The Habit and Rituals of Creativity

This will be a popular blog:  it’s about the need for discipline.  But hey, if you want to release your creativity, if you want to be an artist in any one of it’s myriad forms, it you want to gain mastery at your skills, then guess what?  You’re gonna have to gain discipline.  People have this misconception that creativity and talent is “poofed” on you with fairy dust when you were born.  Or strikes you like lightning out of heaven.   I wish.

Truth is:  artistic creativity is the result of study, preparation, effort, solitude and the habit of discipline.  Twyla Tharp, an incredible dancer and choreographer, wrote a book called “The Creative Habit”.  In it she makes the case that sustained creativity “begins with rituals, self-knowledge, harnessing your memories, and organizing your materials.”   Creativity begins with rituals.   How does that work?  Because we need to form the habit of creativity.  Everyone knows the old rule:  “Do it for 21 days in a row and it becomes a habit.”  Yet how does one keep doing something for 21 days when you don’t HAVE to, don’t know how and the very effort can be terrifying or painful?  And every possible roadblock, excuse and procrastination will rear their ugly heads?

By ritual.  Establish a small effective ritual that will place you firmly on the path of what you need to do next.  Something pleasant.  Say for example:  make a cup of tea, put on some favorite music,  light a candle,  write a short paragraph and/or say a little prayer…then BEGIN.  Do the same little ritual, the same time every day.

Begin gaining mastery of the skills of your chosen art form (from science to hair-dressing!)    I’m always telling my students that “Creativity comes from Mastery of the Fundamentals”.   How does one  come to “master the fundamentals”?  Study.  Do the next little thing.

Ritual becomes discipline becomes habit which morphs into authentic creativity.

It’s amazing.  Choose a ritual RIGHT NOW.  Begin.