Book Review: Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd

Right now, my favorite life and career resource is Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd. The subtitle is “A practical course in career design for artists, innovators, and others aspiring to a creative life” and does not short shrift those of us who can’t master watercolors or work up the nerve for live performance art, but who nonetheless identify as creative.

Creating a Life Worth Living is about imagining every component of your ideal life and then taking steps forward. However, unlike traditional career guides or touchy-feely get-in-touch-with-your-muse workbooks, Lloyd acknowledges that you may need a “day job” to pay off your student loans. And you may even have a lame job after that to support your activism, art, or business start-up. But creating a life, including inspired and passionate work, mentoring relationships, time/space/materials, and so forth can be built up over time if you just imagine, analyze, and act on the needed components.

My favorite section in the book is the “Life Worth Living Calendar.” It breaks down professional and creative areas of your life so that you’re actively pursuing what has meaning for you each and every month. But those steps can be major or minor, as long as they’re steps forward. You may not get the dream job, in the dream city, with the dream salary (if any of that exists anyway), but you can start somewhere.

Creating a Life Worth Living is practical and inspiring, useful and motivating.