Whatever your preferred ways of creating, all creative artists need certain elements in our lives to be able to create most freely, and to explore our full potential.
Learning how to take care of yourself and your creativity is a crucial part of this.
If you had a car that you never got serviced, didn't bother having fixed when things went wrong, didn't replace the tyres and the brakes when they wore out, before too long you'd be driving around in something that was falling apart and limping from destination to destination.
If it would go at all.
You couldn't blame the car, and write it off as unreliable and useless if you didn't give it the maintenance and attention it needed.
It's the same with yourself.
Neglect to take care of the little things that help you stay creative, then pretty soon you'll be creating at only a tiny fraction of what you're capable of.
That's if you're creating at all.
So how can you learn the kind of self care techniques that will keep your creativity in full flow? It's actually very simple, when you break it into just two parts.
Part one: Ask yourself, what do I do in my life that helps me be more creative? What time of day are you most creative? How do you organise your materials and supplies so you can get straight into creating at a moment's notice? What sources of support and encouragement do you have in place? What do you tell yourself to stay positive and motivated? What kind of things give you inspiration and make you excited about creating? Ask questions in every area of your creative life you can think, focusing on all the things you do currently that help you in some way create more freely.
Part two: Ask yourself, what in my life holds me back and limits my creativity? What kind of thoughts sabotage your creativity? Who do you spend time with that drains your energy and inspiration? What do you do that prevents you finding new inspiration? How does the way you keep your creative work space organised hinder you and make it difficult to freely create? What kind of distractions, attitudes and beliefs do you get caught up in that limit your creativity? Again, ask questions in each area of creativity in your life, identifying the creativity sapping elements.
Now you have a list of things that help you be more creative.
So the obvious next step is to find ways of doing those more deeply and more often.
You also have a list of things that hold back your creativity.
And yes, again, the obvious next step is to look at reducing these, and eventually eliminating them completely from your life.
Use these two techniques and you'll quickly realise there's plenty you can do to look after yourself and your creativity.
An extra helpful dimension is to look at yourself from outside, as if you were your best friend.
Looking into your creative life with this objectivity, what would you do to help you, if you were your best friend? What would you notice as the main creativity killers in your life? Again, follow the steps above, identify what makes you more creative, and do more of that.
Notice what holds back your creativity, do less of that.
Ultimately, if we don't take of ourselves and our own creativity, then no-one else will.
So start putting these self care techniques into practice from today.