summer school wk 2 worksheet
Summer
School
2017
Week Two Worksheets
Wandering and Pondering
This week is a week for thinking and dreaming. If you can, I’m going to encourage to physically wander as you ponder. Take yourself off for some walks this week, perhaps to somewhere you’ve never walked before, or in a direction that you don’t usually go. If you’re not able to walk, find yourself a quiet space where you can go, notebook in hand and let your mind wander. Let the ideas flow and grow. Don’t be concerned with limits this week. Dream big!
Remembering your dreams and ambitions
Sometimes when we’re limited in terms of energy or time (or both!) we can often seriously curtail our dreams and ambitions. That’s completely understandable. If we’ve struggled for a long time, perhaps we’ve learnt to believe that the only way to protect ourselves from disappointment is to reign in our hopes, and the only way to keep from overdoing things is to lower our expectations of what’s possible. I’m not here to tell you that anything and everything is possible, but this course above all is about getting real and honest with yourself and your situation so you can make the best use of your available time and energy. That includes unwrapping your precious dreams and allowing them the possibility of taking flight!
A simple question to answer
Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way has a very good exercise. She asks us to write (without thought or editing) the answer to the following question: “If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d try…”. I’d like to adapt it a little for our purposes here: “If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try…” Now it’s your turn. On the next page answer the question ten times (do it without thinking or editing your thoughts).
1. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
2. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
3. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
4. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
5. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
6. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
7. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
8. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
9. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
10. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
Playing with your list
Set some time aside to play a little with your list (you might want to trying setting your timer for ten to twenty minutes to practise creating short containers of time for your creative activities). Read through your list and pick one thing that feels particularly exciting when you reread it. Dream big! Let your imagination run riot, start to picture the thing you like to try in full-screen glory! Maybe you said that if you weren’t limited by time or energy you’d try to write a book. Start to think about what that book would be like. Would it be a novel? What genre? How long would it be? Think about the plot and the characters.
Think about writing the book. Would you have an office? Would you like to write it in your favourite cafe? Maybe you’d like a sabbatical from your current job to write it. Don’t be limited by anything at this stage, just dream big, dream about how things would be if they could be any way you liked and you could do anything you liked. This exercise is about getting to the core of our creative ambitions and not a way of magically manifesting a dream. Over the rest of the course we’ll be distilling down our creative ambitions to something manageable, that fits with our time and energy limits, but also addresses the core of our creative hopes and dreams. Have fun!
School
2017
Week Two Worksheets
Wandering and Pondering
This week is a week for thinking and dreaming. If you can, I’m going to encourage to physically wander as you ponder. Take yourself off for some walks this week, perhaps to somewhere you’ve never walked before, or in a direction that you don’t usually go. If you’re not able to walk, find yourself a quiet space where you can go, notebook in hand and let your mind wander. Let the ideas flow and grow. Don’t be concerned with limits this week. Dream big!
Remembering your dreams and ambitions
Sometimes when we’re limited in terms of energy or time (or both!) we can often seriously curtail our dreams and ambitions. That’s completely understandable. If we’ve struggled for a long time, perhaps we’ve learnt to believe that the only way to protect ourselves from disappointment is to reign in our hopes, and the only way to keep from overdoing things is to lower our expectations of what’s possible. I’m not here to tell you that anything and everything is possible, but this course above all is about getting real and honest with yourself and your situation so you can make the best use of your available time and energy. That includes unwrapping your precious dreams and allowing them the possibility of taking flight!
A simple question to answer
Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way has a very good exercise. She asks us to write (without thought or editing) the answer to the following question: “If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d try…”. I’d like to adapt it a little for our purposes here: “If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try…” Now it’s your turn. On the next page answer the question ten times (do it without thinking or editing your thoughts).
1. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
2. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
3. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
4. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
5. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
6. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
7. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
8. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
9. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
10. If I didn’t have to worry about limited energy or time, I’d try...
Playing with your list
Set some time aside to play a little with your list (you might want to trying setting your timer for ten to twenty minutes to practise creating short containers of time for your creative activities). Read through your list and pick one thing that feels particularly exciting when you reread it. Dream big! Let your imagination run riot, start to picture the thing you like to try in full-screen glory! Maybe you said that if you weren’t limited by time or energy you’d try to write a book. Start to think about what that book would be like. Would it be a novel? What genre? How long would it be? Think about the plot and the characters.
Think about writing the book. Would you have an office? Would you like to write it in your favourite cafe? Maybe you’d like a sabbatical from your current job to write it. Don’t be limited by anything at this stage, just dream big, dream about how things would be if they could be any way you liked and you could do anything you liked. This exercise is about getting to the core of our creative ambitions and not a way of magically manifesting a dream. Over the rest of the course we’ll be distilling down our creative ambitions to something manageable, that fits with our time and energy limits, but also addresses the core of our creative hopes and dreams. Have fun!
