Note: This is Day 6 in the “Recharge Your Creative Batteries in 31 Days” Challenge. For the rest of July, we’ll be posting different ways for you to get yourself on the path to living in a creative flow and reaching your writing goals. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any.
Have you ever noticed how routine some things in your life are? For instance, when you get ready in the morning, you do the same things, in the same order. Or how about when you’re driving? You go the same way whenever you’re going somewhere.
Take your morning commute. You drive the same way from your house to work. You commute back home the same way.
It’s gotten to be so routine you’re able to think about stuff while you’re driving and you still seem to get where you’re going. Kinda like you’re on auto-pilot.
But have you ever noticed what happens when you change the routine?
A Change In Direction
When things in life get routine, it can become a bore. That goes for writing too.
When you’re not inspiring yourself, you’re always coming up with the same stuff over and over again.
That happened to me with a novel I wrote back in 2008. Anytime I tried to rework the story and still keep the elements that were important to me, I came up with the same ideas and none of them worked.
What helped me to overcome the “same ideas” block was to change things up.
Instead of doing the same thing I’d been doing (working on my story from 2008 that wasn’t working), I started to work on another story that was in my head. I started downloading all the notes from my head into my notebook.
And suddenly I got a new plot idea for the 2008 novel. A plot line that actually worked!
Shift the Routine
When you turn your routine on its head, you’ll be amazed what happens. Suddenly you’ll have ideas you didn’t have before. You’ll notice things that you never saw until now.
It’s like that episode of Seinfeld where George decides he’s going to do the opposite of what he’d usually do for an entire day. His results are insane! He ends up getting a date with a woman who’s out of his league and he gets a job with the NY Yankees.
He changed up his usual routine and pow! Results shifted.
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with routines. And while it’s important to have routines for certain things (like writing), it’s also a good idea to change it up every now and then.
Today’s Challenge
For the rest of the day today, I’m challenging you to bust out of your routine.
Drive home from work a different way from your usual commute (still driving home safely of course). Do your usual get-ready-for-bed routine in a different order. Eat dessert before you eat dinner.
Get creative and have fun.
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What results do you get when you change things up?
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