Creativity: It's not just for artists anymore.

But where does it fit into the workplace? Carol Lloyd, author of "Creating a Life Worth Living: A Practical Course in Career Design for Artists, Innovators and Others Aspiring to a Creative Life," proposes that every life can benefit from the thrill of unleashed creativity, but there are some professions that cannot survive without it.

San Francisco-based Lloyd, who founded The Writing Parlor, a literary arts center, and designed the "Life Worth Living" creativity workshops, points out that journalism, teaching, electronic media, and entrepreneurial work are just a few of the areas in which the creative process is absolutely essential. She emphasizes that all these careers involve creation, self-reliance, and synthesizing a complexity of elements into a single whole.

Lloyd compares the trend of integrating creativity into the workplace to another "discovery" made a generation ago. "Back in the '70s, Western culture discovered that exercise is good for you," she says. "I feel that's what's happening now. Corporate America is just realizing that the human animal is a creative animal. And a creative environment feeds into whatever work you're doing."

But Lloyd admits that this trend could be a double-edged sword. "Encouraging creativity in the workplace will result in employees who are more independent thinkers," she says. "Then you get a more complicated situation. These people will want to either improve the system or go somewhere else.

"The corporate world wants it both ways," she adds. "They want creative workers, but ones who don't question the practices in place. It's an interesting time."

Career Support Systems
It's not only Big Business that needs imaginative new models. Under the premise that two or more heads are better than one when it comes to career-building, Lloyd outlines several peer support systems that can help with your learning curve, whether you're part of a Fortune 500 company, an entrepreneur, or working for a small business. And, she says, "peer support gets you to take risks you might not try otherwise."

Creative partnerships, Lloyd asserts, create opportunities to trade goals and brainstorm. An advisory board is another support mode, where you put together three to five people from different professions to share experiences. An entrepreneurs' "credit union," whose members can trade services or share equipment and supplies, is yet another of the arrangements she has found useful.

"For a lot of entrepreneurs, the things they struggle with are those they're least likely to get," she says, like equipment, a business plan, or a loan. "The last thing on their list is emotional support and a peer group."

Lloyd herself is a member of "Business Bash," a San Francisco group of entrepreneurs who meet for dinner once a month, similar to the type of format she describes in her book as monthly salon. "It's basically a social group that trades advice," she says. "But you're also trading know-how and information on a level you wouldn't be able to get otherwise."

Although the "Business Bash" works well for her, Lloyd doesn't recommend any one format. "There are literally hundreds of different kinds of support systems."

Creating New Pathways for your Career
Similarly, Lloyd contends that creating a career, or taking your work into new directions, involves limitless possibilities-like creating a work of art.

To get started, she advises you to take 15 minutes each day to do a solitary, focused or reflective activity like gardening, meditation, or walking. "It's seed work," she says. "It starts the creative process happening underground-and this void in your day invites your muse."

The next step is creating a vision. But to manifest that vision into "real life" you need a step-by-step strategy. She advocates starting with an "essence statement," which sums up the intangibles you'd like to bring out in your life and in your work-your deepest yearning. Next, you list the essentials of your ideal workday, right down to what your office looks like and how you feel when you're working. Then it's time for goal creation. But instead of stopping with several goals, you break each one down through the clustering process. Your "clusters" become a plan of the daily small tasks that will bring your vision into being.

But creative people often have more than one creative vision, and can see several possible paths to take. "Different paths can paralyze you," she says. To break the block, you can try visualizing three different careers or projects. "Or come up with a project to 'hybridize' all three.

"We separate the two so much," she says of earning a living versus creative work. "Creative people need a balance of both. You need to schedule your life to build creativity into your day."