When the easy answers have been tried and the problem remains, the time is ripe for your creative powers. Be willing to look at things in a new way, think about them with a fresh perspective, and tap the hidden ideas within yourself.
Gerry was an executive with a major financial company. Every day was stressful and long, and featured a brutal commute. “At some point you have to ask yourself why are you doing this,” Gerry says. Offered the opportunity to head his hometown’s YMCA, Gerry jumped at the chance—despite a dramatic cut in pay.
His commute is now three minutes long, and his days are stress free. But more important than those things, Gerry says, is that the career switch has given him the chance to make a difference in his community; “Every day I’m thinking about how to serve people through this organization. A good decision doesn’t shift the marginal return rate on some unseen transaction. A good decision serves a person who lives right down the street.
“In the corporate world, I saw it as important for me to do as well as I could do financially,” Gerry says. “But now I realize it’s important for me to be closer to home, to do something that really resonates with me today in terms of my values. “I realize this doesn’t match the corporate world in pay, but neither can the corporate world feed my spirit as much as this does.”
Among those experiencing low life satisfaction, a willingness to think creatively about their problems was associated with an 11 percent shorter duration of negative feelings.