019: Treat your creativity like a dog
Ray Bradbury once said that the great secret of creativity is to, and I quote “treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you” Now, respectfully, I want to edit his quote a bit, because I think if we treated our ideas like dogs, I think we would all have a much more wholehearted and creative every day life. Dogs needs regular exercise, appreciation, to feel loved, attention, treats, de-worming, to be treated like one of the family and play. Imagine if gave this to our ideas and creativity.
Episode transcript:
Hello, Daily Peppers, and a very happy Monday to you. It's the start of a new week. Many of us are starting new projects or right in the middle of ones. So I thought I'd start this week off with a quote. Ray Bradbury once said that the greatest secret of creativity is to, and I quote, treat ideas like cats. You make them follow you. Now, respectfully, I want to edit his quote a bit because I think if we treated our ideas like dogs instead, I think we would all have a much more wholehearted and created everyday life because there are so many similarities. Dogs need regular exercise, appreciation to feel loved, attention, treats, deworming to be treated like one of the family and play.
Just imagine for a second what would happen if we gave this to our ideas and creativity. So for this episode, I'm going to break it into five key areas where I think we could really improve our relationship with creativity. And the first one is exercise. Now, dogs never cease to be excited for a walk, even though we do it every single day. Merlin gets so excited when he has his lead on and I grab my coat. He literally puts his nose in the crack of the front door and just waits there and stares at me. It's the same with your creativity. Just like dogs, your creativity needs to be exercised.
And think of it a bit like a muscle, but unlike muscles, you are unlikely to struggle with creative cramp. Maya Angelou once said, and I'm not going to butcher this quote, you can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. The good thing about exercise is there's so many different ways to do it. The most important one is that you just pick one and the fact that you do it regularly and similar to exercise. Play is absolutely vital to both dogs and creativity. And you need play that has no tangible outcomes or expectations and just play for play sake. If I think about the games I play with Merlin, they are the most pointless games in the world.
He derives so much joy from seemingly most just random and simple things, like me throwing a sock in the air so he can catch it, but he fucking loves it. And that is just playing for play's sake. Because not everything you do needs to be Instagram worthy and not everything you do needs to be good. And I'm going to repeat that last bit. Not everything you do needs to be good. So alongside the exercise and play side of things, you've got the food side of things. In order for your creativity to grow and be self sustaining, you need to nourish and feed it. This can include Getting conscious about what you consume, learning new things and skills, and giving yourself things to think about.
It's the idea of what you put in affecting what comes out. So this is where things like your favorite books and finding things that inspire you are really, really important. So so far we've covered exercise, play, and food, but I think there's another one that just doesn't get enough air time, and that is attention and appreciation. There is something about treating our ideas with reverence that just makes a whole lot of difference. Instead of immediately batting your ideas down and finding faults with them, what would happen if you actually wrote them down and took them seriously? What if you gave them your undivided attention? I am part of so many Facebook groups for dog owners, and one of the posts that makes its rounds every now and again is the joy and the importance of giving your dog undivided attention, looking them in the eye and just being there with them. And I mean, when was the last time you did that with your ideas? When was the last time you looked creativity in the eye or made a special effort for your ideas? If you're looking for ways to do this, this could include having some kind of routine and showing up every day like Julia Cameron's morning pages, or even opening and starting that new beautiful notebook that's been sat on your shelf way too long. And the last one is treats. If you've ever had a dog, you'll know that there's some things that just don't happen without a treat.
Whether it's a sausage or a belly scratch, Treats are a pretty essential part of being a dog, and I think it should be for humans too. Well, minus the belly scratch, unless that's your jam, of course. Rewarding yourself is something that I really emphasize to all of my coaching clients. Too often we create the things we set out to do, and instead of stopping to celebrate, we just move the goalposts almost automatically and we are straight onto the next thing. So instead, whenever I'm working with clients to create a project, plan, goals, anything, we're building treats along the way. It's not just about treating yourself when you achieve something, it's about treating yourself for just showing up. So maybe the focus for today is starting with the first of these five things and looking at how you could treat yourself. And remember, it doesn't have to involve food or money.
So these are some things just get you thinking about how to cultivate and nourish your creativity. And perhaps some new ideas about how we treat it and how we respect it. And how we show up every day. I really hope this has been helpful. I know there's been so much in this episode. These are all practices that are really going to help in terms of your own motivation and your process and your inspiration. If you're looking for ways to implement this, you could, for example, take one of the five key themes of exercise, play, attention, food, and treats, and you could literally assign them to a day per week. Or you could just make a list and brainstorm different ways you can do any of these in your life.
Put them in a pot and pick them at random. So that is a lot of food for thought for today. So have a fabulous day and I'll see you tomorrow.
Episode transcript automatically produced by Castmagic.io
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