I'm sure you agree with me that career and creativity are two of the central defining aspects of our lives as vibrant, happy, prosperous human beings. When they exist in harmony, and in healthy a relationship to each other, they contribute to our sense of significance and the energized and inspired state we refer to as "zest for life". One of the things you're really going to love about this article is that it outlines four powerful metaphors that you can use to clarify your perspective on your career and creativity, and forge a harmonious relationship between these two central life-facets for a happy, meaningful and prosperous life.

But before we get to those powerful metaphors, a bit of background and context. Most of us spend a huge chunk of our precious life-hours in activities directly or indirectly related to work. Yet few people plan, visualize, or craft their careers or career transitions with as much care, awareness, and dedication as buying a car, painting the house, or going on holiday.

Humans are natural creators. We all aspire to nurture our great ideas from their infancy, through the shaky days of toddler-hood and puberty, and to finally to see them living as independent and appreciated creations. Whatever else we are creating, whether in the artistic, scientific, technical, or other domains, we are also as a side-effect creating meaning within our own lives and in the world. This in turn adds to our sense of significance and our zest for life.

Our careers are themselves powerful sources of creative opportunity, and forces for creation. But most aspiring creators soon come up against internal and external obstacles which seriously limit the chances of their creations surviving or flourishing as significant entities in the world.

Why use metaphors? Metaphor is a powerful creative mind-tool. Perhaps it is the most powerful, as it forms the basis of many of our other creative tools such as picture, story, symbol, and creative thinking. A metaphor is simply a statement or reference relating one thing or situation to another seemingly unrelated thing or situation.

Metaphors form such a natural part of our language and thinking that we often do not notice them. But the metaphors we use have a profound effect on how we view ourselves, our lives, our careers, and our organizations. They also influence the outcomes of our ventures. For example, a CEO who sees herself as the general of an army is likely to have a very different leadership style to one who sees herself as the conductor of an orchestra. She is also likely to build a very different kind of organization with very different results.

Metaphors are useful for making information more palatable to our minds by allowing us to organize and structure separate bits of information into meaningful, coherent, and satisfying frameworks. The four metaphors I present in this article look at four possible relationship between career and creativity and conform to an overarching metaphorical theme of creating a piece of art such as a painting, a story, a sculpture, or a song.

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