Have you ever found yourself wanting to spend time on things that seemed completely irrelevant to what you should be doing? Like when you know you “should” be working on your business but what you really want to do is something creative? Even though I’m a business coach, many of my clients report that they get these overwhelming desires to paint, write or craft. Because it’s not what they should be doing, they often ignore their desires but sometimes it gets so loud, it becomes hard to ignore. The truth is, this very strong desire is there for a very good reason.
Here’s the thing, and this is where I get into the bigger picture of you. You are not just a human being. You are an energetic being having a human experience. You are spirit expressing itself by means of you. Your business is one way your spirit likes to express itself, but there are many other ways. Desire is your spirit’s way of leading you down the path of your greatest joy. You may desire to dance or garden. All of these activities lead to your spirit expressing itself and then experiencing what it feels like to be a dancer or a gardener. Your spirit came to experience, expand and grow.
So how this ties in with your business is quite simple. Your business is an expression of you. It often stems from your spirit’s desire but often you need to step away from our businesses and focus on other things in order to stay in the flow of new ideas. Most of us have heard of writers who lost the flow of ideas and experienced writer’s block. They had to completely step away from their book for awhile until the flow of ideas began again. This same thing happens for entrepreneurs.
Following your desire to do something creative and completely unrelated is your spirit’s natural way of getting you off a topic where you may be stifled or stuck. The benefits of following your desire is that it helps you move out of your logical brain and into your creative brain. Your creative brain is tapped into your imagination which is considered the most powerful part of your brain. It is the source of big ideas and genius innovations. Inventors are said to be particularly great at using their imagination.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Our imagination taps us into ideas far beyond the limits of our own logical thinking. We can receive downloads or streams of thought and often not know where they come from. They are fresh, new and unexpected. Artists are notorious for this. Letting their ideas flow out on canvas without deciding ahead of time what they are going to paint, they are often surprised by the new ideas that show up. Their paintings expand and evolve when they allow their ideas to just flow.
Thomas Edison, famous inventor, was said to purposely go to the land of imagination whenever he was stuck on a problem. He would lean back in his rocking chair with a rock in his hand and a bucket on the floor. He would clear all thought in his head. He knew if he could quiet the chatter in his logical brain, fresh ideas would eventually pop in. The rock? It was there in case he fell asleep. It would fall out of his hand, hit the bucket below and wake him up.
The point is, if you are feeling a desire to go something completely unrelated to your business, perhaps there is a very good reason for that. Often, if you trust that impulse and just follow it, you’ll be so glad you did. In addition to the benefit of feeling less stressed, chances are you’ll begin to get some fresh ideas and greater clarity. This is why I suggest that people schedule in a couple hours of creative time each week (yes, that means you need to find ways to clear your calendar and make this a priority).
Creative time can be used for writing, drawing, or anything that is creative in nature. This should be completely unstructured time. Fill it with whatever you would like. For me, creative time includes creating content for my business. Writing this blog, for example, is creative time for me. I don’t force it. If I don’t feel like writing, I don’t. Instead, I follow my inspiration and whatever feels enjoyable in the moment. You can set aside the time and then when it arrives think, “Yay! I get to have some creative time! What would be fun to do right now?” Whether the idea is work related or not does not matter. They key is to do something you’re excited about or looking forward to.