Refresh Yourself with a Creative Pursuit

As the pandemic wore on, I found myself working all the time. How about you?

It’s not a recipe for peak creativity. But I’m fortunate to have clients to coach, academic curriculum to develop, video scripts to write, marketing strategies to launch, and so on. The cognitive load kept growing.

What has helped? I’ve been taking purposeful breaks with completely different tasks. The restaurant my husband Kevin opened mid-pandemic needs fresh flowers every week (or maybe it doesn’t, but I’ve convinced myself they’re a necessity).

Every Tuesday, I absolutely love picking out freshly cut flowers and creating a new arrangement. I have little formal floral training, and that’s okay. The act of looking at beautiful colors, taking in the fragrant scents of fresh flowers, and trying different texture combinations is wonderfully relaxing.

What’s a creative pursuit for you?

 

What Do You Really Want?

 

What do you really, really want?

Not what you think others want you to want. Not what you believe is socially acceptable to want. Not what you think you’re capable of achieving.

No, what do you really want?

This is one of the most important questions any of us can contemplate. It’s a question that’s often at the heart of a coaching journey.

You don’t have to know how to get what you want. Once you know what you want, you’ll figure out the how. Step by step and day by day.

You’ll become more attuned to opportunities that could help you move forward. You’ll become more discerning about what to decline, because it doesn’t serve your larger vision.

Now that we’re one quarter of the way through 2021, it’s a good time to pause and reflect. How is your year going so far? Is it what you intended? And what do you really want?

 

What Would Make It Simple?

Life can be endlessly complex, no? More technology, more commitments, and more goals and dreams. Layered over that is a global pandemic, climate change, social justice, and political polarization. It can make life feel especially heavy.

When overwhelm rears its head, as it often does, one question can help. It isn’t to imply that the challenges any of us faces are easy, or simple, or straightforward. But in any given moment, asking “what would made it simple?” can help you identify new ways to take action.

This blog is an example. I’ve posted to it each month for the last six years. There’s a phenomenon about “not breaking the chain.” Once you do something repeatedly, you accrue “check marks,” day after day, or month after month. As you rack up more check marks, it provides its own momentum to keep going. This is not my original idea, but it resonates with me.

So here it is, the last day of January. If I do not post to my blog by midnight, I will break the chain of 72 months of posting. Usually my posts are 500 or more words in length. But I don’t have 500 words to share right now. Life is busy and complex. So how can I make it easy? By sharing this question with you.