Creativity Is For Life Not Just For Workshops! 3 Top Tips…

Picture the scene. You’ve just returned from a weekend break away, a creative retreat. Maybe it was a group writing retreat out in the mountain wilderness. Maybe it was a weekend singing workshop at a renowned theatre with some of the leading voice tutors in your country. Or it could have been a series of positive thinking seminars by some of the pioneers in the field.

You’ve enjoyed the weekend immensely and come back feel more energised and in love with life and your creativity than you have done in years.

You didn’t want to leave, you were wishing it didn’t have to end, and you could’ve spent days, weeks, months in the company of other like minded people and keep your energy and creativity levels permanently fizzing to the brim.

After a few days (or even hours!) back in your normal world though, the events and impositions of daily life start to take grip on your creative work again. That weekend already seems like weeks ago, and the red hot spurt of motivation you experienced has become more of a lukewarm trickle.

So what happened? Why didn’t the creativity and the energy last?

Well, one of the reasons these kind of retreats are so powerful is that they literally do allow us to retreat from our daily lives. They allow us to, temporarily at least, put aside our concerns, commitments, jobs, relationships and troubles and spend time just on ourselves and feeding and recharging our creative well being.

It’s inevitable that when we come back, simply because of the difference in surroundings, commitments and people, every day can not be the same as in that valuable weekend.

But there is hope. Creativity, after all, is for life, not just for workshops.

So here are 3 top tips for maintaining creative energy in your daily life:

1. Write every day. One thing in common to virtually all great creators is that they have a daily discipline of writing. Even if you’re not a writer, by spending 15 minutes every day jotting down thoughts, ideas and plans, you keep those creative channels open and the ideas are able to keep flowing forth, ready to be seized upon and evolved.

2. Count your blessings. By taking the time regularly, daily if possible, to take stock of all you have in your life to be thankful for, you adjust your outlook from one of feeling hard done by or put upon, to one of gratitude. Keep a “Daily Gratitude” journal and at the end of each day write 3 things that happened or you noticed that day you can be thankful for. Soon you’ll begin to look for and notice all the positives in your life far more easily.

3. Keep in touch with your vision. Regularly write, sketch, collage or otherwise construct a vision for your life, how you want it to be in all areas, in as much vibrant detail as possible. By doing this once a month, after just a few months, by looking back at previous visions, you’ll be amazed at how much comes in to being simply because you took the vital step of taking that vision from a collection of thoughts swimming around in your head to a tangible, achievable whole.

Each of these 3 practices will go a long way to helping you keep your creative energy topped up and bubbling away. By doing all three together, you’ll have an even more powerful framework in place to help you achieve all you want in your creative life.

Remember though that a steady consistent commitment is the key. Doing any of these exercises just once won’t get you very far. But do them regularly and you’ll soon start to feel your creativity flowing more easily.

: Share Your Experience ::

What are your experiences of this loss of motivation after a creative retreat or workshop?

Which of the 3 tips can you best use in YOUR creative life, starting today?

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