Accidental creativity

This morning I was listening to a podcast by Todd Henry called ‘The Accidental Creative‘. I’ve been subscribe for a while. His podcasts are incredibly useful, full of tips and ideas to boost creativity. He also interviews people from time to time. This episode was about the importance of a morning ritual and some of the points he made pulled me up and got me thinking differently.

Now, I have looked in depth at the whole idea of morning rituals – from the ideas around morning meditation and study, to exercise. I’ve also looked at the ideas of Robin Sharma on this. He and many others talk about the importance of getting up really early. Todd’s podcast acknowledges that getting up early is useful, but does emphasise that there is no point in getting up very early if you are exhausted for the rest of the day. He also talks about not being rigid – your systems should support you, not the other way round. This compassionate approach is a game-changer.

He is strong on the importance of rituals and habits – but stresses the need to be kind to ourselves. Cut ourselves some slack when travelling or working on a big project.

He describes his early morning ritual in detail – like many others it does include reading, space and reflection. He also includes a short spell of free writing – and references both Julia Cameron (“The Artist’s Way” – morning pages is a great exercise) and Mark Levy.

And that is where the podcast caught my attention. I am right in the middle of reading Levy’s book “Accidental Genius”. It’s a fantastic description of free writing techniques. Very practically written – he has stacks of exercises to get creativity flowing.

I don’t believe in coincidence – so, given the connection between what I was listening to and what I am reading, I decided it is important to pay attention. So, I will be using more free writing techniques and ensuring that the morning ritual is an important “scaffold” to set up my day. I am grateful to Todd for the ideas in his podcast – beautifully clear and real prompts for a different approach.

I also thought it was important to share these resources with you. Please let me know if you find them useful.