Daily Creativity: Part 1 - A Slow Experiment
“Everyone has the ability to think creatively, to view things through a different lens, to take things from a different perspective. And that to me is creativity.”
Welcome to May, and welcome to the next Slow Experiment of 2018!March's nature experiment was such an incredibly transformative experience that inspired so much change not only in myself, but also in lots of our wonderful listeners, so I'm equal parts excited and nervous to share this month's theme with you. (Though if you listened to last week's hostful episode you will have heard us talk about it a little already).This month we're experimenting with daily creativity, and I'm excited to share it with you because increased creativity was one of the biggest and most surprising benefits of our nature experiment in March and I think there's so many common elements between slow living and creative living. But I'm also nervous about it because there is often resistance when people hear the word "creativity". And that resistance often looks like one of these:
- "I'm not a creative person. I can't draw or write or sculpt or knit!"
- "I don't have time to be creative."
- "I used to be creative, before life got busy/the kids were born/work took up all my free time."
And I get it. Even as someone who writes for a living, I often don't feel very creative. "Be creative" feels like an additional item to add to the list of things I "should" be doing in order to live a well rounded life. But the more time we spend exploring slow living and all her elements, the more I realise that creativity is vital and it also has nothing to do with arts and crafts. It's simply about encouraging thought, mindfulness and play, and by redirecting our focus, even for just a few minutes a day, to look at things a little differently. Which really, is what slow living is all about too.So how do you join in? The good news is there are no hard and fast rules. This is an experiment, and all we encourage you to do is aim to do some kind of creative practice every day. It can be a specific creative project, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s more about approaching life through a more creative lens, rather than having an agenda or making anything for a specific audience (more on that next week). It might mean simply approaching an everyday task like getting dressed or making dinner as a creative act, rather than a chore. Or it might mean writing, sculpting, knitting, singing - whatever it is, it doesn’t have to look the same every day, it just has to happen.Which brings me to the other side of resistance: time.If you feel like you don’t have time to be creative, I'd recommend doing a brief audit of your daily inputs (e.g. social media, news websites, podcasts etc) and asking yourself if they fuel creativity or not. Then pick one, and swap out the time you’d normally spend doing it with a form of creative output for the month, and see how you go.It doesn't need to be hard or exciting or Instagrammable, honestly. Just creative. And if you're still stuck for ideas there are some out-of-the-box suggestions on this month's downloadable PDF, which you can find here.So how will you flex your creative muscle? We can’t wait to see - if you’re playing along and feel like sharing, don’t forget to use the hashtag #slowexperiment on Instagram. And in the meantime, enjoy your creative play!
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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:
- Chris Hardwick of ID10T (one of our fave podcasters)
- Download this month's PDF, full of ideas to keep you creating and keep you accountable