7 Habits that Make My Creative Life Flourish
This week we’re talking about seven habits that make my creative life flourish. We’re covering a broad range of mindsets and tools I want to share with you, so let’s dive in.
Video Transcript: 7 Habits the Make My Creative Life Flourish
Habit #1. Checking in with and being honest with myself.
I try and do this regularly, and a way that I find works really well for me in finding a structure to do this, is by regularly writing in my journal.
When I write in my journal I don’t necessarily want to focus on capturing what’s happened during the day, or using it as a record. I’m using it as a way to express myself and be completely 100% honest.
It doesn’t always look pretty, and it doesn’t have to be atrocious either, but it’s where I come to be very truthful, and allow myself to express things that might be irking me in my life, and I want to shift.
Sometimes it might be about just a to do list of things that need to happen. I find journaling really supports my creative life and staying on track, and moving towards the direction of my hearts desires.
Habit #2. Being kind to myself.
As much as possible I try and speak lovingly in my thoughts to myself, and if I start to catch myself falling into a very critical way of being, or I feel like I’m getting edgy I’ll ask “Nic, what can I do for you right now to help you feel better in this situation?”
If I pause and listen, invariably something will come up.
It might be to have a nap, because quite often when you’re tired you get more self-critical. It could be, “Look, you know what, I really feel like having a beautiful new scarf.” Perhaps I just need to have a cup of tea and then carry on with my work, rather than trying to force myself to do things when I’m obviously off center and out of balance.
I will try and check in with myself and be kind to myself. That’s habit number two.
Habit #3. Giving myself permission to change and adapt.
Now, what I mean by that is through life we get information at different phases. Sometimes we’ve made a commitment back at this point and said, for example, “I’m going to get up at 8am every morning, or 6am every morning, and do yoga for thirty minute.”
We’re going to have our best intentions that we’re going to be doing that, and it might serve us well for a period of time.
Then circumstances in our life change, and it’s no longer serving our overall well-being.
Instead of getting locked into these past commitments that we’ve made, I prefer to give myself permission to change and adapt, and always be checking in with what is currently going to be working best in my life to take me in the direction of my creative dreams.
Habit #4. Giving myself a sense of abundance.
Now, we cover this in Flourish with Painting & Creativity in the first module, because it’s so fundamentally important.
I’ve found that having a sense of abundance when it comes to art materials, or when it comes to having enough hard drive space if I’m working on creative projects on my computer is really key to being able to feel like you can experiment, and play, and push thing around, and see if things work.
If they don’t work, it’s not a huge loss, because it’s not the only canvas that you have, and it’s not the last little bit of space on your hard drive.
The other way that I see it important to give myself a sense of abundance is I try and cultivate a sense of spaciousness in my life.
I mean spaciousness, not necessarily in terms of expansive actual physical space, although that’s nice and it’s nice to have it uncluttered.
I’m talking about mental space, and about time, as well. Not feeling that I need to be rushing everywhere. That can mean simple tweaks in my routine, such as not bombarding myself with social media, or with the news, or with getting involved in stuff that is not really moving me towards what I actually desire to birth into the world.
Creating a sense of abundance of you time means sometimes creating a sense of spaciousness as well by cutting things out that don’t serve you.
Habit #5. Following my curiosities.
This is something that I highly recommend that you do. If you’ve got a little curiosity about a particular subject, it doesn’t have to be a passion, but a curiosity, then by all means do whatever you can to give yourself permission to go and investigate that and find out more about it.
If you’re curious about pilgrimage, which is what my current fascination is, then buy some books about pilgrims. If you’re fascinated about patterns, then see if you can go down to your local fabric store and buy some off cuts and remnants of different patterned materials.
Allowing myself to follow my curiosities has been one of the keys to sustaining and flourishing in my creative life.
Habit #6. Going with the flow.
Going with the flow is all about tapping into the rhythms and the seasons in your life. Giving yourself permission to not be productive all of the time.
There’s nothing in nature that we see that is fruiting constantly. It’s not the way that the world works, and it’s not the way that we work, either.
We need to have periods of recuperation, of rest, incubation, and then sprouting, and then flourishing, and then dropping our leaves and going back through that whole cycle again.
Not getting stressed out when, oh my God, it feels like the ideas have dried up, or I’m just not feeling motivated. I’m not feeling inspired to get down into the studio, or to write, or to do whatever it is that’s going to move you forward.
Don’t freak out. I really believe it’s really important to honour the seasons and the rhythms in our creative life.
The more we can allow ourselves to sink into that season that we’re in if it’s a season of rest, the more quickly and more naturally we’re going to bounce back into a season of productivity and be able to flourish.
Habit #7. Cultivating Presence in my life.
Finally, the seventh habit that has allowed me to flourish in my creative life is something I’m deeply, deeply passionate about, and that is cultivating presence in my life.
Staying present to what actually is happening rather than getting caught up in my mind with all the regrets about thing that might have happened in the past, or wanting to change stories about what might have gone wrong, or projecting into the future, or coming up with fiascoes and scenarios.
Drawing myself back into the present and using my five senses to do so, which I will talk about in another video, has been a real catalyst to be able to flourish in my creative life.
Those are the seven habits that I wanted to share with you today.
I’d love to hear which of those resonated with you the most in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this article and video, please feel free to share it with your friends! It helps me enormously every time you share my videos, so thank you! Let’s encourage one another on our creative journeys by sharing these stories with our friends.
I’m wishing you a beautiful week.
Remember to be kind to yourself, and nurture your creativity!
With love,
-Nicola
PS. Looking for inspiration to get started painting & reignite your creativity?
If you’re new to my blog and you would like some help to get started with painting and creativity, I’ve created a beautiful 10-day free e-course that takes you through just that, called, “Get Started with Painting & Creativity.” You can find that at nicolanewman.com/flourishwithpainting.
In that free e-course, you’ll be taken through how to paint an abstract painting, plus we’ll do a writing and a photography adventure. It’s loads of fun! You can get that free e-course here and start painting today.