Be Squiggly
12 DAYS OF CREATIVITY
DAY 1
If you’ve read the news any time during the past year, the Grinch of Distraction might have played a big factor in your life.
We’ve had election cycles, a pandemic, social unrest, calls for justice, fires.
These events took a lot of our energy and emotions.
Creativity requires that we are in touch with our own ideas and impulses. It is difficult to follow our own direction if our energy is being drained by involuntary distractions.
TODAY, BE SQUIGGLY.
If you start to feel distracted from your work, embrace your distractions but follow a thread you love.
Aim to get distracted in a way that feeds you rather than depletes you?
If you are distracted, maybe there is a reason.
Maybe your heart is leading you out of the everyday routine.
I remember when I lived in New York City after college and I’d walk by used bookshops as if they were mystical, magical places.
I’d only enter when I was open to reading something new.
That’s when I’d walk in and let my curiosity lead me in many directions. I wouldn’t have a specific book or topic in mind. I enjoyed wandering the aisles and browsing the shelves.
One autumn, I found the novel “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse about a man who takes a journey of enlightenment, letting go of the everyday conventions of life to pursue his spiritual goals.
I relished stepping into this book with all my senses, smelling the scent of used books, enjoying the magic that led me to find this book, feeling the old pages in my hands.
Looking back at that day and where my life is now, I think that book had a profound impact on the way I live my life today, always stepping away from the expected and moving towards what calls me.
Today, if you are feeling distracted, instead of pulling your focus back to your work, give yourself 10-20-30 minutes to follow your distraction and see where it leads you.
BE SQUIGGLY.
Make notes of what pulled you forward and propelled you to continue your exploration.
Use your distraction as a compass. Get curious. And enjoy the process.