S3 E34: Balancing Novelty and Routine in Your Creative Life
Routine and novelty sometimes seem like they're at odds with each other, but sparking our creativity really depends on both of them working together. It can seem like they’re on a continuum that we move back and forth on from day to day, but novelty can also coexist within routine.
In this episode, I share some easy and accessible ways to create novelty in our daily lives, to help you cultivate creative inspiration, and feel more present and joyful in your life.
RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
MORE FROM REBECCA
Fuel Your Creative Work With Compassionate Productivity workbook
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 34 of Being A Whole Person. Today we're gonna talk about balancing routine and novelty, and how that helps your creativity, and perhaps just helps you feel sane during a pandemic, which we are still in.
First, I have two quick announcements. Number one, if you've been enjoying this podcast for any length of time, I would really appreciate it if you would rate and review on iTunes. I really want this podcast to grow and help more people, and reaching more people is how we do that. Those reviews are so so helpful. Taking a few minutes to leave a review for your favorite creators actually does go a long way, and we're eternally grateful for each one, so thanks in advance for doing that.
Second of all, if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, April 30 2021, today is the last day to get the recording of the Build Your Seasonal Self Care Survival Kit workshop recording. With that, you get the 75 minute workshop, in which we go through the various types of rest, and use that as a framework to make a self care menu of actions of various lengths that you can just go to, and have ready whenever you need it. You also get some worksheets for brainstorming and making that menu and my favorite resources for self care support. That's on a sliding scale from 10 to $35. If you are not listening to this on the day it comes out, you're too late - for now. There will be a summer edition of this workshop coming up in June. So get on my email list, or keep listening to the podcast to make sure that you're in the know about that one.
Alright, so let's get into the episode - routine and novelty. They sometimes seem like they're at odds with each other, but our creativity really depends on both of them working together. When talking about creative projects, sometimes the word “novelty” is used negatively, like something as shallow or lacking substance or lacking staying power. We've all probably heard it used that way. But we really need novelty - it's not just this empty dopamine burst. It helps us with motivation. It helps us with inspiration. But we also need routine to feel stable and support consistency in our work and our health, which supports the work. So there's this balance going on.
I like to think about it as kind of a continuum. We might be sitting at a different part of the continuum on any given day. But maybe you see yourself as comfortable in a particular spot on the continuum, like, on average, maybe you're someone who likes to have more novelty and less routine in your life. Maybe you're someone who lives and dies by your routine, and you cannot function without it. I think there are elements of both those things in most of us, but sometimes we need to shift ourselves on that continuum, if we feel like we have too much of one and not enough of the other.
Maybe you've had a particular routine for a while, and it's just not really working for you anymore, and you need to evolve it into something else that works better. Or, you need to change what time you do it, you need to change how long you do it. Some element of it might need to change. So that is an element of novelty within routine. More about that in a second.
But I think, as we have been in a pandemic for a little over a year, if you're listening to this around when it came out, you might be feeling very blocked. You might be feeling that you are languishing. There was a really great article by Adam Grant that just came out, describing this feeling of languishing, like not full burnout, not full depression, but just kind of this joylessness and aimlessness, stagnation, maybe emptiness. Is this relatable to you?
I've been feeling this quite a bit lately and to be honest, it's taken a lot more intention to try and access these things. You might feel like kind of a shriveled up version of your past self, like, you can remember being joyous and alive, but it doesn't quite feel accessible right now. I sometimes think of myself as like a sponge that needs to be rehydrated when I'm in these types of moods, that low level depression that's just sort of flatness is a familiar thing that has happened to me many times. Maybe you feel simultaneously like you need more novelty, but you also need more routine. That's confusing!
I know from staying at home for so long, I sometimes have the feeling like, if I have to stare at these walls one more minute, I am going to tear out my hair. Or, insert your hopeless thought here. It doesn't last. It's not something that I feel constantly. But I think a lot of us have had these feelings throughout these last 14 months or so.
If you've had a lack of social contact, that can further confuse the issue. For those of us who are introverted, or highly sensitive people, or both, maybe we have some trepidation about rejoining the world in the level of social contact that we had before. It might feel like a rude awakening. It might feel like it takes more energy for you to be more social, in a way, like you might have done before the pandemic. Mostly that's because of what we're used to right now, and we can adjust to more. But during the adjustment period, it can feel uncomfortable.
The stimuli of restarting events that you used to do, or just doing more stuff outside the house, it can be overwhelming. So definitely honor that as you’re seeking out more or less novelty. I'm not here to say you should be seeking out more novelty. If you're feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated, seek out the amount that feels good to you. That's great.
So I talked about novelty and routine being on this continuum, but I also think that they can coexist within the same activity. Looking for novelty and joy more actively has been an essential practice for me during this time.
You've probably heard me talk about my daily walks before. A couple episodes ago, I talked about my Magic Monday ritual, in which I go for a hike to, usually a new place that I haven't been to before, or something that involves exploring, something adventurous, at least adventurous in the scheme of being at home all the time. That's how I start my week, and it really helps me feel expansive and energized and inspired. So that's been an amazing practice, for mitigating the need for more novelty.
It's become a routine that I do these things. This week I went to Point Isabel in Richmond, California, and I was just thinking, I had to run an errand up that way, so it made sense, and I wanted to see some beautiful views of the bay. That was kind of my motivation for going there. But what I didn't realize is that there's also a dog park there. So I got to see like 50 different dogs, having the time of their life, running around, some of them going in the water, chasing things playing catch. You know how dogs look when they're having fun playing, they're just completely delighted. I found it amazing to soak up that energy.
Even within seeking out something new, when you know it's new, there's always unexpected things, if you are willing to notice them. Really enjoying and relishing the experiences that you may not have been able to have for the last year can be really rewarding, too, and help you really internalize that feeling of joy within the novelty.
This week, I also went back to the library, inside the library, for the first time since pre-pandemic. I know most of you probably have had access to your libraries, but the Oakland Public Library has only been open for curbside pickup until a week ago. So I went in to just browse and look around, and pick up whatever books looked exciting to me. It was so delightful.
So, I just listed some things that involve leaving the house, and maybe planning extra activities into your day. If that doesn't feel accessible, I have some other ideas for you that don't involve leaving the house that don't involve much time, and are just little quick things you can do to switch up your perspective.
You can wear different clothes than you normally wear. If you usually wear loungy clothes, maybe you want to dress up. If you've been dressing up more, maybe you wear something more comfy. Maybe you put on some kind of accessory that you don't normally wear, or a scarf, or something that just makes you feel a little bit different. That can really change things up more than you think.
You can eat something different. shake up your routine that way. Eating is something we do every day, but we can have lots of variety within that. It doesn't necessarily have to be involved, or cooking a giant meal, or anything like that.
You can switch up your schedule a little bit. Maybe you are used to doing a workout when you finish work, maybe you do it first thing in the morning, maybe you get up a little bit earlier to enjoy the quiet on your walk in the morning.
Maybe you work in a different place, you could go outside to work, if that's an option for you. You could take that to the next level by going to a coffee shop patio, or something. Maybe you just work in a different place in your home, just in a different room, and that could give you this totally different perspective. Maybe you just do that while you are trying to write something, and you just do it for an hour. You'd be surprised at how much that can shake up the novelty factor for your brain.
Having some fun creative time that's not necessarily related to any work responsibilities - that can be great. Or even if it is related to your work, something that feels light, and that doesn't feel like you're weighed down by doubt or resistance, or whatever it is. Something that is just purely fun.
Maybe that creative time doesn't involve actually creating something, actually making something, maybe it's just collecting inspiration. Maybe you pick up a book that's been on your shelf that you've been meaning to read, and you flip through it. Maybe you collect some fun images on Instagram. I have a bookmark folder called “colors”, where I just bookmark anytime something is colorful and fun. When I need some extra visual stimuli and want to look at pretty stuff, I can open up that colors folder, and it's very inspiring. Or, weaving is one of my hobbies. As a beginner, I'm still learning a lot about it, but it's so fun to collect inspiration, and just look through the folders that I've created on Instagram of weaving, and it makes me want to start a project.
So, during this creative time, you can just start a project, you don't have to feel like you have to go further with it. Or it can be a tiny project that you could finish up in a few minutes. Whatever feels good, don't worry about accomplishing anything particular. Also, Episode 18, Feeding Your Creativity in the Winter Season has lots of great ideas for collecting inspiration, when you are in a metaphorical or actual winter. I use the term “metaphorical winter” because sometimes in the creative process, we're not producing. We're in that rest phase, and we're not quite ready to gear up for spring and planting seeds yet. But we are just that fallow land, waiting, gathering potential. Even if you're not doing something actively, that doesn't mean you're not still in the process.
I also just want to quickly mention that having a gratitude practice of some kind, can be super helpful for alleviating that blah feeling. Not just giving you novelty necessarily, but helping you appreciate what you have, because it is harder to appreciate what you have when it's been the same for a while. We really take things for granted, and it's hard to have that perspective.
We might be focused on all that we're missing, still, and completely forget about what we do have that's positive. So just taking a moment to survey that. You don't have to expect it to bring you great joy or anything, but just to remind yourself that, oh yeah, these things are, maybe they're just okay, like, that's great. The absence of negativity can also be a gift.
I really like the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He's written so many great books, and I don't remember which one this was in, because I've read so many of his books, but he had a little prompt / meditation, where he just said, “What is not wrong?” So you look around, you survey your body, you know, “I don't have a toothache right now, that is not wrong, cool. I have a place to live. That is not wrong, okay.”
Then once you start thinking about it, you're like, Wow, there are a lot of things that are not wrong. And hopefully, that boosts your mood a little bit. And don't forget when you are looking for novelty, that it might be found in a smaller package than you think. It doesn't have to be something huge. to provoke that response.
Yesterday, I was walking, I decided to go down this street, where this orange cat is often sleeping in a cardboard box on the porch, and it's super cute. I was only halfway down the street, this cat lives at the end of the block, and I walked by this convertible. The cat was just curled up sleeping on top of this convertible, and it was super cute to see a cat on top of the car. I think I gasped and maybe squealed. There were no witnesses, I don't think, but if they think I'm a weirdo, that's fine. I was totally delighted by this small thing.
So we can practice finding delight in small things. Those things might be part of our routine, and they might not. But I'm in support of finding joy and delight and novelty wherever we can, whenever we need it.
So I'm super interested to know, where do you think you usually fall on that continuum between novelty and routine? How much do you usually crave? Is that the same now? Is it different from being in a pandemic? How important is novelty to you? It's super interesting, and I'd love to know. You can always feel free to send me an email: hello@rebeccahass.com or find me on Instagram, send me a note. I love hearing from all of you, and I would love to chat more about it. So that's it for now. I hope you have a great week. Stay well and be kind to yourself.