Creative Rituals: The Importance of Mornings
In my experience, a predictable day is as elusive a fantasy as heaven on earth. Every second journeyed into the sunlight generously dollops a new task onto the plate which, when you first woke up, was refreshingly empty. Sleep will wipe it clean again, but until then, you’re at the mercy of the pile before you.
Over the years I’ve learned a valuable lesson: there’s never any true telling for how your schedule will turn out once you’ve introduced human variables. The alone time at the beginning of the day is the only time we can truly control.
For the sake of example, when I was pounding the pavement as a new songwriter, a typical work timeframe proceeded as follows:
-Coffee meeting around 9:30am
-First studio writing session around 11am
-Perhaps a second studio session around 3pm
-Post session drinks, meeting, concert, writer’s round, bartending shift, etc…
The agenda could quickly get out of hand, take new turns, or extend far beyond my initial plans, creating an elasticity in me that benefitted my networking and social life, but actually may have hindered my creativity.
It was during these years that I learned the hard way: we creatives must keep our mornings sacred.
In a field where there’s so little we can count on, we can decide when to wake up. Though we may be underslept or cruelly tempted by the warmth of the sheets, it truly takes nothing more than an act of our own will to raise us from the comfort of the night (AKA that freeing reprieve of our responsibilities). There, in the quiet of the cool morning air, is a lovely, narrow window of opportunity where you have complete control. For creatives (and I think for any human), this is crucial.
If my first meeting was at 9:30am, I could safely wake up at 7:45 and give one glorious hour to my coffee, book, journal, and prayers. Not only would this center me emotionally, physically, and spiritually, but it would actually lend to better conversations at my meetings and deeper concepts delivered at my writing sessions. Now, as wild late nights out are becoming less necessary due to a more established circle of collaborators, my mornings have expanded to include a 7am workout as well. It’s during the moments where I’m moving my muscles and releasing my mind where I find myself enjoying music rather than analyzing it. I begin to brainstorm productive ways to spend my day out of motivation rather than stress. I laugh with my instructors who don’t know anything about my career and couldn’t care less what I bring to the table creatively. It’s so freeing, as if forcing that safe space into my day releases the muses trapped by spontaneity. It sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But it’s true.
We all need a safe space to rest. It makes sense that our muses do too. So give them your mornings, and give yourself that coveted, scarce, sliver of control you’ve been chasing in all the wrong places.
Your creative ritual MUST exist in your morning.
