The Creative Life of Thanuja Gunatillake – Santé Photography

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Natalia

Welcome to this first instalment of The Creative Life interview series!

I believe that we’re all creative and that we can bring it into many facets of our life.
Each month I will interview people to find out how they express and nurture their creativity, as well as how they make room for it with everything else that’s going on in their lives. I’m also interested in learning about how they approach the business side of things if they have one.

So please, allow me to introduce you to…

The Creative Life of Thanuja Gunatillake.

Thanuja Gunatillake is the founder and owner of Santé Photography. Thanuja set up Santé to capture those special moments and people in life that are worth celebrating. While Santé Photography is her labour of love, Thanuja is also a devoted Mum and works full-time in transport advocacy.

©Santé Photography

Continue reading →

What does creativity really give you?

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Natalia

Creativity is within all of us.

It’s in how we express ourselves, our ideas and how we do things. We use our creativity when we pick out what to wear in the morning, what we use our lunch break, how we talk with our colleagues or friends, and solve any issues that arise.

The problem is not that we don’t have creativity. It’s that we mightn’t be used to tapping into it, and if we do we mightn’t have the confidence to truly express ourselves or our ideas.

Continue reading →

Creative Tool: Want easier, better decision making?

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Natalia

Do you want to get better at making decisions, or working out if something’s right for you? Do you want to stop muddling through every business decision, making things up on the fly, or as you go along?

There are lots of factors to consider when trying to make the right decision for you. But one thing that helps is understanding your values.

Have you ever made a decision that looked good on paper, but still made you feel uneasy? Often when we’re feeling conflicted about a choice it can mean that it’s in conflict with one or more of our values. When you know what your values are, it’s easier to work out what’s important to you and know what you stand for. The opportunity might just need a small tweak to realign it with your values and give it the go ahead.

In this blog, I’ll share a Creative Values Tool that you can use to quickly work out what your top 3-5 values are. Value exercises are also great for creating a shared identity for your team, so that everyone’s on the same page. Continue reading →

Getting something extraordinary OR “How to avoid only finding the obvious solution by using conventional problem solving techniques”

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Natalia

Has there been a time when you know you want something different, but you don’t know exactly what it is?

Or you want to solve a problem, but you know you won’t get a different result if you use the same approach you’ve always taken?

Basically, instead of boring and ordinary – you want different.
You want something extraordinary.

These are the same expectations that I bring to my own work.
For instance, as an entrepreneur, I grapple with how I define success for myself (there’s no performance review checklist that’s already been created for me by ‘the powers that be’).

So using a conventional, logical way of creating my definition of success, I’d sit down with my beverage of choice and list all the ways that I measure success and answer “How do I know that I’m successful?” But instead I decided to do this…  Continue reading →