Writers Block

I have been struggling these last two weeks to put pen to paper.  It is not that I have nothing to write about.  I am constantly coming up with ideas for the blog, so much so that I am wondering if my head is too full of ideas.  My brain seems to work in some sort of compartmental way, everything gets pushed into a little box, and I think it is just confused right now.   When that happens, the first things to go is my creativity.  I go back to my safe zone of routine and numbers.

I can feel the stress creeping in too.  It is almost end of financial year and we are about to hit our crazily busy time.  I have not had my usual June holiday which allows me to reset in preparation for the hard work that follows 30 June.  I feel completely unprepared from both a personal and a business perspective.  The seconds are ticking away towards that date like a steam training powering to its destination and I am waking in the early morning as my brain jolts into action, creating lists of things I must do.  Yet as I attempt to tick off those lists, they seem to just get longer with each task I complete.

I have been trying to reset my brain by thinking about what was working for me a few weeks ago when I felt on top of my game.  Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day.  The sun was shining so I decided to take a walk at midday, listening to my favourite podcast (Lewis Howes ‘The School of Greatness’) to try to get some inspiration.  However, the thing that inspired me most was that while walking I ran into not one, but two of my friends along the way, and each time we stopped to have a chat. 

It made me think about why I was walking and what it is that I value most.  As a numbers person, I am pretty driven to increase my step count and the amount of exercise I do compared to the prior week.  This if often why I go for a walk – to make sure I achieve my target. There is really no value to this achievement except that I am competitive, even with myself and it gives me that micro second of satisfaction.  Stopping to talk to my friends interrupted the time I was spending exercising, but I felt so much more than a micro second of satisfaction.  I was feeling grateful that I know people, that I have friends, that we can stop and chat.  There was no time frame to it, it was not planned and it didn’t fit into the tight schedule I had set for my day, but it made me happy.

I know that these next few months are going to be stressful so I need to take the time to look after myself and value my downtime.  I did say that I was going to try to meditate for 10 minutes each day.  Somehow, I quickly lost track with that.  I can’t believe that I cannot find 10 minutes in the day to sit somewhere quiet and do nothing.  Before writing this blog, I returned to my meditation practice and I am going to try a consistent 30 days again.  It needs to be a priority, just as much as all the other noise that is coming at me from so many directions.  Yet still, while meditating I was thinking ‘what am I going to write about’.

One tip that was given to me some time ago by a life coach was the ability to get yourself into the right state for the task you are doing.  We discussed the various types of “Jo” that there are and what kind of state I need to be in to be that particular “Jo”.  When I want to write (which is pretty much the only creative thing I do) I channel my inner Carrie Bradshaw.  If you don’t know who Carrie Bradshaw is, she is the main character in Sex in the City, my favourite character in my all time favourite show.  If I am having trouble being creative, I need to think like Carrie.  This may mean I need to wear something bright and cheery, or put on some nice jewellery or shoes, let my hair by free and feel a little hippy in my attitude.  I need to move myself away from Sensible Jo to something else.

I got myself dress ready to go out, made myself a cup of tea and took my laptop out to the veranda where it was peaceful and zen like.  I sat in the sun on another beautiful Autumn day and let the words come to me with no plan.  I just wanted to get down what I was thinking and let it serve as a guide to me in the busy times ahead.

I hope you enjoyed it.