Habit forming can be a positive influence on your creativity. Once formed the habits will have a long-lasting effect on you. Just as ‘bad habits’ eat away at us and have negative effects, ‘good habits’ are the opposite. Take one habit at a time, keep at it for up to 28 days, and then you’ll find that the habit is formed. It will become part of you; a creative habit to fuel your ideas.

1. Meditate – Take five minutes each day to clear your mind of everything, or as much as you can. Keep it simple, a basic breathing exercise… in through the nose out through the mouth. Perhaps with a simple image in your mind, the sea, a mountain, a cloud. This will help build up your sense of self. And when you know your ‘self’, you’ll be closer to the creative genius that you are.
2. Read - This does not mean books only, but that is as good a place as any to start. The habit is to set aside time and space each day to read. To see the input of other ideas as important as your own. In the busyness of trying to be creative it is easy to forget about feeding ourselves.
3. Create waste – This is all about not being afraid to have a go. It is about giving yourself permission to create rubbish, to make a mess, to do something that may well be thrown away. If you have an idea, just a glimmer, pull out a piece of paper, or any other medium you use, and get on with it. It doesn’t need to be perfect, in fact it shouldn’t. This will get you into the habit of capturing ideas and letting them develop in a quick and easy way. Then you can either choose to create the final piece or, throw it away.
4. Journal - This can be done in a variety of ways from simple notepads to online scrapbooks. The habit is similar to meditation, in that you are focusing on self. However, as opposed to clearing your mind by thinking of nothing, here you clear your mind by writing, drawing or sticking all the thoughts and ideas, fears and worries, hopes and dreams into your journal. It has the added benefit of being a constant source of inspiration as you reread what you have added.
5. Doodle - Have you any idea how much ‘dead’ time you have… stuck in meetings, on hold whilst making a call or crashed out watching that very interesting documentary on inner city gangs? Utilise that time by doodling. Keep a small, cheap blank pad and pencil handy when your having these ‘down times’ and simply doodle away. The shapes you doodle may make connections, they may spark creativity and then… off you go. Of course you should always have a capture device nearby but I’m talking here about non-premeditated ideas, doodling is doodling not drawing.

There are a lot more creative habits that you could take on, if you have any ideas to add, do leave a comment. In the meantime, pick a habit and begin.

One sure way to stifle your creativity is to get too stressed out. This could be due to other pressures in life or simply by stressing out on the creative project you are currently involved in. If you are suffering from a little stress then these five, simple and well-used ideas will help.

With the stress now sorted you can be as creative as your talent deserves.