Suffering from Creative Fatigue? Strategies for Reconnecting with Your Creativity.

Running a small business takes large amounts of hard work, perseverance, and stamina. It also requires creativity. Even for those who love their work immensely, at times, creative burnout threatens. So, how can business owners keep their energy and creativity up, even in the midst of the busy Fall and Holiday season? The idea for this article probably came about out of my own experience this summer. I have taken only four days off from my studio/retail space since May. In the past, I had an assistant working with me two or three days a week, but as I grapple with a tough economic climate, keeping overhead low is a top priority. Fortunately, I have developed some helpful strategies for dealing with physical and mental fatigue and its companion feeling of being a totally uncreative being.

We all know the basics to keeping our energy high—sleeping an adequate amount, eating right, exercising, and keeping our vices to moderation. I encourage you to take a look at your daily habits, but these basics aren’t what this article addresses. The activities shared here are designed to renew your sense of creativity, freshness, and play. I share some of them with you in the hopes they might help you rekindle the creative spark that is so important to your approach to business whether you are an artist, an innkeeper, a retailer, a restaurateur, or the manager of a historic site.

You do not have to be an artist to express yourself creatively. By nature, humans are creative, but oftentimes in the bustle of our lives we forget this. Self-expression is your ticket to a rich life full of possibilities and opportunities to re-create yourself. Thomas Moore, author of The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life, urges us to live our life full of self-expression and magic, whether that simply means we set our table for dinner in an artful way or we make our drive to and from work enjoyable by listening to beautiful music and sometimes taking a different route home. Incorporating creativity into our daily life takes some effort at first, but it need not take a large amount of our time. In this case, the small things truly do make a difference!

Examine the balance of your life. A life out of balance does not invite creativity. It does quite the opposite, obstructing creative recovery. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, suggests conducting a Life Pie Exercise so that you can get a visual picture of the balance (or unbalance) of your life. First, draw a circle on a sheet of paper. Then divide the circle into six pieces of pie. Label one piece of the pie exercise, another play, and so on with work, friends, spirituality, and romance/adventure. Place a dot in each slice at the degree to which you are fulfilled in that area. In other words, the farther out you place the dot from the center of the pie, the more fulfilled you are in that area. Close to the center? Well, that area isn’t your strength presently. Now, connect the dots. This will show you where you are lopsided. Use this visual image to direct your activities and focus. Even a few minutes devoted to the undernourished aspects of your life will make a big difference.

Don’t postpone the creative impulse. Allow whatever arises to gain expression. Our critical mind is very clever and will produce a myriad of reasons why you should not paint, dance, sing, or play. It may cite the unfinished bookwork, housecleaning, orders to ship, or a meal to prepare as reasons for not doing what you FEEL like doing. The critical mind’s most effective reason is: you are not good at dancing/singing/drawing and therefore you will embarrass yourself if you do so. Turn off your critical mind. Who cares if you are not good at whatever you want to do? The focus here is on the process and not the end result. And those tasks waiting to be completed? You will tackle them with a renewed spirit afterwards!

Connect with nature. Nature is inherently creative, so pay attention to the beauty around you. Examine how other creatures create their world. Look at the brilliant colors and the shapes. Sing in the middle of a field. Gather sticks, leaves, rocks, etc. and make a sculpture. Be still and listen to the sounds around you.

Take yourself on an artist outing. Julia Cameron suggests scheduling a block of time each week, perhaps two hours to recapture a your “inner artist”. An artist date is a date you make with yourself—no one else is invited. These outings needn’t require much money either—you can visit a great junk shop, a bookstore, a scenic overlook, a museum or gallery. The point is to dedicate some time each week to witnessing the creativity of others, to expose yourself to new ideas, and to have a good time! Remember to do this weekly.

1. Play/Laugh
2. Revisit your mission statement and remember why you are doing this in the first place.
3. Remember how fortunate you are to be doing work you love.

Next