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  • For many of us, our strongest and at the same time vaguest desire is to be more creative.

  • And when we think about what it would mean to be creative, we arrive at a dauntingly

  • fixed range of jobs. We might be visually creative: and so identify that we want to

  • be a painter, photographer, film-maker, designer or architect. We might be intellectually creative:

  • and so want to be a novelist, journalist or academic. We might be musically creative:

  • and so want to start a band. Or we might be sensorily creative: and so want to start a

  • restaurant. The problem is that securing any of these jobs isstatistically speaking

  • almost impossible. We end up blocked, sure of what we want to be, yet also unable

  • to break into our chosen field. We end up with what we call a fixationrather than

  • simply an interestto signal the mixture of inner certainty and outer impossibility.

  • The solution to such fixations lies in coming to understand more closely what we are really

  • creatively interested in because the more accurately and precisely we fathom what we

  • truly care about, the more we stand to discover that our creative interests and their associated

  • pleasure-points actually exist in a far broader range of occupations than we have until now

  • been used to entertaining. It is a certain lack of understanding of what we are really

  • afterand therefore a relatively standard and obvious reading of the job marketthat

  • pushes us into a far narrower tunnel of options than is warranted. When we properly grasp

  • what draws us to one creative job, we stand to identify qualities that are available in

  • other kinds of employment as well. What we really love isn't this specific job, but

  • a range of themes we have first located there, normally because this job was the most conspicuous

  • example of a repository of themwhich is where the problem started because over-conspicuous

  • jobs tend to attract too much attention, get over-subscribed and are then in a position

  • to offer only very modest salaries. Yet, in reality, the qualities can't only exist

  • there. They are necessarily generic and will be available under other, less obvious guise

  • once we know how to look. Imagine the person who has become heavily invested in

  • the idea of becoming a journalist. The very word 'journalist' has become a coveted

  • badge that captures everything they feel they want. From a young age, the job suggested

  • glamour and stimulation, excitement and dynamism. They got used to parents and uncles and aunts

  • referring to them as future journalists. However, the sector now happens to be in terminal decline

  • and pitiably over-subscribed. A block and angst results. The recommended move is to

  • pause the fruitless job search and unpaid internships and ask oneself what might truly

  • be appealing in one's intuitive excitement around journalism. What are the pleasures

  • one is really seeking hereand might they exist somewhere else, and somewhere more favourable,

  • in the world of work? We're prone to a very natural vagueness here. We often just like

  • the broad sound of a given job. But if we pursue the pleasure-point analysis, we start

  • to prise off the lid and look more assiduously at the pleasures on offer. Once scrutinised,

  • we might find that journalism offers some of the following pleasures: an ability to

  • engage with serious political and sociological issues, to analyse policy, to write up thoughts

  • with elegance and to be respected for one's critical powers. Once such elements are clarified,

  • it becomes clear that they cannot be uniquely connected to the sector we call journalism.

  • The combination can't only existand isn't only neededin newspapers and

  • magazines. It's not really tied to any particular sector. The qualities can, and do, turn up

  • in a lot of other places. For instance, a financial investment firm might have a huge

  • need to analyse emerging markets and explain their potential and their possible weaknesses

  • to clients; a university might need to analyse and understand changes in its competitive

  • environment and explain these in clear and compelling ways to its staff; an oil company

  • might need to analyse its future likely employment needs and convey this to its recruitment teams

  • around the world. These industries don't sit under the heading of journalismbut

  • they all have needs and opportunities which in fact offer exactly the same pleasures which

  • were initially and rather superficially associated with journalism. Investigation reveals that

  • the pleasures we are seeking are more mobile than initially supposed. They don't have

  • to be pursued only in the world of the media, they may be more accessible, more secure and

  • more financially rewarding when pursued in quite different sectors of the economy. This

  • is not an exercise in getting us to give up on what we really want. The liberating move

  • is to see that what we want exists in places beyond those we had identified. The same analysis

  • could be run around teaching. This doesn't – it turns outhave to be done in a

  • primary or high school; one might be in essence a teacher in an aeronautics conglomerate (you

  • have to teach new recruits about the nature of the industry) or a wealth management firm

  • (you have to teach executives about how to deal with difficult clients). Or, someone

  • who was fixated on politics might realise that the pleasures they seek (influencing

  • societal outcomes) are as much available (and better rewarded and more consequential) in

  • a job with the the tourist board or an oil exploration company. This can look like a

  • climbdown only if we don't understand well-enough what we are actually looking for. The surprising,

  • liberating side of a creative pleasure-point analysis is that it reveals that it can never

  • be a particular industry sector that is the key to finding a job we can love. Because

  • when properly understood a creative pleasure isthankfullygeneric and can, therefore,

  • truly turn up in many different and initially unexpected places. Careful knowledge of what

  • we love sets us free to love

  • more widely.

For many of us, our strongest and at the same time vaguest desire is to be more creative.

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