Ever wish you could be more creative but feel like you're always waiting for inspiration to strike? The truth is, creativity isn't just about having great ideas. Like all behavior change - it's about building small, consistent habits that make creating second nature. Fortunately, there is a science to habit formation.
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​Whether you're into art, writing, or simply want to bring more creativity into your life, we're getting into the steps of habit formation and how to make these habits stick.

Habits are behaviors we do repeatedly. And habits make up an large portion of our daily actions. According to researchers as Duke University, habits account for about 40% of our behaviors on any given day. 
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​Habits are in a unique position to be intentionally created and can also be created without our awareness. Regardless of how they find our way into our lives, they make up our identity (who we are as a person). This is why we need to have awareness and, ideally, intention around our habits.

Intention >> Behavior >> Habit >> Practice >> Second Nature >> Who You Are
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​Many habits start as conscious decisions. Consider a situation in which we often find ourselves: I'm on my way home from work and I'm hungry. I decide to stop at [insert your favorite fast food joint here]. I've satisfied my hungry craving and I am rewarded with delicious food.
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​The next time I get hungry on my way home from work, it's easier to stop the next time. And a pattern is beginning to form. Eventually, I stop to get fast food on my way home without giving it a second thought - thus a habit has been established.

We all have a set of habits we feel like we were born with and we may not even have awareness of them. In many cases, these have been learned from parents and caregivers or other influential people in our lives.
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​We've skipped past the intention phase or conscious decisions and are a part of who we are. In the case of a habit we want to break, it will take going back to the intention phase to bring it into awareness.
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​When it comes to creating the habit of creative, most of us will follow the intentional path of habit creation.

James Clear, leading author on habits states, "Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. What you do on a daily basis reflects who you are and what your life is all about."
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​This is critically important because what we repeatedly do ultimately forms the people we are, the things we believe, and the personality we portray.
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​Addiction is an extreme example. One of the criteria to diagnose substance us disorder is the amount of time you spend thinking about and obtaining your drug of choice - this describes your habits. This is why "addict" becomes a defining feature for someone who has a problem with drugs or alcohol.
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​It works on the opposite end of the spectrum, too. Think of any successful business owner. They are the culmination of all the habits needed to build a thriving company. Their identity then becomes "successful business owner."

Developing the identity of a Creative starts with your daily habits. To illustrate the 5 step process of habit creation, we'll use the example of daily drawing. It's an action that's accessible to almost everyone and takes very few supplies (scrap paper and any writing instrument can get you started).

Begin with a small drawing area. Make a few marks or a tiny image. It can be as simple or as detailed as you want. It can take you five minutes or an hour - just make sure it feels doable to you.

A daily drawing habit can be expanded in many ways: the amount of time spent, level of detail and complexity, or developing new skills

This step relates to the whole of creativity. As your creativity grows and skills develop, your daily creativity habit will expand beyond the time you have allotted. You may sketch out a drawing one night, add texture and detail the next, and finish out your piece with color on the third night.
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​Or you may spend time during the beginning of the week researching and learning a new skill, followed by time dedicated to practice.

This is inevitable. There will be slips when you are just beginning to incorporate a new behavior into your life. Consistency is the key in developing habits, so the more frequently you practice the behavior the faster it becomes a habit.
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​If you miss one day, don't let that be the end. Don't let one day become two. It's a stumble, not a fall. The longer you wait between practicing your new behavior, the harder it will be to get back on track and the longer it will take to establish your habit.
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​Ultimately, you will feel like a fraud or an imposter if your goal is to cultivate your creative identity. These feelings foster guilt and drains your energy - making it even more challenging to develop your habit. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

Don't worry about doing it fast, doing it perfectly, or doing "enough." Start small and build from there. Don't set expectations for your practice other than consistency and flexibility. This ease will support progress. 
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​It will likely take longer than you expect, but the goal is to sustain the lifestyle of a creative person, rather than to reach some ultimate "place." Setting attainable milestones to assess progress and the evolution of your practice is a great way to support the motivation to keep going. 

To further explore creating a habit of daily creativity, we're going to break habits into parts. 

Habits are formed to solve our life's problems - as simple or complex as those problems might be. Thus, habit formation can be divided into the problem phase and the solution phase. Ideally, a good habit resolves the problem and creates change in your life.
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​These phases can be further divided into four elements:

The Cue
​The cue is a behavior signal. It's motivated by primary drivers like food, water, or sex or secondary drivers like money, status, approval, or personal fulfillment.
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​The Craving
​The craving is the urge from the body to act. It can come in the form of thoughts, feelings, or visualizations. The craving can be fleeting or long-lasting, especially if you are trying to resist or are not able to act immediately. It is driven by the result of acting on the behavior and not the behavior itself, which the result being the change in state it creates.

The Response
​This is the behavior we practice over and over again until it becomes a habit. It can be a physical action or even a thought.
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​​The Reward
​Finally, the response delivers the reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit and underlying motive.
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​All four of these elements come together to form your habit. If any of the elements are lacking, a habit will not form. This provides insight into creating a new habit or breaking an old habit.

Let's take a look at how to get the four elements of a habit to work for us when growing the habit of creativity.

The first way to make a cue obvious is to set an intention. Write down your new habit and keep it in your visual space. 
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​Next, keep your creative tools out and easily accessible. If part of your night time routine involves sitting on the couch, keep paper and pens on your side table as a visual reminder of your intention.

With a creative habit, the craving is a little trickier. The craving may not be readily apparent when you are first starting out. To start a new habit, it's imperative to trust or believe that there is a reward or something to gain from this action. Initially, you may not have any first-hand knowledge of the benefits. As you press forward, you will begin to realize the benefits - feelings of peace, increased confidence, or self-knowledge. Your craving will then be driven by these benefits. 

Let go of grandiose ideas of art. It does not need to be big or really good. Pick something small or basic, and that requires simple tools. Make it as easy as possible to get started and to sustain regardless of your circumstances.

The reward of creativity can feel like a breath of fresh air after effort, like the good feeling after a workout. We often need to remind ourselves that the good feeling is coming as our motivation to get started.
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​In the case of creativity, it is an energy-giving activity because you are literally firing electromagnetic waves through the brain when you create something.

A bright line rule is a clearly defined boundary you set for yourself to support your habits. There are no exceptions. When setting up your creative habit, a bright line rule can help you establish structure in an area in which you need to focus.
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​Here are some examples:
​Your Bright Line Rule: I will turn off the tv an hour before I go to bed.
​This rule makes space for your creative habit. With your new tv-free hour, you now have time to doodle, draw, or write.
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​Your Bright Line Rule: I will not pick up my phone until I am completely ready for work.
​This is another example of making time in your schedule for a creative endeavor. You can use this time for reading, meditating, or spending a moment in silence.
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​Bright line rules can be used in any area of your life. If you are trying to improve eating habits, create rules around what foods can and cannot be in the house. Or if you are trying to improve sleep, rules around bedtime can be helpful. 

The connection to identity is the ultimate motivator. As we discussed at the beginning of this post, your habits become who you are and who you are, is the accumulation of your habits.
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​To jump start your habits, you first need to decide who you want to become. Once you make that decision, you then prove it to yourself with small wins. Those wins are each time you perform the habit that support your identity.

During this show segment, we introduce four ways to interact with the information presented: A question to answer, a quest to complete, an aspect of creativity we've noticed this week, and a quote to ponder.

Think of a current habit you are working on. What stage of the intentional habit path are you in: Intention, behavior, habit, practice, second nature, or identity?

1. Identify a habit you want to form.
​2. Go through each step of the process with the habit you've chosen to develop.

Art Therapy Directive: Create a duality drawing depicting a habit you want to break and a visual expression of a habit you want to form.

"A Creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life."
​- Elizabeth Gilbert

Atomic Habits by James Clear
Balance meditation app
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