How to Get Your Work Flowing

Restore Balance

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It's no fun being stuck.  How do we get our projects moving again?  

As creative people, we work out of our experience.  Our ideas come out of our lifestyle ...our way of life.  We are not machines.  Especially after we have been pushing it at a furious pace for awhile, it seems like that creative flow flames out and shuts down.  

The Machine
There is always someone who is proud of their nickname, "The Machine" and he/she seems to be able to crank it out non-stop.   But for those of us more human, it is so important to travel, to wander off the beaten path, and to have a moment or two of quiet contemplation.  We need to restore balance to be productive.  

Fiddling in my sketchbook, meandering down the river in my kayak, these things slow me down.  I slow down to digest my life experience.  I take time to unwind.  

Somewhere between exhaustion and exhilaration, I'm jolted by the idea that the experience of the river helps me.  I engage my senses with the sights, sounds and smells of the river.  This tickles that part of my brain that needs to have this kind of sensuous contact.  This reinvigorates the flow of my thinking.  I remember what it is I want to learn.  I remember what I want to do.  There is a feeling of balance.  I remember that rhythm for creating and producing.  I feel inspired and motivated to go to work.  It is a reawakening to how I want to be part of the community.  I know what I want to share and contribute.

So, what do you want to learn?  What do you want to do?  What is your passion and who do you want to share it with?  

Take A Moment or Two
It may take a moment or two of quiet contemplation for us discover the answers to these kinds of questions.  Out on tour, on the pages of our sketchbook or journal, our brain relaxes and the answers sort of rise up out of the river.   It is the answers to these questions that refuel the driving forces underlying our work.