3 Unexpected Principles for Optimal Creativity

By Jennifer Blanchard

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: Staying creative over the long haul is something every writer needs to figure out how to maintain. Jennifer Blanchard returns to the lecture hall today with tips on reaching your optimal creativity.

Jennifer Blanchard is a best-selling author, a screenwriter, a Developmental Book Editor and the Writing Industry's Mindset Coach. It's her mission in life to change the way people think and challenge what they believe is possible. Her screenplay, "The Rules," placed as a Semi-Finalist in the Stage32 Rom-Com Script Contest in 2019. Grab her FREE Story Secrets audio series here.

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Take it away Jennifer...

As a writer, you need to have constant inspiration and ideas flowing, otherwise, you won’t have much to write about. So you need to protect your creative juices and make sure they don’t dry up.

For this reason, I’ve adopted three principles that I live my writing life by. These principles allow me to have optimal creativity when I sit down to do my writing.

By implementing these principles, I’ve been able to create a consistent daily writing habit, connect to my inner voice and set my creativity on fire.

Here are my three principles for optimal creativity:

1. Put First Things First

I adopted this principle from Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. There’s so much that life requires of us and many times that means our creative work takes a backseat to other things.

Problem is, if you don’t make your creative work a priority, you’ll rarely (or never) get to it.

That’s where this principle comes in. The first thing I do in the morning after I wake up, take care of my dog and do my daily mindset practice is work on my personal writing.

My personal writing comes first, before I do any client work, give feedback to my students, check emails or scroll social media.

This ensures that my writing gets done. I know the rest of the stuff I have to do each day will get done because it has to.

And I refuse to let my writing take a backseat to lesser priorities. Now I’ve committed to the First Things First principle so that it never has to.

2. Create Before You Consume

This principle piggybacks on the previous one.

Something I noticed a few years ago was if I didn’t watch TV or check my email or social media until after I did my writing for the day, I was a lot more connected to my creativity and my inner voice. My writing flowed a lot easier and I got it done faster.

Whereas on the days when I checked social media and/or email before I did my writing, I would be influenced and sometimes reactive to the things I’d seen. Then I either wouldn’t end up doing any writing, it would take me hours to write one little thing, or someone else’s voice would be in my head as I thought about the meme or the quote or blog post they posted, and it took me away from being able to connect to my inner voice.

To be at your creative best, you need to be able to connect with your inner voice and your creative flow. That won’t happen if you’re consuming other people’s messages, ideas and voices before you listen to your own.

So I committed to the principle Create Before You Consume. My writing life has been better ever since.

And just to be clear, watching TV or checking email and social media is different than reading something for inspiration. If you need a hit of inspiration before you write, it’s perfectly fine to read something that inspires you, a book, a blog, whatever. This is consuming with intention and not mindlessly scrolling social media or being reactive to whatever’s in your inbox.

3. The Writing Is the Cure

This principle came along over the past year as I noticed a pattern in myself. On the days I got my writing done, I was happy, life flowed with ease, time felt abundant, and everything and everyone else was easier to deal with.

Whereas on the days I didn’t do my writing, Time slipped away at warp-speed and I was annoyed, frustrated and resentful of everyone and everything else that I had to do. I also noticed that when I hadn’t written for several days in a row, I felt down, totally uncertain about myself and my life, and like I was lacking purpose.

But as soon as I got back to my writing, those feelings went away.

I feel certain about who I am and what my purpose is when I’m writing. I was born to do this and I know it.

For me, The Writing Is the Cure, and that’s why I adopted this principle.

By implementing these three principles in my writing life, my creativity has been set on fire. I now know what my inner voice sounds like, and I no longer allow myself to be influenced by other people’s drama, messages or priorities before listening to my own voice.

What creativity principles do you live by? Share them with us in the comments.

About The Writer's Confidence Boost

You have BIG dreams for your writing life. The problem is, you're not doing much about it.

You're procrastinating and putting your writing off and spending years revising and rewriting but never hitting "publish" and putting your book out there.

Enter the Writer's Confidence Boost.

This book is based on a 15-day audio workshop of the same name. You get access to all of these audios inside the book along with the daily assignments from the workshop, so you can create the inner-strength and resilience you need to go after your writing dreams with full-force.

And now Jennifer Blanchard is bringing this life-transforming workshop to you in book form.

The Writer's Confidence Boost will help you:

• Overcome self-sabotage
• Stop second-guessing yourself
• Take empowered action in your writing life
• Bust through procrastination, doubt, fear, distractions and Resistance
• Create a resilient mindset so you can achieve all of your writing dreams

If you're ready to have the confidence you need to become the writer and author you dream of being, buy this book now.

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