCISE #12

1) Select a creative project to complete and write down an action plan step-by-step and support your vision with pictures and props to help you to achieve this goal. Then pull together a team of supportive people to cheer you on and advise you along the journey.
2) Visualize daily for 5 minutes the satisfaction of achieving your goal and completing your special project.
3) Tune into your personal creative mission and purpose for your project and keep a journal of learning's for yourself and others about your creative unfolding.
4) When you have achieved your goal, plan a celebration and revel in your new sense of creative power. You have become a creative person who keeps commitments to yourself and others and your life will never be the same. Claim your creative achievements and build on them!

12 SECRETS SUPPORT GROUPS:

Rochester, NY There are still openings in Dijana Winter's 12 Secrets Group on Thursday evenings from 7-8:30 PM. Dijana can be reached at 716-377-3797.

Manhattan, NY Monica Bartlett, who attended my recent workshop at The Learning Annex in NYC, is starting a 12 Secrets group and she can be reached by email at monica.interport@rcn.com or by phone at 212-741-7044.

If you are beginning a 12 Secrets support group, let us know so we can help you to get the word out!

12 SECRETS EVENTS:

12 Secrets and Creative Project Completion groups in the Boston, MA area, with Gail McMeekin beginning in Fall 2001. Specific groups and times will be in the next newsletter.
Email Gail at gail@creativesuccess.com if interested or call 617-323-1442

POSITIVE CHOICES EVENTS:

July 10
Barnes and Nobles Books in Braintree, MA
Positive Choices Workshop and booksigning at 7:30 PM

July 24
Boston Learning Society in Needham, MA
Positive Choices Workshop from 7-9 PM
Call 781-453-9800 to register

July 31
Learning Connection in Providence, RI
Positive Choices Workshop from 7-9 PM
Call 401-274-9330 to register

August 4
Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham, MA
Booksigning only from 3-5 PM

September 15
Barnes and Nobles books in Hyannis, MA
Positive Choices Workshop and book signing at 11 AM.

September 29
Armchair Books in E. Dennis, MA
Positive Choices Workshop and book signing at the E. Dennis Library on 23 Center St. from 2-4 PM

CREATIVITY RESOURCES

A fellow Conari author, Pam Grout, has published a wonderful book on creativity which I want to highly recommend called Art and Soul: 156 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000). I am having fun with it and I know you will as well.

As parenting is most certainly a creative endeavor, I recently had the pleasure of meeting spiritual parenting expert, Mimi Doe, author of 10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting (Harper Collins) and Drawing Angels Near (Pocket Books) which I can't wait to read to my 3 year old niece Gracie. Mimi has a bi-weekly email newsletter which you can sign up for at her website http://www.SpiritualParenting.com.

SEEKING SUCCESS STORIES

If you have successfully completed a creative project or begun a business using your creativity skills or innovatively solved a problem, we want to hear about it. We will be profiling successful creative people in the months to come, so email me your story at gail@creativesuccess.com.

IN CLOSING

It has been a pleasure sharing the 12 Secrets journey with you this past year and creating a community of creative souls. Join us as we begin a new passage together in creative living-the path of Positive Choices. Buy your copy of The Power of Positive Choices and join us in June.

Creatively yours,
Gail McMeekin

Feel free to forward this message onto your friends and associates. Please keep the whole message intact.