Finding inspiration for creative pursuits can be a challenge, especially in times of stress or emotional turmoil. It can feel like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack or like trying to find a pen in the depths of your handbag. Somehow it always manages to hide even though you know there’s a pen in there somewhere and your purse isn’t that big.
Brewing a Cup of Inspiration
When I stop to consider when and how the creative spark comes or doesn’t, the common denominator for me seems to be “thinking time”. The time to create is an obvious part, but I’m talking about something different.
I like to think of it as “brewing time”. It’s kind of like making a cup of tea. You boil the water, pull out your favorite mug, put a tea bag in, pour the hot water into the cup, and then drink it immediately. Not quite. You have to wait anywhere from 3-7 minutes or more for your tea to steep, for the infusion of tea or herbs or whatever is in there to come out and flavor the hot water.
Inspiration, creative spark, muse—whatever you want to call it is that cup of tea. There are certain resources and interests that I know help me find inspiration (like the tea bag and the mug), but unless I let the ideas mull around in my brain and give them some room to breathe, they won’t amount to much more than barely flavored hot water.
Busyness + Worry = Thinking Time Famine
If you’re like me, the dreaded “busyness” monster has crept in and wreaked havoc with my thinking time. There’s so much going on and so many things to think about and worry about. It’s not just my schedule that is always full but my brain as well. When I’m done thinking about the things I need to do, and all the crap that 2020 has given us to worry about, the only thing my brain wants to do is veg out in front of the T.V. or YouTube, play endless games of solitaire on my phone, or something equally mind numbing.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. There are some actionable steps you can take to get your imagination going and spark your creativity again.
Give Your Creativity a Boost
I stumbled on these tips by accident and trial and error, but I can tell you that they definitely work. I am going to be making a conscious effort to pay attention to these areas of my life to keep the creative juices flowing. Give them a try!
1. Rediscover & develop interests that aren’t part of a "must-do" category
What interests you? What do you want to learn more about? Seemingly unrelated interests can sometimes spark a whole new idea. In my most recent project, inspiration came in a roundabout way through my growing interest in fashion history and the social relevance of the history of women’s pockets. Reading and researching a topic that interested me started a whole chain of inspiration. More to come on that in later posts. The point is you never know where an idea can spring from, so enjoy yourself and spend some time developing your interests.
2. Substitute mind numbing activities with inspiration rich ones
We’ve all been there–scrolling through Facebook, watching endless random YouTube videos, or playing countless games of Candy Crush. We can actually feel our brain cells screaming in pain as they die off one by one. Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s pretty rare to have a brain wave of inspiration or feel any motivation at all when your brain has checked out with the latest bingeable Netflix show. Shifting instead to inspiration rich activities will make it more likely for that moment of “hmm, what about this, ” or “maybe I could make one of those,” or “what a beautiful color or pattern, what if I…” You get the idea.
My number one activity for thinking and “steeping” has to be reading followed closely by taking a walk by myself. Activities that take a little more time and brain effort help get your brain limber for the thinking ahead. Studies have shown the difference in brain activity when reading vs watching something and just as you’d expect, reading nearly always comes out on top. I’ve linked a couple of articles at the bottom of the post in case you are interested in the many benefits of reading for your brain. Other activities like walking, putting together a puzzle, or weeding my garden help me carve out thinking time that lets my mind wander on the path of its own choosing.
That’s not to say you can’t find inspiration and valuable resources on the internet and even social media platforms, especially Pinterest. There is so much great stuff to be inspired by (this blog, I hope!), but it can be easy to fall into the mind numbing category with those types of activities. Intentional consumption as much as possible can help.
3. Give yourself permission and the time for creative thinking
If your life is busy, you may need to carve time out of your schedule for thinking and activities that encourage it, but if you start cutting the cord on mind numbing activities, you’ll be amazed at how much time you can recoup.
4. Take a break and sweep the floor
I know this might sound weird and maybe a little counterintuitive, but I promise you, it works. When I am stuck on something, lacking inspiration or can’t find a solution, taking a short break and doing some kind of menial task like sweeping the kitchen floor or folding a basket of laundry snaps me out of the funk and 9 times out of 10, I return with a fresh perspective and new ideas. It’s super important to take a short break only though. Any more than 30 minutes and I have moved on, and it becomes harder than ever to get back into the flow.
I hope these tips can help you find inspiration. Let me know if you have any tips for boosting your creativity this coming year!
Links to Learn More About Reading
3 Comments
Kathy Hill
A worthy goal for the year is to give up watching so much TV!
Selah
Hey! Love it when you post! These tips are definitely useful when it comes to creativity (and just in general.) I will try to implement them in my life when I start to feel mentally stumped, as I think we all should!
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