p.7 One of the most important discoveries I've made over the past twenty-five years has to do with the realm
of structure. Your life structures will determine your degree of success.
p.8 There are two basic structural patterns people have: advancing and oscillating.
Advancing is a structure in which the success you have achieved becomes the platform
for future success. You can build momentum over time, and the sum total of your life experiences leads you forward.
In an oscillating structure the success you have created is neutralized. A
step forward is followed by a step backward. Within this structure, success cannot succeed long term... Many people
can create important life goals, only later to lose the success they managed to create. You must learn how to keep
the success, build upon it, and have it lead to further success over time.
p.9 You need to learn the mechanics of the creative process, for if you don't,
all your desires, hopes, and longings will have a low probability of being achieved.
p.16 Action and planning form a feedback system. You make the first draft of your plans, you then
take some initial steps which, in turn, give you new insight about how practical your plans are. Are the assumptions
built into the plan true? If not, you will have to change your plans accordingly.
p.16 To design and execute a plan, you must develop many skills including:
- The skill of forming goals and developing vision.
- The skill of evaluating your current situation.
- The skill of developing the right strategies and tactics.
- The skill of using feedback to adjust actions.
- The skill of generating momentum and traction.
p.23 Whether representational or abstract, you, as painter, have something in mind. The principle
you will use in creating your life as art is this: Have an idea in mind about the result you want. What kind
of life do you want to build?
p.25 the creative process is a matter of eliminating the non-essentials... This version of
the creative process assumes that the vision exists... and our job is to discover it... The vision
is a constant guide and target. It is the object that is aimed for, and the standard by which progress is
measured.
p.26-27 You look at your blank canvas... you begin to imagine the painting you envisioned on the canvas. As
you do this, you are establishing one of the most important dynamics in the creative process - tension... The
tension is a force or dynamic that generates energy and movement. Tension seeks resolution. Tension evokes
change from a situation in which something is different or discrepant from something else, to one in which
the difference has been eliminated, and both elements are now the same... In the beginning of our creative process
there is a contrast between our desired state (our vision of the outcome we want to create) and our current situation (where
we are now in relationship to that outcome.) If we are successful, at the end of the creative process the desired
state and the current state are the same, ending the contrast and resolving the tension... In the arts, tension
is the major dynamic that moves a piece forward... Creators of all kinds learn to use contrast and
discrepancy in their creative process. The major contrast they use is between their vision of the final result, and
the current state of the project. When they do this, not only are they setting up a tension, they are setting up a structure.
p.29 Structural tension is the best and most powerful structure there is in the creative process.
One of your jobs... is to establish and manage structural tension throughout your creative process by developing the
ability to envision the result and observe the present situation in relationship to that result... one of the keys
to creating... holding two visions in your mind at once, the desired state... viewed against the actual state... With
structural tension, you can accomplish the most amazing things. With it, you have an engine that can help
propel you, like an arrow leaving the bow, toward your goals. With structural tension, you are working
with the forces of nature rather than against them. With structural tension, you can build a pattern in which success
succeeds and builds upon itself. [JLJ - great idea for game theory]
p.68 Seeing reality objectively must be developed. In the long tradition of the arts, students
learn to increase their level of awareness.
p.69 Without a good fix on reality, we can't establish structural tension, the dynamic that
is needed for us to create our goals.
p.71 Our ability to focus our attention can be developed, expanded, fine-tuned.
p.90-100 Principle 1: Think about what you want to create rather than what you want to
eliminate Principle 2: Think about what you want to create rather than what it says about YOU Principle 3: Simplify when you
can Principle 4: Don't look for the rules
p.97 Life is complex when we haven't defined what is important to us. Life is complex
when we've made too many things important on an equal level. Life is complex when nothing in particular is important to us.
p.99 Clarity about what you want to bring into being simplifies your life, while opening
a source of strength to tackle all the secondary choices that may be needed to accomplish your goal. How do you reach such
clarity? You decide for yourself what you will let your life be about.
p.117 The next step in our process is to build a structural tension chart around the goal you have
chosen... As we maintain focus on our goals and current reality, we begin to assimilate the state of structural tension.
Our minds begin to help us move to the resolution of the tension in favor of our desired outcomes.
p.130 We are structure-seeking beings. We consist of structure, we gravitate to structure,
we are motivated by structure, we respond to structure, we react to structure, and we resonate to structure.
That is not to say that we usually recognize the structures in our lives. Most structures
are invisible to us on a conscious level. But, on a subconscious level structure is perceived and comprehended in some very
essential ways.
Even though normally the structural dynamics in our lives are invisible, structure is a primal
instinct... Since the basic unit of structure is the tension-resolution system, we can see how various forms
of tension dominate the human experience.
p.141 The difference between our goals and current reality creates a state of non-equilibrium.
The structure moves toward restoring equilibrium, which happens when we accomplish our goal. At
that point, the actual state is equal to the desired state. In reality, we have what we want, and structurally, equilibrium
is established.
p.157 Concepts are forms, constructs, or models about how things are, things like the world, universe, politics,
economics, so on, and ourselves.
We use concepts to guide ourselves through our world. They are like roadmaps, policies,
rules, warnings, and controls. We feel more able to negotiate the world if we have a concept of how it all works...
we often take our experiences and turn them into concepts.
p.181
- Understand what you want to create
- Know reality
- Establish structural tension
- Eliminate the concepts you have built into your life [that cause oscillation and prevent progress
towards goals]
When you do this, you will be in a position to create much of what you want in your life.
