Do You Have a Morning "Creativity Routine"?
What's the first thing you do in the morning?
For quite a few years, my answer was always: roll over, hit snooze, and pick up the iPhone.
And ya know, some mornings I still do that.
But one of the proudest better-for-me habits I've created over the past year is that of kicking my morning scroll to the curb. Instead, I typically pick up a book or magazine and spend 30 minutes in bed reading. Okay - sometimes I milk it for up to an hour. Especially if my fiancé brings me a cup of coffee 😊.
But I don't necessarily want to talk about morning routines today. (Although I have shared more about my morning reading habit if you want to read about that here.) What I want to talk about, is the creative process. Or rather, creating more space for the creative mindset through a daily routine.
Do you have a creativity routine?
As much as I am very not a get-up-and-go morning person, I've always set up this expectation that in order to have a productive day I need to get going first thing in the morning. And by "get going", I mean either my butt is out the door for an AM workout or I'm getting started on work for the day right away.
Yet gradually, and somewhat unintentionally, over the past few months, I've been adopting a profound, new slow morning routine.
For me, it all started with The Artist's Way. Have you heard of this book? It had been on my list for years and finally, I decided to pick it up. In all honesty, I doubted I would make it through week two. What with all the morning pages, weekly "artist dates", and homeworks to get through, who has time?! But I ended up loving it. I read through all 12 weeks and the most profound part of the exercises was my realization that I needed to start my days with a space to DUMP. Dump in order to make space for creativity. Dump my monkey-mind thoughts, my swrilling ideas, the dream I had the night before, my to-list for the day... dump it all before I even thought about opening my computer. And what started happening - on the mornings that I didn't journal - was that I either felt totally off with my thoughts for the day or I found myself longing for that missed-out solo time.
I realized on those days - my thoughts controlled me.
I'm not promising The Artist's Way or even journaling every morning is going to be the best answer for you. (Although if it sparks your interest, I would certainly recommend checking it out!) What I realized through the process, is that there is an innate need for the creative and intuitive part of our spirits to be nourished every day. It could be in the morning, it could be at night... it could be midday. I've always admired those with a meditation practice, and I've dabbled with it but meditation has never really been for me. But maybe, for you, a 20-minute morning mediation or breathwork session is what my equivalent of journaling every day is to make up your own creative routine.
The point being, find something just for you.
Something that you want to cultivate as a habit. And force it into your everyday.
And lastly, I'll leave you with this. Below are some more ways I've been playing with (or adding to) my slow morning routine:
Do you feel this? Have you ever felt called to create a "creative routine"? How to do you get those creative juices flowing?
