The Career Corner: The Creative Niche

Early this year in my ADV 450 lecture, Peter Sheldon mentioned that most people have a specific time or moment in which their creative juices are flowing really well and they seem to come up with great ideas. Some have it while singing in the shower in the morning. Some have their ground breaking thinking in the car on the way to work or on the way home on the bus. Some have their moment in the opaque, lethargic hours of the morning before getting out of bed. That would be me.

I discovered this over spring break. During the school year, when my alarm strikes my ear drums, I prop out of bed, and try to get moving as soon as possible.(Key word being try) However, during Spring break, when I had no early morning obligations, I found myself awake and in bed, just thinking about everything under the sun before actually getting up and starting the day. I can remember always having ideas come to me on lazy Sunday mornings, but I never really put two and two together until taking ADV 450.

Twyla Tharp, a choreographer and author of the book The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use if for Life, talks about a daily routine she developed that contributes to her ability to be creative and come up with ideas.

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 a.m., put on my work out clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.”

After reading this excerpt, I developed my own "ritual" and initiated it for the first time.

I set my alarm for 6:30 a.m. I give myself about 15 minutes to meditate and gather my thoughts and think of new ones before getting out of bed. If I get an idea, I’ll take the remaining time before 7 a.m. and write down what I come up with. Then I brush my teeth, grab a bottle of water and begin stretching. After a few strength building exercises and a cool down period, I hit the shower and I have completed my “ritual”.

You should find out and take note of when your best ideas come to you, because everyone gets them. That idea could be a vision, a potential career decision, an epiphany, anything. Winston Churchill said it best:

"To every person, there comes a moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to him. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared for the work that would be his finest hour."

Think about it. (^_^)