Three ways to boost creativity
With life so busy, it’s easy to find yourself stuck. Lacking in inspiration, motivation, joie de vivre no where to be found? Here are three ways to shift yourself back into gear and get your creative juices flowing once again.
Since getting back from a family camping trip last week, things have been pretty full on for me. We accepted an offer on our house, so are now house-hunting (outside of town), had a family birthday, and along with the promotion and prep for a masterclass I'm hosting next week, it's fair to say, life has been more "full" than is generally ideal for me.
I find that my supportive habits tend to more easily fall by the wayside in the summer months, and that's ok. Can't be on it all the time. However, now I'm beginning to feel the negative impact of the break away from the habits which support me, I thought I'd share here what those are, in case they're helpful to you too.
I've tried many different activities and habits over the years, but there are now three main go-tos which never fail to inspire me or shift me out of a funk and get ideas flowing again. The great thing about them all, is how very simple they are.
Movement
Many creative thinkers and doers now and through history have used movement to promote creative thought. It works!
Whether it's a 15 minute kettlebell workout, riding a bike, yoga or a run, getting my body moving never fails to make me feel renewed and energised. Even if it takes me all my effort to summon the willpower to get myself moving in the first place, and it inevitably does when I've gotten out of the habit.
Something I’ve found helpful when exercise feels a struggle, is to repeat an affirmation aloud to myself in the run up, adapted from one shared by brilliant wellbeing coach, Tamu Thomas: “every day in every way, I feel more vibrant and alive”. Try this yourself or come up with your own version.
If intense exercise of this nature feels too much, try dancing like no one is watching at home to music you love. It doesn’t have to be high impact exercise to have a positive effect. In fact, walking might be even be better. A 2014 scientific paper, Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking found “walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity.”
Nature
Another tip favoured by creative thinkers, such as Carl Jung, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Oliver, (amongst many others) is being in nature. Oliver wrote in the poem, The Summer Day:
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall
down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll
through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
I love sitting with a specific tree I befriended last year (as recommended by my good friend, holistic healer Susannah Lee) or with any tree for that matter, though the older, the better. Being outside somewhere as unkempt, un-preened and un-manmade as possible does great things to my mind, body and spirit and settles my nervous system in a way little else does.
Walking in the woods, getting feet on grass, mud, sand or in water: it’s in these moments we experience a sense that time is expanding and slowing down. In direct contrast to the sense we more often experience day-to-day, that time is under threat, lacking and pressured.
Several studies have shown the positive contribution being exposed to nature has on cognitive activity, including this one which found spending time walking in nature reduces rumination (defined as repetitive thoughts focused on negative aspects of the self) compared with those walking in urban areas. The kind of thoughts which are most definitely not conducive to creative practise!
Meditation
I've been meditating since my eldest was a year old, having bought myself a course in Transcendental Meditation as a birthday gift to myself in 2015. Meditating has been monumentally transformative in my life; the more I do it, the more at home with myself and the more "me" I become.
Since 2020, I've been practising a form of meditation that’s fairly new to me outside of a yoga practise: breathwork. When I first took part in an extended session, I enjoyed it so much that I took up a pretty intense 400 hour training in breathwork facilitation which I completed in 2021.
I’ve found breathwork very powerful and revealing. I can't recommend it more highly, especially if you want more creativity in your life. This is one of the main reasons I'm bringing it into the work I do with clients, because my own experience has been that it unlocks creativity in a big way. Since practising it, my ability to access the courage to boldly state what I really think without fear of external judgment has skyrocketed, which can be a big block to creativity in my experience.
What do you do to inspire creativity?
If you’d like to give breathwork ago, check out Hush Club where I host regular group sessions. Or fill out this form for a one to one session.
