The Only Morning Ritual That You Need To Stay Creative
If only you can only stop looking at your phone as soon as you wake up.
You look at your screen, staring at the blinking cursor with no idea how to start your next article. You feel like you’re having what writers call the ‘writer’s block’. Whether it’s a myth or not, it seems true for you. Thoughts run through your head, ideas for topics fly by, but you can’t get imagine any structure out of them.
Entrepreneur and best-selling author of the book The 4-Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss, calls the writer’s block a performance anxiety due to high expectations.
How does this affect our output as writers?
There’s nothing to write about. No topic stands out even if you know you can churn out a decent article or two in a day. You’ve lost that excitement of publishing new material and you’d rather be doing something else instead of writing. You feel like you could use a break.
Journaling journey
It takes courage to write down thoughts, to recognize a certain emotion that we don’t want to admit we have. Top choices in this category are fear (‘This project is going to fail and I will have to start again.’), jealousy (‘Why does my boyfriend still keep his ex’s number?’), and envy (‘So what if her hair looks nicer than mine? I’m smarter than her anyway.’).
A new rhythm
There’s a different kind of journaling called Morning Pages. This was introduced to the world by author and creative Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way.
In the Morning Pages, you write down the first thoughts you have as you wake up. You are supposed to do this first thing, above everything else. Before the meditation, before checking for new email, before reading your partner’s message. Every day, you are to write 3 full pages of your journal or diary or notebook with what you think about.
Julia Cameron says this is simply ‘the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind.’ No one will check this so feel free to use profanity if you like.
This is the space where you, the writer, don’t need to think of grammar or structure. Don’t think about your audience nor intention. So, if at 5 AM, you’re thinking ‘Here I go again with this Morning Pages. I just don’t get it…’, write that down. Got nothing to say? Then you can say that as well.
After a while of doing this, you can expect to be unblocked. This exercise will allow your creativity to flow once more, with no upper limit. It will teach you that your ‘mood does not matter’. That your emotions are just emotions — they will come and go.
Set yourself free
From the Gospel of Thomas: If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.
Bring forth that goodness, your artist child. Let the monsters talk, but don’t listen to them. Write down your frustrations and your wild side with no shame.
Finish your Morning Pages with closing your diary, making your morning coffee without looking back at what you’ve written. You can now let it go.
Take away
David Allen, best-selling author of the book Getting Things Done said that our mind is to create ideas and not to store them. Makes sense, right?
Today, I encourage you to be brave enough to face yourself with the Morning Pages. Let it serve as a mirror, a mentor, a savior.
Sometimes, inspiration is elusive and nowhere to be found. It’s not in the books you read, not in the conversations you have with friends. What you look for is right there in front of you. There’s no need to look that far.
The author is a writer, yoga practitioner, and a remote worker. Follow her tweets here. She also sends weekly letters to those who are interested to hear her thoughts on Ashtanga yoga, shifting from the office desk to remote work, writing (of course) plus bits and pieces of her personal life.
