How taking care of self can thicken your creativity

By Chelene Knight, author of three books and is the founder of Breathing Space Creative Literary Studio where she helps creatives build and maintain healthy creative practices. 

It’s a fresh start to a new year! We often use the beautiful burst of a new year to ground ourselves in building new habits and routines which is wonderful, but can we go a bit deeper and start to truly look at how taking care of ourselves and working on our mindset daily can also create more tangible and spiritual space for creativity? Let’s do it.

Here are three clear and easy ways to call in self care (as defined by you) and organically open up more creative space. 

1. Make time for unstructured play. Time-block a chunk of time in your week for unstructured play: this can include doing puzzles, drawing, mind-mapping, it can even be something as mundane as reorganizing your closet! The key is to select something that brings you peace, allows you to move with ease, and asks you to slow down and focus on one thing. I can't tell you how many times unstructured play has helped me develop a new blog or book idea.
2. Say no, with love. Saying no with love allows you to leave the ‘people pleasing’ behind and call in all the projects, people, and events you WANT to take on. To say no with love, you should first pay attention to how you feel about the ask and the person doing the asking. If you think you may want to say yes in the future, craft a response that feels more like a “not right now” by including a note that says they should check in with you later in the year. A no doesn’t always have to be a “never.” Saying no with love could even mean putting someone else’s name forward if you know the project doesn’t suit.
3. Focus on your priorities. When you have your priorities in check, saying no will feel easier and organic. You can ask yourself? Does this opportunity align with what I have prioritized this year? If so, how does it fit in? Anything that does not fit in with your annual priorities should either be bookmarked for a future year. 

All of the above will organically help create more intentional space for your creative endeavors. 

Need help to make time for your creative practice? Sign up to BSC free annual priorities alignment workshop which focuses on helping creatives make time for their creative practice by strategically curating how they show up and what they say yes and no to. Doing this work will open up space you never knew existed.