Written by brothers Tom and David Kelley, Creative Confidence has been on my reading list for such a long time. So I started my year of reading, with this wonderful book. As I mentioned in my post about my love of reading, I have always enjoyed reading business books - not just for the business side of it, but how you can make it apart of your work, and daily life too. I have always found it so helpful to read how someone else not only manages their work load, but how they create it and then in turn apply some of their techniques to your work. In this book, Tom and David share their creative passions, how they created the d.school, but also stories about how they have been able to help people find their creative confidence. What I love the most about this book is how they look at how people work together through either in the workplace, or collaborating outside of work. And how an idea can be good on your own, but quickly turns into something great when you work alongside others. Collaborating with others has always been one of my favourite parts about Made From Scratch, it’s given me some wonderful opportunities, but better than that, some of my closest friends have come from a simple email to work together on something we both share a passion of.

One of the things they spoke about which I found really reassuring, was that it’s ok to fail and actually the more that you do ‘fail’ and persevere with your goal/dream the better the outcome will be. And probably the wisest pieces of advice, if you’re stuck on an idea, go for a walk. Simply remove yourself from the problem for a little while, and allow yourself to think it over in a new environment. For those wanting to find out a little more on how to manage their time, set and fulfil goals, find (and learn) how to look for inspiration and how to ‘think outside the box’, but also to reassure yourself that you’re on the right path, then I highly recommend you add Creative Confidence to your reading list this year. Oh, and make sure you read it with a pencil nearby, you’ll find yourself making lots of notes in the margins, or underlining a lot of what is said.

And as Tom and David kindly say, and something that went straight to my heart, “Start by realising that your current situation is not the only option open to you.”