Creativity "tanks" and how to keep them full

 "The reason why you think you need huge blocks of time to follow your creative pursuits is because your creative tank is empty!" 

This phrase just popped up in my mind a few minutes ago as I was "colouring" a picture on a paint-by-numbers app on my kindle. Strange how the most profound thoughts come to us when we're doing the most mundane, slow things. Now the point is not about what I was doing really, but the realization of why I procrastinate so much on making the art I want to make and designing the things I want to design and just about every other creative idea I get and why I rarely follow through on my creative ideas, whether that be something I want to draw, or a new fabric print I want to design or a piece of clothing I want to make, or a new recipe I've been thinking of making for over a month. And this might, just maybe apply to you too.

IT'S SIMPLY BECAUSE MY CREATIVE TANK IS EMPTY. 

If you've read Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages you're probably familiar with the concept of a "love tank". If you haven't read the book, the basic concept is, we all have a "love tank" and every time we feel loved, the "tank" gets filled up a bit. There are things that deplete the tank too. But if the tank isn't getting the love in the way that we feel most loved, we can become resentful and then it spirals into not feeling loved even when love is expressed to us.

I think our relationship with creativity is similar. When we do something creative, our creativity tank gets filled up a little. If we do this frequently enough, our creativity tanks will be full and we'll feel creatively fulfilled. But imagine you deprive yourself of doing ANYTHING creative. For days, weeks, months, years or even decades on end. You're very likely to feel like your creativity tank is so empty that it will take a month-long sabbatical to refill your creativity tank. You'll most likely feel like you have to paint 100 paintings or write 3 novels or 50 songs or whatever your creative outlet may be. And I think for most people this is bound to make you feel hopeless and not even pick up the thing you live so dearly. Which then results in more depletion of your creativity tank. 

But what if instead of allowing ourselves to go down this spiral, we prioritise filling our creative tanks, even if only for 5 minutes a day. Try that for 3 days, a week, a month, a year, then see how you feel. I promise you'll be able to FEEL the difference purely in your everyday being. 

Now I'm not claiming this is the cure to all procrastination, but I hope this gets you thinking about your relationship with creativity and how to nurture it so both you and your creativity tank are happy. :)