Daily Creative Triggers

Many people are baffled by how to begin a daily creative habit. Whether it’s writing or drawing or reading or photography or journaling or doodling — people seem to lack the initiative to simply start.

I think the fact it’s labeled as a “creative” habit makes it harder.
People can be very critical of their own efforts at creativity.

The secret is to only promise yourself that you’ll do a minimum daily dose — something so simple and ridiculously quick to produce that even on your busiest days you can consistently turn out work that is interesting, inspiring, and reliably on-time.

Sometimes it can be easier to follow a formula or a ritual rather than feeling like you have to start from a blank white space every single day. Something I’ve found helpful is setting yourself up to attract lightning. This way when inspiration strikes, you’ll be prepared.

If you don’t want to wait for inspiration to strike, there are things you can do to have inspiration delivered to you. A sort of Door Dash for creative inspiration… Sign up to receive things like “photo of the day” or “word of the day” or “song of the day”, etc. to have these short and sweet email newsletter sent directly to your email box.

Your challenge then becomes to use that “___________ of the day” item to create some piece of original content.

My favorite is to combine a photo of the day with a word of the day and use those triggers to push myself to write a story (or even just a short scene) that incorporates both elements. It’s okay if it feels forced or doesn’t quite work 100% as it should. It can be outrageous and silly — it doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters right now is that you sustain the habit/ritual for as long as you can. Make it a personal challenge to see how long you can keep a daily streak going.

The worst thing you can do is postpone your start date — just dive in and make today Day One of your new creative habit.