Change the creative view
Ever feel like life is just OK? Not good, not bad but just…OK? No spark? Routine-driven? Bland? It’s part of the human journey of course, (life can’t glide at a roller-coaster pace every day), but it’s important to realize when the routine takes over, creativity is diminished by assumed expectations and a slew of mediocre results that rarely change. So you don’t either.
And then you become attached to the dependable results because, they’re, well…dependable.
Life as usual is good for the food, water and shelter kind of stuff, as well as building healthy life habits that prolong life, but can really fizzle out the creative juju. So watch for when dependency morphs into stagnation. Or when crazy never-ending drama becomes the norm (it works both ways).
Change for a Change
For all of us (and yes I’m talking to even those who don’t feel they are “creative”), a change of venue is a must for the human spirit. For sanity. For inner peace. For a list of reasons I can tick off and fill this blog post and 10 more. But most importantly, to stretch your creative self and reach out to what is available beyond the shelf you’ve built.
So I challenge you to pass on the well-worn path to the coffee pot, favorite lunch spot or [insert routine here]. Sprinkle in something new, just because. Try a different route, sample a new drink. You may hate it, or it may be a new “OK”. Even better, it sparks you to start thinking about how to approach your life all the time, playing with the every day as a new canvas.
Don’t Try, Do
The next few weeks I’m working from Portland, Oregon. It’s my change of venue. I’ve been wanting to come here for at least three years now, and it finally came together because of timing, as well as a wonderful, generous man (my man Chuckles) who was more than happy to support me in my dream to experience this city because he saw how much I lit up when talking about it. And because I finally realized postponing it one more year would surely fizzle out my creative flow, forming a dense smokey haze that would settle into my view of everything.
So I finally decided to take small steps forward by doing the research (costs for lodging and travel, the type of place I wanted to spend my time and how I wanted to travel while I was there) and being willing to entertain the possibilities that came with a YES to my dream by changing up my routine. And now I get two creative, blissful weeks to myself to work on my own creative projects, explore a new city and invite in the new.
The leg work was a bit time consuming, but I learned about cool new sites Vacation Rental by Owner and AirBnB, and was able to coordinate my trip to overlap the World Domination Summit. Even though I don’t have formal tickets, I will be here to actively participate in auxillary events attached to the conference and meet up with friends while I’m here.
All these cool things, just because I finally said no to the routine and traded in my home office for a Portland locale for a few weeks. And just one day in, I already feel some of the creative cobwebs disintegrating into dust. They were already over stretched and waiting for an opportunity to expire anyway.
When you are considering your own mini-steps, you don’t have to “go big or go home”, especially if funds are tight. That’s not the point at all. The idea is to take something you would really like to do and just take small steps towards trying it; seeing where the heartfelt effort leads you.
As I close out this post, I invite you to ignore the what-ifs that kick you in the gut. Let go of all the reasons you “shouldn’t” before asking yourself, “why the hell not?” Ask for the support you need to make something happen; don’t expect people to figure it out and present you with unrestricted options. Don’t let your fear around what will change and how it will unfold to stop you from doing what you must as a creative being.
Change.