Step Five to Unblocking Your Creativity is Routine Building

Jul 5

I know, routines isn’t a particularly sexy topic related to creativity. And in many ways, I expect pushback to the merging of ideas. Routines can feel restrictive whereas creativity feels flowy.

Hear me out though. Routines can give you back your sanity, time, and spaciousness for your creativity. And even more than that, routines train your brain - when you have a creative routine you are prepping your neural pathways for the work. Creativity needs the support of some variation of routine and discipline/commitment.

I resonated with this perspective from Lucy H. Pearce in her book, Creatrix: She Who Makes:

“…the difference between routine - a mindless clock-based adherence to doing things according to externally appointed rules - and routine, an inner-driven motivation which works in response to the rhythms and cycles around us.”

I see this as reinforcing what I work with folks on - Embodied Action - which is simply knowing and using your body and felt sensations to know where and when to take action. When we are embodied, we are in tune with nature and seasons around us, those of macro, meso, and micro contexts.

I see this now. But let me say, I was so resistant to creative routines until the last few years. A few beliefs kept me stuck in this resistance rut.

One block to creative routine building was I needed control and I thought resisting was giving me power. What I see now is that I always have the challenge of choice everyday. So I choice whether I follow my routine or not. Power in is my choice not in my resistance to the practices that support and aid me. My routine is there to serve me not dictate to me. I needed to let my rebellious teenager protector gremlin take a vacation on this one.

Secondly, I was convinced that my creativity was a flow of inspiration that would strike me across the brain when the time was right. Like divine goddess intervention. Well, yep, I was wrong mostly about that. I mean, I still get the divine hits or ideas but only when I’ve created the space and expectations of creativity in my days. Creative inspiration comes more when I am in regular connection with it - and regular connection comes with routine.

One last point I want to make on this is how being out of routine I stay in denial about the consequences of my choices. Sure I can stay up late binge-watching Outlander, but my ass and brain will be dragging the next day and I’ll be cranky at everyone and have no desire for creativity let alone productivity. Choices, friend. Every moment you have the choice in what you prioritize and there’s a consequence or natural next step for all of it.

Mary Oliver, in her essay, Of Power and Time, said,

In creative work – creative work of all kinds – those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else. Its labor requires a different outlook – a different set of priorities. (pp. 26-27, emphasis in original)

As Mary Oliver says, our creativity requires prioritization. Do you prioritize other activities like exercise, meal prep, time with loved ones, etc? Well, decide then if creativity is a priority for you to nurture or not. It’s your choice, no one else’s. When we make a priority then we create space in our calendars and routines for it, do we not?

Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project says, “Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.”

More and more I see unblocking our creativity is required to move our world forward - to shift out of the status quo of going around and around with hate, racism, climate crisis, ignorance, etc. And to be ready every day to show up and do that work, well, we need to be ready everyday which is so different than the waiting around for inspiration to hit.

Routines can give you and your creativity the expectation that there is time and space in your calendar for it to begin with AND there are practices and rest time built in that continue to keep it flowing and nurtured. Bringing creativity into your daily routine and identity is about prioritizing it along with what else matters to you or just like you do.

But what holds you back from creative routines still?

Or where do you want to incorporate some flowy creative routine?

Ultimately for me, I understand my routines similarly to my boundaries - they reclaim my time, space, and energy and communicate what’s important to me and where my values align in my work and relationships. Mic drop…. peace out…