Last week I wrote about how creating new habits can aid you in boosting your creativity and productivity. In particular, I talked about creating a morning routine that will help you get in the right mindset for the rest of the day.
Although you may not be a “morning person,” I think it’s imperative to get the day started with a positive mindset. What you’ll find is that a positive mindset can carry you through the rest of the day.
Take eating as an example. If you start the day off with a nutritious, well balanced breakfast, you will be that much more likely to eat healthy for the rest of the day. However, if you start the day with McDonald’s you’ll be less likely to eat healthier for your later meals in the day.
It’s happened to all of us before. You think ‘eh, I already ate those two frosted doughnuts for breakfast, so I guess this day is blown,’ which can then lead you to having that bacon cheeseburger for lunch.
I noticed this last weekend while I was in New York city visiting a friend. I started off the weekend by not eating that great even though I knew it was bad for me, yet I continued the habit through the entire weekend. Our mind bombards us with all sorts of excuses. Mine was ‘oh well, it’s just this weekend while I’m visiting my friend.’
A lot of what we do and the decisions we make are at the subconscious level. We like to think we have control over our lives, but in reality much of what we do is driven by deeply ingrained habits and patterns that have formed over years and years.
The only way to change these habits is to make the conscious effort to change and form new habits. You can’t “will” it to happen, you have to actually set up an attack plan to do it.
One of the morning habits I discussed was the act of writing for a brief period of time in the morning. I follow Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages exercise. She provides a tremendous free resource on her website that I encourage you to read.
How do morning pages work?
It’s actually an extremely simple process. All you do is sit down and write three pages worth of writing. It’s what I call free form writing. There is no topic and no specific outcome associated with the writing. It’s writing for the sake of writing.
The process is to clear out whatever is in your head and put it on paper. I consider it another form of meditation.
There is no judgement and no criticism associated with the words you put down on paper. For example, you might have thoughts in your head about how someone said something to you the previous day that really offended you and you’re pissed off at the person because of what was said. Just write it down.
Don’t judge, don’t censor and don’t feel guilty – just write.
So, what’s the point?
At this point you might be quite literally wondering “what’s the point?” I thought this myself when I first read about doing morning pages.
It goes back to the point I made above about how our lives are largely controlled by our subconscious and deeply ingrained habits and propensities. Writing morning pages can bring a lot of these propensities and feelings to the surface.
Also, there may be a sense in our lives that we’re missing a connection to who we really are. Morning pages is a creative process.
What do I mean by this?
Most of the things we do are tied to some specific outcome we want. We do work to achieve a desired result. We exercise to get in shape. It’s what I call the if, then mentality. If I do x, I’ll achieve y.
Morning pages kind of gets rid of that. It opens you up to possibilities and a little bit of uncertainty. Yes, I suppose there is some expectation that something will happen from doing them, but the idea is to get rid of any pre-conceived notions of an exact outcome you expect to achieve.
By opening up in this manner, the possibilities of what you might discover open up.
Personally, I was skeptical of doing morning pages, or so I thought. When I started to examine the skepticism, I actually found an underlying fear. I had read about the morning pages a year or more ago and thought “hey, what a terrific idea,” but I never did them.
My excuse was skepticism. What I’ve learned is that I was actually scared to do them. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to sit down and write three pages every single morning (note: there are days when I don’t do them, but it’s fairly limited).
Just that alone has already been a tremendous learning experience and I’ve found that it’s actually not all that difficult to write the three pages every day. I don’t know if it will continue to be that way, but that’s ok.
Do any of you have experience doing morning pages? If so,what’s been your experience? What have you learned? Has doing them opened up some untapped creativity or are they not for you? Share your stories in the comments below.
I’m Nate, a writer, mindfulness practitioner and student of the inner workings of the mind.
Reading this has reminded me of one of the barriers I have in my thinking: the need for everything to have a point to it and to be in some way productive.
Reading about these morning pages, which I too have heard of before, at first sounds interesting and attractive and then brings the question of why to my mind.
Whether I experiment with morning pages or not, examining these unhelpful thoughts further is important. Thanks for the reminder
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Yeah, totally! I’m starting to look at it this way. I think there’s a point to doing the morning pages, but I’m letting go of any rigid expectations I have. A normal expectation or thought pattern I have would go something like this: ‘ok, if I do morning pages, I will be more creative in 30 days.’ I’m doing them as a process of experimentation and almost as a challenge to myself. Yet, at the same time, I’m letting go of any worries, concerns or expectations of specific outcomes. I doesn’t necessarily means that I don’t expect something to happen. I’m sure something will, in fact, happen. I’m just letting go and opening up to whatever it is that is or could be.
I agree with you morningpages is very important in our life and other matters, this is very valuable post for whose who like good resorces, thanks for sharing.