Exercise your creativity with the daily action

How often do you take a break from the high volume, high productivity pace of life to just let your mind and your creativity come out to play? Here's an exercise called "the daily action" from the book Creating a Life Worth Living to help you build that habit.

The daily action is 15-minutes of a focused activity performed every day at the same time of day. Choose an activity that creates an empty space where your creativity can reassert itself. Let the action be solitary and process-oriented. You are giving yourself 15 minutes of emptiness within the blur of living. Some examples of daily actions are dancing alone in your living room, meditation, walking, writing in a journal, drawing without purpose, singing improvisational melodies, doing yoga, and gardening.

Don't limit your imagination: invent your own daily action if you feel the impulse.

...I like to think of the action as an empty receptacle which my imagination inhabits for a few minutes a day. Conversely, when I begin viewing it as a path to progress, I immediately start limiting my playfulness, my enjoyment of the moment.

...Unlike some forms of meditation, the goal of the daily action is not an empty mind. Blank time is enough. Let your mind go where it wants to that day. In this empty place, allow yourself to brainstorm, make wild plans, imagine the impossible, worry about silly things. Let yourself stretch your dream muscle and express your inner-whiner. Space out, tune in, rev up, calm down. Let your mind do whatever it wants to do, while your body does the action.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Comments

[Stacy Brice]

Curt, do you think a daily power nap counts as a daily action? I ask, because although I get that napping is really *inaction*, the benefit and many of the outcomes you mention as coming from a daily action are things I get from my nap.

Is it the *doing* or the space one's in that is most important?

:)
Stacy

[Curt Rosengren]

Hmmmmm...good question, Stacy. I think the point of this is to give the mind a chance to meander where it will. While napping definitely has its positive effects, is that meandering mind one of them?