The Creativity Habit

It’s Thursday and I’m Crafting my Life! August’s theme is creativity. Whether your dreams involve painting or writing or growing food or taking lots of naps, tapping into your creativity is an important part of changing your life. In the past few weeks I talked about practicing creativity, making art in your everyday life and the intersection of silliness and creativity. This week I’m talking about making a habit of creativity.

I mentioned that it’s important to take creativity breaks, to step away from a task, and to allow your brain to develop new perspectives. I believe this completely. I have experienced this truth in my life in many ways. Often, by leaving a task we let the more creative, less conscious side of our brain take over and epiphanies happen. This is amazingly awesome and fabulous.

But, unfortunately, stepping away from a task isn’t enough. Not by itself. The rubber really hits the road when you step back into it. When you take all of your realizations, and new perspectives, and make art out of them. This is when progress happens and great leaps are made. Which isn’t really all that shocking – as important as breaks are, they only help your productivity if you return to whatever it was you were taking a break from.

This sounds terribly logical. Your art is not going to get made if you don’t make it. Often, though, it’s much easier to say than it is to do. Because when you’re working at something, and you step away to take a breather and do something that might seem like a lot more fun, it’s awfully hard to convince yourself to return to the task at hand. “Hmm, do this work that I’m frankly tired of, or cast on a new knitting project? Knitting project, of course!”

I can have as much difficulty motivating myself to do the stuff that I don’t want to do as the next person. Even something that I generally enjoy can become tedious after a while, and morph into That Thing I’m Avoiding. I avoid knitting, sewing, baking, reading a book or going for a walk almost as frequently as I avoid balancing my chequebook, organizing my closet or cleaning. I will have brilliant flashes about how to make my skirt fit better, then put off the sewing so long that I totally forget what the brilliant flash was. I am human, therefore I procrastinate.

Unfortunately, task avoidance doesn’t get me very far. There is a truth that I have learned the hard way. Multiple times. And here it is: The more you do that thing that is so hard, the easier it will become, and the more creative you will be in your approach. Sometimes, the best way to cultivate creativity is to slog through That Thing You’re Avoiding. And then slog through it again. And again. And again. Set aside time for breaks, yes, but then come back to it and do the work and reap the rewards.

The more that I make a habit out of something that I want to get better at, the more creative I feel. I’ve found that to be very true of writing. Inspiration is a fickle mistress. Yes, those flashes of brilliance that come without any work on your part are wonderful, but they’re unpredictable. The best way to be consistently brilliant is not to wait for them, but to be willing to spend a lot of time not being brilliant at all. Playing with your craft, and honing your craft, is what really brings brilliance.

As much as creativity requires downtime, and silliness, and play, and passion, it also requires hard work. And paradoxically, as you get better at working through your creative blank, the more creative you will become. You will find it easier to see inspiration in little things that you overlooked before. Truly brilliant artists (and remember, your art can be whatever you want it to be) see inspiration everywhere. Not because they’re brilliant, but because they make it a habit. They sit down every day and paint, or write, or create computer programs. And after they practice and practice, the brilliance arrives.

This is the best news. You don’t have to be born with a gift. You can cultivate one. You can make a habit of creativity, and hone it, and watch it grow. We all can. There’s no magic in it – and yet there’s all the magic in the world.

How do you make a habit of creativity in your own life? I’d love to hear! I’d also love it if you would play along in my link-up. Include a link to a post you’ve written anytime in the past about creativity. Maybe we can lend each other some inspiration, instead of waiting for it to strike.

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