|
“Something you do every day is no longer a treat, it’s a habit.” I saw this message floating around the interwebs recently and being picked apart for various reasons—as someone else astutely said, “I make it a habit to treat myself!” But it also reminded me about how often I get asked about staying inspired and not getting in creative ruts and I think the key is to build inspiration into your routine. You don’t have to seek inspiration when it’s a habit. I have been creating regularly online since 2007 and I still have loads of new and creative ideas for projects (part of my struggle is setting aside the time to do them!). So how do we make inspiration a natural part of our routine rather than a well we seek on certain occasions or a fickle muse we need to chase?
Be intentionally inspired. To me the key is to surround yourself with sources of inspiration and to pay attention. Don’t wait until you are in a creative rut and struggling for ideas—regularly surround yourself with what inspires you so when you need an idea you already have a list to draw from. Inspiration can be found anywhere, but here’s a few ideas on how to build it into your daily routine: follow people on social media who create beautiful work, but also those who share interesting stories, lore, photography, images etc. Make time for books and films and walks—don’t treat these activities as a special occasion but rather schedule them into your routine. And perhaps most importantly: focus fully to absorb and observe the details. Inspiration is all around us, but we do need to pay attention to it in order to “hear” it through the noise of every day life. A walk can clear your mind, but only if you put down your phone and focus on the scene unfolding around you—the state of the sky, the feeling of the stones under your feet, try to engage all of your senses.
For me the perfect example of building inspiration into my routine is seeing a tweet with an illustration I liked, looking up the artist, discovering they made artwork inspired by the Redwall books and thinking about the wonderful descriptions of food in those books, finding a recipe book based on Redwall stories and thinking about how it’s such a perfect Cottagecore topic to explore—rustic, foraged meals inspired by cozy books and films. Will I make it an ongoing series? Maybe one day, but along the way I found an artist I admire, rediscovered a childhood favorite book series, and started researching foraging books and recipes and then observing what is in season in the wild around me and trying to recognize various edible plants…
Inspiration doesn’t need to be sought when it’s part of our regular routine and when we find these bursts of inspiration we can build lists of ideas to use in the future when we are stumped. This is not to say that we will always have the energy or tools to tackle our ideas, or that we will never get in a creative rut again—but rather that if we create these habits we stop seeing inspiration as something we need to chase or hunt down. Inspiration is everywhere, but we do need to train our eye to see it.
All the best,
Rebecca
|
