Calling ALL creatives… “You need to relax…”

How many times have you heard someone tell you that!

Easy to say … but hard for most of us to do. 

If your career depends on you being at your creative best, as mine does, you better learn to shut down.

I mean really shut down, turn off the phone, the tablet, the computer.  Retreat to someplace where your alone with very few distractions and without a time limit. 

It doesn’t have to be a remote mountain top.  Just someplace where you can drift off, without the chance of someone disrupting you and let you mind do what it wants to do.

You need to stop thinking, “if you’re not doing something you’re wasting time”. If you’re like me you try and fill every day and every hour with an accomplishment.

It’s exhausting!

So exhausting that when you’re called upon for to put forth a creative idea or some insightful view point, you’re empty.

Your creative best is never going to happen while your stressing over all that life has to throw at you. Even solving life problems isn’t going to happen if you’ve stressed your creative self to its limits.

SHUT IT DOWN!

I am sure you’ve heard athletic trainers talk about taking a day off between workouts so that your muscles have time to recover. Well, that’s the same with your creative muscle. It needs time to recover. You need to put it in a place of peace with no distractions and let it recover.  

We need to relearn that when you’re bored DON’T start finding ways to be “productive”. Take that time and drift off into a creative dream world.  

Here are some rules and ideas that I use:

THE RULES

1. Isolate yourself. When you head into any of the following enviroments you must be by yourself. No friends allowed.
2. Let your brain run its course. At first you will probably be thinking about practical things. “How much work you have to do this week.” “Something you said to someone you regret.” “I need get in shape, find a better job”, etc. etc.
   1. Don’t worry about those thoughts.
   2. Don’t try and push them out. It’s like being with someone who is telling you a story you don’t care about. A few minutes into their story you check out and find yourself not paying attention at all. You will actually stop paying attention to yourself. hahaha 
3. Don’t worry about remembering a great idea that comes to you or a solution to a problem. Don’t stop chilling to write it down. It will stay with you. Even if you forget it. Eventually it will come back in one form or another at another time.

SETTING THE ENVIROMENT

1. Take a bicycle ride. Anywhere you want just not somewhere were you have to stay alert and worry about surroundings 
2. Take a walk. City, Country, Suburbs doesn’t matter. No measuring your distant, time or how many cals your burning.
3. Sit in a park, in the country, your yard, a roof top. BY YOURSELF. Engaging in conversations with someone is not drifting, its thinking.  
4. Find a quite isolated place in or around your house / apt.
   1. Listen to music and drift off. Don’t study the notes, lyrics or song production.
   2. Read a book but don’t worry if you realize you’re not paying attention to the story. That’s the whole idea.
   3. If you happen to fall asleep, great, that means your body needed to sleep.
5. Play an instrument, paint a pic (even if you suck). Just don’t think about results.

 You need to schedule creative thought time and stick to it like your career depends on…

…BECAUSE IT DOES!

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