Simple ways to enhance your well-being, boost your brainpower and elevate your creativity at work
- Develop your creative resilience
- Find a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your work
- Include time for incubation and play in your schedule
- Expressing yourself creatively for fun can energize your work
- Nurture relationships at work, and in your community (face to face and online)
- Take additional training. to enhance your skills. (Check out the skills you need to compete with A.I. and automation)
- Have a plan to build your personal brand and increase your visibility
- Identify what is positive now
- Hire a coach, as your confidential thinking partner
- Spend time with young people and find out what their passions are
…and when you are working from home
I have been working from home for over 20 years. Here are my recommendations:
- Start your day with a positive affirmation. Try affirming “I am healthy, I am happy and I am grateful,” even if you are not. Affirmations can work wonders towards changing your mindset and mood.. While you are at it, identify 5 things (people, places, situations) you are grateful for. Learn about the connection between gratitude and creativity
- Carve out dedicated space for working and make it attractive in terms of lighting, ergonomic seating, and decor.
- Set up a routine that works for you. I reserve early to mid-mornings for client work or business development that involves hard thinking, problem-solving, designing or writing.
- Schedule breaks and recreation time. No matter how busy I am I take one day a week off to rest and relax. The worst thing you can do is show up Monday morning exhausted because you worked 7 days in a row.
- Talk to other people on a regular basis so you don’t feel too isolated.
- Motivate yourself to work by finding ways to make it meaningful. Read Creativity and the Meaning of Work
- Keep a journal. Use it to unload your angst so you can get it out of your system, and as a place to write down your dreams and aspirations
- Set goals for what you want to accomplish and by when. Set a time-frame, say 1 hour, and resolve to focus on your task without interruption.
- Reward yourself for completing difficult tasks.
- Create small wins to set yourself up for success and reward yourself for those too.
- Get outside for at least 30 minutes every day and take a forest bath when you can.
- Follow your interests and keep learning. I have noticed that learning and creativity go hand-in-hand. When I follow my interests, learn new things, and express my creativity, I feel renewed and energized. I think this might be the best motivator of all, and sooner or later I make money from those interests because they form the intellectual capital that attracts clients to me.
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
