How to Stoke Your Creative Fire
"An idea is like a spark to creativity, which turns to a wild conflagration of thoughts, burning every ignorance. When the fire burns, the creative power is awake, and comes out to join the ideas in your head to bring out the hidden valuables the world never knew." ~ Michael Bassey Johnson
During a recent coaching session, I started to play around with the idea of how to stoke our creative fire.
It struck me that so much of the advice to tend to ourselves focuses on soothing, calming and nurturing ourselves. As a recovering perfectionist and chronic overdoer, I definitely need to have more of this in my life. And yet, at the same time, I realised there is something missing and that this way of tending to ourselves is one-dimensional.
We also have to tend to our inner fire in order to be creative, passionate and powerful beings. Because perfectionism chokes this off, eating away at our inner wisdom. Perfectionism leaves no space for the raw, unfiltered, artless qualities of creativity.
Let’s start with a basic physics refresher.
A fire needs three things in order to burn: oxygen, heat and fuel.
And our creative fire is no different.
It needs heat. It needs a source of ignition, a spark of inspiration. It needs hot passion and desire.
It needs oxygen. It needs to breathe. It needs an atmosphere around it that will give it life.
It needs fuel. To last through the long dark night of any creative project, our fire needs to be sustained and given energy.
This isn't just a helpful metaphor. I think this is could be a powerful framework to help you identify the very tangible things you can do to tend to your creative fire, rather than expecting it to be something you can turn on like a lightbulb in the instant you need it.
So, grab a piece of paper and make three lists.
Heat - what inspires you? What activities help you have new ideas? What gets your blood pumping and brings literal heat to your body when you think about it? What are you passionate about?
Oxygen - what atmosphere does your creative fire need? How much space do you need? What allows you to breathe? What in your physical environment helps you be creative?
Fuel - what sustains you? What practices keep feeding your energy and drive? How do you feed your body, mind and soul?
How do these activities, habits and practices show up in your life right now? Do you need to create some more space for them in your schedule?
Let me give you an example. I've known for a while that learning from others is a big part of my inspiration and heat. Whilst reflecting on these questions though, I realised that what often gives me the big flashes of inspiration is walking with a podcast; something about it has a whole myriad of dots join up. In terms of oxygen, I notice that I think more creatively away from my home office. I've had some great ideas recently in a beautiful cafe here in Ubud. And my ideas need a balance of space and focus and not too much of either.
You might also look at this from the opposite perspective: what puts your creative fire out? What stifles and dampens your creative energy?
This is a new framework I'm developing so I'd love to hear your feedback. Does it resonate with you? What came up for you as you played with ideas of tending your creative fire? Is there anything that you'd like me to clarify?