Today’s post is a guest post by Jocelyn Paige Kelly on how to use rituals to establish a creative habit. Enjoy 🙂
When we’re creative sometimes we’re resistant to the concept of routine. We believe that it’s in our best nature to be spontaneous and free. It’s in this openness that we play with ideas and possibilities. Creativity feels best when it’s less restricted, but sometimes we need a system to keep our creative flow going.
This is why I believe adding a ritual to one’s creativity can be a great way to give a sense of consistency without feeling too bound by rules. Rituals make us feel connected to not just our creativity and ourselves, but the world and the universe. Rituals also help us to honor our creative rhythms, the pace in which we create that is best for us. I like to think of our creative rhythms like circadian rhythms. Everyone has a different cycle and productive level. We just need to come to terms with our own and a ritual can help us learn to appreciate and acknowledge that as well.
- Keep it simple. A ritual that is too complex will bog you down. Create something that honors what you’re trying to create without becoming a form of art itself.
- Think portable. The best rituals are the ones you can take with you anywhere. The less you need, the easier it will be to help you establish a practice.
- Make it motivating. Create a ritual that reflects your values and gives your creativity meaning. When creativity comes from a sense of purpose, it has direction and direction is very motivating.
- Make it inviting to return. Consider what will help you to return to it. Does leaving something undone help you to come back again?
- Multiplicity. When simplicity isn’t your style, think about created multiple rituals to honor different or special times in your life. A portable ritual, a holiday ritual, a ritual for traveling, a ritual for going out in nature. This is where play and creativity can make it inspiring.
How will you add rituals to your creative life? w/ @RealizingYou
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Jocelyn Paige Kelly is a certified creativity coach whose passion and joy is in helping people realize their creative life. Her short stories and poems have been published in various literary journals. For creative inspiration and ideas on how to improve your creativity and health, visit her blog. You may email Jocelyn at jocelyn@realizingyourcreativelife.com
Since participating in the UBC, blogging has become a ritual! Additionally, before I start a project, my ritual is to make a mind map so that I can clear the ideas from my brain and work on making connections between ideas.
I probably need to create some rituals. I tend to just do it, without too much stratey.
Completing the UBC has made a ritual of writing a blog every day for me! It’s a real challenge but it has shown me that you can be creative based on routine and ritual. Thanks for the great post!
The difficulty will be getting out of that ritual to get other things done, at least for me.
After having had adrenal fatigue my ritual has been that if Im tired then I rest. My fear was I would always be resting. I also am trying to make a ritual that if i start to get stressed I use my breath to centre and calm me down. And one more thing I started this week was gratitude, every night and morning I spend time in gratitude, I think we have a tendency towards negativity naturally. Its not the LOA needing to create it, but a way to remind me that I have a heart and Im not just a walking head.
To rest when you need it is smart. Lots of people don’t.
I have a daily ritual when it comes to my work day. There’s got to be a set plan or else I’ll be all over the place.
For my health, I am trying to get into that habit of getting on the treadmill to relieve stress and clear the mind before starting my work day…been helping so far 🙂
Great post.
Sounds like a good plan 🙂