Want to Find More Career Opportunities? Let Yourself Get Weird.
How to apply the creative process to your professional life
The next time you go to Target, Wal-Mart, or any other huge, air conditioned, and sterile store, turn the drudgery of picking up detergent into a contest. Challenge yourself to spot something weird amidst the aisles.
That’s the premise of Big Box Archeologist, an activity included in Rob Walker’s book The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday. Perhaps you’re thinking, the world is on fire and, allegedly, 95% of us are considering changing jobs. Why should we distract ourselves with strange games while we run errands? Because our brains need it.
I recently surveyed over 4,000 of my listeners for a project and 89% said it was “somewhat or extremely important to them to be innovative or experimental with their work.” And yet, some also said that they feel like “they don’t have an innovative or creative bone in my body” or that they “aren’t an ideas person.” Many said they want to reinvent themselves but don’t even know where to start. They’re fried.
We run around our lives and the internet, consuming ridiculous amounts of information, packing our calendars with meetings, filling our nights with Netflix…and…
