The Power of Creative Habits
Once I realized that I was going to make creativity (specifically songwriting) my day job over thirty years ago, I also realized that sitting around and waiting for inspiration wasn’t what you’d call a viable business model. So, slowly but surely over the years, I developed a series of creative habits that gave me more control over my inspiration so that it could be accessed at will. What I’ve come to realize, however, is that no matter what we do for a living, creative habits - no matter how small - are a simple and powerful way to remind us that we’re capable of any kind creativity. Below, I’m going to suggest a couple of tried-and-true small creative habits that are well worth the effort to incorporate into our daily lives.
Read
Part of feeding our own creativity is making sure that our intellectual diets include the creativity of others. There is no better - or more accessible - way to do this than through reading. I’m not suggesting reading books on creativity but, rather, any book of any kind that nourishes our imaginations. I’m also not suggesting spending hours every day buried in books. Using myself as an example, I have no less than three books going at any given time. I’m reading everything from poetry to business books to thrillers to Zen Buddhism but here’s the trick… I’m only reading a few pages every day of each. While, occasionally, it’s nice to get lost in a book for hours at a time, very few of us have that luxury. That being said, we can all find fifteen minutes in our days to read a few pages from a couple of different books. The key, of course, is to do this every day. That’s how our creative tanks stay consistently filled.
Write haiku
The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third line has five syllables. That’s it. We’re talking about a few minutes of effort at most. But by writing a haiku every day, we’ll end up with a big collection of poetry before we even notice we’re doing it. Can you imagine looking back over a year and realizing you’ve written over three hundred poems? Here’s a small haiku I’ve written to inspire you.
Scared to write your thoughts?
What’s the worst that can happen?
You’re already done
By the way, I’ve started a haiku every Monday video series on LinkedIn. Feel free to take a look and leave one of your own.
Conclusion
Creativity thrives on habit. I’m not talking about grand creative gestures or a magnum opus. Rather, by developing a consistent creative practice, we can build our own creative discipline so that we’ll come to truly believe in our own creativity. The spectacular long-term effects of this kind of effort is that we’ll find ourselves more creatively confident and capable of incorporating that creativity into our lives and work. I’ll close with one of my favorite expressions when it comes to any challenging or intimidating task. “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.” Bon appetit.
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