Simple habits for creatives that struggle to get things done

Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay

Is this you?

I’m a Creative and I don't like routines, rules, and disciplines... also, I have so many ideas and I leave a trail of unfinished work everywhere. 

(If you're a Creative, you do finish things, and you think you don’t have supportive routines, habits, or discipline, look again closely. I’m willing to bet you do, and you're not giving yourself credit for it.)

Completion is divinity. And it’s the secret sauce for Vatas. 

Vata is an Ayurvedic word to describe, among other qualities, a mind constitution that’s creative and is challenged to finish things. You're not alone. It's an actual constitution.

Here’s why completion is divinity

• You feel accomplished. You get to move on to your next project clean, clear, and confident instead of uncertain and fragmented. 
• You feel fully expressed. Which makes you less vulnerable to the opinions of the outside world. You’ve made your mark, your period, your exclamation point. You nourished and fulfilled yourself, and that makes all the difference in the world. 
• Your trust in yourself is heightened. Because you can now trust yourself to complete yourself. 
• Because it takes grit to complete, you gain grit. This puts an anchor in your woo-woo. Those two great things put together turns feeling lost in possibility into feeling found and expansive.  

You can continue to hang on to the many reasons for not finishing, they are all legit. And so is finishing. The difference is in the end - and middle - experience. Certainly there are times to quit or hold, but that’s something different altogether.

If you have a lot of vata, you’ll benefit from 

• Embracing your creativity, AND
• Embracing good habits and schedules

When I got started on my spiritual journey in 1999, I was ALL vata. I fought discipline like you wouldn’t believe, and now people think Discipline is my middle name... while I still don't fully identify as being disciplined, I understand how I’m perceived this way. I've gotten good at knowing how to navigate my own framework. Nowadays I’m almost equal parts vata (creativity, movement), pitta (fire, will), and kapha (earth, grounding). More on that below.

Habits and schedules are important because they inform your experiences through the sense of rhythm it creates in your internal, and then external world. Habits can change, and you get to decide that for yourself.

Here are the positive and negative aspects of your mind constitutions, which you can effect through habits

• On the positive side, Vata gives you ideas and inspiration. On the negative side, it creates confusion and anxiety. 
• Pitta brings on transformation and completion. Or it expresses irritability and perfectionism.
• Kapha allows you to stay anchored in your truth. Or it can make you feel stuck and tired. 

How to stay in the positive poles

1. Practice sticking to a schedule for a while. Not rigidly but as a way to give you framework, guidance, and footing to support the creative vata part in you while giving you the ability to manifest what you want.
   
   
2. Don’t spend your creative energy re-negotiating what to do next based on mood and unexpected requests, or trying to remember what you wanted do next because you didn't schedule what's important to you. That’s creativity mis-allocated. By the time you land on a decision that feels right, your creative mind hardly feels fresh, and instead of feeling victorious, you feel uncertain.
   
   There’s a lightness that vatas can embrace in keeping to a schedule that will, in a way, let you off the hook from making on-the-spot logistical decisions so that when your past self that pre-made the schedule says it’s time to get creative! you simply say, okay! and unleash your creativity until time is up.
   
   
3. Save your creativity for things that really matter to you so much that you put it in your Calendar ahead of time. You’re naturally creative, so you don’t have to worry that your gift will disappear. In fact, scheduling it can help strengthen your ability to call on it on command. That’s true freedom. Remember that right now, when it’s not “scheduled,” your creativity is compromised by demands from others, unexpected situations, and also your mood. An unscheduled (uncommitted) mind is more vulnerable to being moved away from itself and therefore feeling lost. I’m speaking to those that yearn to take what you start to the end, whatever that is to you.
   
   Remember that there’s no rule that tells you you can’t go back and improve on anything you do. That’s for later. First, completion. Just keep at it during your scheduled times until you’re done. If ten other ideas come up, all the more reason to put a little extra pep into the first one to get to the next one on queue. And that looking-forward time will help you filter out the momentary distractions that you mistook for true love. Redirect the excitement from the potential distraction to fuel your current work to the finish line. 
   
   
4. Habit your day…especially if you’ve got more vata in you than you can handle.
   

• Get up at the same time.
• Eat at the same time.
• Schedule your creativity window for each day when all you do is delve deep into what you yearn to create with complete abandon. Pre-decide how long or short this time will be. 
• Do errands during your small errand window. Make the window small so it doesn’t consume your entire day. 
• Go to bed at the same time.

You can change these up and get more flexible with your schedule later as you get more practiced at owning your day. Vatas are the least willing to follow a schedule but are best served by it. If you are one, you’ll fight these words to the death. But know that it supports your love for true creativity, flow, and freedom. Sounds paradoxical but it’s true. The "suffering" you might experience from following a gentle schedule is far more rewarding than the suffering of not getting anywhere.

Dip your toe and try it for a week. But then step it up and do it for 90 days to see what happens. You might find the negative poles dissolving into a distant memory and the 90 days turning into a lifelong advocate.

Love, Savitree