Imagine a solution
How do you design the life you want? Nathalie Hourihan explores how ‘creativism’, which utilises our innate creativity to solve problems, can help
self
About two years ago, I gave up a life I’d spent 20 years building. I had a global job, a lot of friends and lived at a frenetic pace. But what had once proved ideal was no longer working. I was tired – soul-tired. I quit my job, moved from London to Ireland, and set up my own business – all at once. I hadn’t intended a drastic change, but one thing led to another.
In redesigning my life in this way, I’m not the outlier I once would have been. Many more of us have less conventional lives. According to the Association of Independent Professionals, in the past eight years there’s been a 43 per cent increase in freelancers across every industry in the UK. The Office of National Statistics reports our households are also changing shape: a third of us have never married; soaring property prices mean singles and couples are often house-sharing into their 40s; and we are openly less heterosexual.
The more interesting and diverse we become, the less conventional rules apply, and the more we need to design our own lives, but how to go about it? Halfway through my second year in Ireland, I came across a method.