Can I be embarrassingly honest with you? I feel stuck, like I'm in some sort of creative lull, but fully craving the process of producing something of value and purpose. I assume this is a fairly common feeling but I almost never hear anyone talk about it, especially in the era of social media marketing and pumping as much high quality content to your audience as humanly possible. It feels embarrassing to not know what value you can add in an overload of content that we have access to. What the fuck am I supposed to say, that hasn't already been said?!
Now, I do have some concrete action steps that I take when I start to feel creatively stumped and a little less than inspired, but before I get into those I want to share the one simple mental shift I use to reignite the internal badass fire that resides in my soul. I CHANNEL ANTICIPATION. Yes girlfriend, I move my little butt into anticipation mode & I've learned that this is a tried and true way for me to get inspired about my life and what positive impact I can have. Let me explain.
I have an intense love and desire for summer months, heavy, humid air, & the smell of sunscreen and chlorine that rides in the cool breeze. I thrive in the summertime. Having lived in Michigan my entire life, I have access to all four seasons. As summer comes to an end and fall starts to make her entrance, there is a small window of time where the two overlap. The air still feels heavy & the sun blazes on, yet the trees start to change color and ((call me basic if you must)) pumpkin spice everything makes an its debut. That moment in the year, the time that lingers between summer and fall, I fucking live for that. I anticipate that time, I daydream about it, I sit with the details that create that time because it feels so much like me. To me, that short amount of time represents lingering anticipation that positively impacts my vibrational energy, my mood, and the lens in which I look at the world around me.
I just went full throttle emotional Pisces on some of you, and if all that just felt like way too much, it's okay, there is still something for you here. Maybe anticipation doesn't feel quite like that to you, but I would be concerned if you don't ever experience your own version of positive anticipation. Actually, I invite you to sit and think about that for a moment. What gives you that little spark of excitement? What keeps you up at night or makes you stop a little longer and breathe deep? Take that anticipation inducer and hold on to it. What makes you anticipate it? What specifically about it just makes you tick? I want you to get comfortable with it, so much so that you are able to channel that anticipation in areas of your life you may feel less than inspired. Here's the less than ideal truth of the matter, life is messy. Sometimes, it gets extra messy and things don't go as planned. Sometimes it feels like nothing is going your way or that everything you try ends in failure. Babe, we have ALL been there. It sucks, but here is where channeling anticipation comes in. Those moments present enormous opportunities for growth; massive uncomfortable, beautiful growth. Those moments are tailored specifically to our ability to overcome them. Why not anticipate the things you'll learn about yourself, the opportunities that rest on the other side of those failed attempts at what you thought was your path? Why not get giddy about the moments you are living right now because of the ways in which they introduce you to your own potential? Channeling anticipation the way in which we can positively shift our mindset from "this is hard and I'm struggling" to "this is my struggle, and it designed for me to conquer" is a massive step in changing the entire way in which we live our lives. It presents an opportunity for us to meet ourselves in the moment, while also anticipating what moments are waiting for us.
Im fully aware that a full range of human emotion can cause anticipation for one reason or another. Anticipation is often given a bad name because it is caused by the anxiety of stress of an event or individual or even a current situation. That is not the anticipation I want you to call upon when you need to get unstuck and re-engaged with your life. The core of the anticipation I want you to focus on comes from excitement, and the knowledge that hard parts of your life are actually the opportunities that allow growth to unfold. Those moments we feel stuck? It's just a challenge from the universe to dig deeper and grow more aware of ourselves and our current surroundings. Are the things that I am doing on a daily basis supporting the person I want to be, or rather, the type of person I think that I am right now?
Now, I know I promised you some action steps to getting out of your funk for all you concrete thinkers #igotyougirl These are by no means clinically proven practices to get you out of your lull, but I have found them to be tremendously helpful to me personally. I hope they will prove to be as helpful to you!
OPEN A F*CKING BOOK
One of the very best things I've done for myself in the past three years since coming out of my education has been getting some consistent reading time in. It may surprise you to know that I don't curl up by a fire every morning and dive into a good book while I drink a hand crafted iced latte. I really don't foresee that scenario being a reality of mine until my children are grown and off to college...which is pretty much a lifetime from this moment. As a mother to a toddler, with a busy schedule, and a to do list a mile long, I often times don't feel like reading anything other than my horoscope while I sit on the toilet. Here's how I've been able to get around my own excuses: I opened an audible account that gives me one free credit for an audio book every month. I listen to the books in the car while I drive around or, if I am feeling SUPER ambitious, I get up earlier than usual and listen for a little bit before my child wakes up. Here's what I've learned about reading things: it usually makes me think, causes me to ask myself questions that I may not have asked otherwise, it teaches me things, either about myself or the world around me or both, and it just makes me feel more relaxed. Simple as that, just open a book and let your mind wander.
SOCIAL MEDIA HIATUS
I get it, a lot of us either use the world of social media to have crucial communication with our family and friends or we may have professions that require us to use it daily. Let me just say this for starters, I LOVE social media and it has given me the ability to reach people that I may otherwise have never had the opportunity to meet. With that though comes the risk of information overload. Everything right there at our fingertips, all those opportunities to compare ourselves to others and get washed up in what we "think" is most marketable about ourselves. Our value runs the risk of getting severely skewed by the way in which we consume information in the digital world. If you are really looking for some clarity in terms of getting refocused on what you want or how you want to go about creating something, I encourage you to take some time away from your social media accounts. "Comparison is the thief of joy" -Theodore Roosevelt. Let's stop pretending we are all superhuman and just admit that every once in awhile we compare ourselves to someone we see on social media. It makes us feel even more stuck than we did before because we often times forget that the sum of that person's reality is not that perfectly shot beach photo. We don't ask ourselves about their backstory, or their day to day routines, or even consider the fact that they too probably struggle with comparison from time to time. We just see that perfectly filtered photo and we immediately start to tear ourselves apart weather we intended to or not. Do yourself a favor and just give yourself the luxury of spending some time away from your social media network, it may be exactly what you need to find what you were looking for in yourself.
FIND YOUR CREATIVE RITUAL
I'm of the opinion that we all respond differently to different types of environmental stimuli. Your personal emotional reaction is going to depend on what your unique personality. More simply put, what makes me feel really hyped up may be a total turn off for you. I may need to take a drive by myself and blast some Childish Gambino and you may need to listen to cool jazz while you garden. No one way is the right way to go about getting yourself in your groove, in fact, your way of doing it may change over time. Just find what works for you, practice it, tweak it, and keep on going. The rest will take care of itself. To give you some more clarity on this, I'll share some of my creative rituals. I like to blast some rap in the car, grab an iced latte from my favorite little coffee shop on the way home, work on new Zumba choreography, journal, write lists, edit photos...and the list goes on. For me personally, my creative rituals almost always include things that help me think outside of the box or redirect my focus on something different than what I am currently stuck on. Redirect the focus, re-ignite the fire, and then get back to your bad self.
STOP FORCING IT
Sometimes, even after we try to do all the things we usually do to get ourselves out of a rut, we just can't seem to get inspired. It just feels forced...so STOP forcing it. Give it a rest and just enjoy yourself moment to moment in the life you are living right now. Sometimes we just have to take a step back, take a big gulping inhale, and blow it all out. Remember, if it is yours to have, or create, or whatever...it will not pass you. Make some room for that & start anticipating the life you are living right now.
