We recently talked about how important creativity is to your health. And during times of crisis, everyday creativity is even more crucial, even if it seems a little more challenging.
Let’s try something: let’s reframe how we think about creativity. Sometimes, creativity is like exercise. When you have a cold, maybe you don’t run your usual 5k in the morning. Maybe you just take a walk or do a little stretching. But being creative is not always fun, spontaneous, or easy. Like most worthwhile things, flexing your creative muscles takes practice.
So get creative with your creativity—explore a new way to create; admire art from a new angle; seek out inspiration without attempting to create something tangible.
Creativity exists in all domains of work, so go exploring somewhere new:
- Stretch your brain: look into MasterClass or SkillShare membership.
- Abandon “perfection” for “practice.” Like yoga, creativity is a journey. Sometimes the need to fill a blank page or artboard with perfection can be paralyzing. Unleash yourself from that pressure and enjoy the process, even if it takes 14 tries.
- Reach way back [to childhood]: sometimes the simplest things are the most rewarding. An untouched coloring book, the smell of a new box of crayons or gel pens, a Sharpie’s maiden voyage across the first sheet of construction paper—don’t limit yourself to trying something you’ve never done before.
- Question everything. Curiosity breeds creativity.
- Surround yourself with inspiration: listen to music, spend time in nature (forest bathing, anyone?), read everything, follow new tags on social media, make lots of lists, maybe even read cookbooks if that’s your thing.
- Ditch the guilt over not creatively achieving, and give yourself time. Be gentle with yourself. Take a break, get your hands dirty, then get back to it.