Creativity is rarely ever convenient.
It disrupts our routines and interrupts our plans.
It asks us to trust the calling enough to answer, even in the moments that don’t make sense.
Perhaps you’ve felt inspired while doing laundry and listening to music. Or maybe you’re someone who gets their best ideas once they’re comfortable and just beginning to fall asleep. Then boom! Inspiration forces you up to your feet to find pen and paper before the idea slips away. No, we can’t always schedule creative bursts. But maybe we can make more room for our creative flow to thrive.
We all have our daily patterns, moods and environments that help those ideas arrive more naturally. By understanding what ignites your creative flow state, you can begin to build a life that allows room for your inspiration to flourish.
What Is a Creative Flow State?
You know the moments when inspiration is pouring out of you? Time ceases to exist as you let your artwork come to life again and again. Line by line, piece by piece, you realize you’re in a groove. This is your creative flow state. You’re answering inspiration’s call for as long as you can. Self-doubt has finally stepped aside to make way for your artistic channels to flow freely. You’re not striving for perfection. You are creating simply because you want to, you have to.
Define What Ignites Your Creative Spark
The process of tapping into this flow is different for everyone. Some poets write their best work in the twilight hours. Other artists feel most alive with their morning coffee in hand. Paying attention to the habits, routines, and hours that light you up will surely help you free your creativity more regularly.
Notice Your Spark:
Most of us feel that inspiration is either there or it’s not. We’ve been sold stories of how it strikes at random times and hardly hear of the hours artists spend doing anything to get that inspiration flowing.
For one week, whenever you feel the urge to create, take a moment to note the circumstances surrounding this feeling’s arrival. Create a list that you can refer back to later on. Becoming more aware of the circumstances that ignite your flow state gives you a chance to better prepare for or orchestrate creative time.
What to Take Note Of:
Use the following list to curate a list of possible flow state triggers so you can begin seeing when creativity may strike and can plan accordingly. Of course, inspiration is divine and not a sensation we can create ourselves. However, if we dedicate time to watering our creative garden, the hope is that inspiration will find us much more like a blooming flower rather than a lightning strike.
Keep the answers short and sweet. Feel free to reflect in a voice note before you create or after in your journal. Choose a way that feels accessible to you and is less likely to cut off your creative flow.
- The Time
- Whether you’re an early bird or night owl, there are specific times when your brain can access your creative channels more effectively than others.
- Begin marking the time of your creative endeavors to catch any patterns. This way, you can protect your creative hours at all costs.
- Mental Space & Mood
- Are you someone who pours their sorrows onto the page before them? Or would you rather choose to celebrate life with art?
- Noting if our minds are chaotic, calm, confused, or steady not only helps us see the place we create from, but it gives us a new lens to see our artwork through.
- Activities
- Recognize what you were doing just before the creative windfall found you.
- Events easily trigger art. Everyday moments, experiences, or even conversations can guide us to new ideas.
- Outdoor Time
- If so, note how long, where you were, and what you were doing.
- Few things on this planet spark creativity like Mother Nature herself. So, noticing when her beauty fuels our creation is a powerful reminder that inspiration doesn’t always have to be hard to find.
- The Five Senses
- List smells, music, scenery, colors, textures. You get the point. Our senses help us tell our brains a complete story. See what they have to add to your tales of inspiration.
The Creative Mind Is Meant to Be Free
It’s common for disappointment, frustration, and even anxiety to creep in when we don’t create as often as we hope to. Whether the uncreated ideas stay swirling in your mind or run away even faster than they came, we often live to regret the things we didn’t make time to create. But, despite our deepest wishes, creativity isn’t something that is meant to be pushed continuously. Imagination requires space, time, and breath. Learning what factors fuel our inspiration exposes the conditions our creativity thrives under. And once we know that, anxieties subside, creative possibilities are endless, and the artist within is unleashed.
Looking for more ways to spark your creative flow state? Glance at some of our lists of poetry and prompts to get the creative juices flowing!
