We just entered the Year of Creative Vitality

CreativeRx: Our Slump Era is over - here's exactly what that means for you; the funniest (and scariest) day-in-my-life I ever read; why the 1% rule is changing my creative habits.

CreativeRx: Every Sunday, I share a peek into my brain as a Creative Health Scientist - the cultural patterns I’m noticing, the scientific data points I’m collecting, the rabbit holes I can’t stop exploring. It’s your dose of creative thinking in an exhausting, overwhelming world.

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WE’VE ALL BEEN LIVING IN A SLUMP FOR WAY TOO LONG

I’m not going to sugar coat it: The past few years have felt like…more than enough.

We have sacrificed. We have been consumed from all angles. We have been told to optimize our schedules, biohack our age, learn new “technology,” and basically, try to stay alive, all while keeping our head above water.

Instead of living, most of us (me 👋🏽) have been treading. Existing. Surviving.

From my POV, this isn’t only about living through an onslaught of once-in-a-lifetime events.

It’s also a sign of something else: That we have gotten so far from our creative nature, we no longer remember what it means to feel alive. To have our spark. To be energized, fulfilled and free to make meaningful choices in our everyday lives.

But, for the first time in a long time, I actually have hope. Real hope.

I've been seeing the signs - trickles at first - but now real, clear signals that Creative Health is moving from a “nice-to-have” to a real need. And, we honestly can’t afford to keep pushing it away: It’s literally how we claw our way back to being human.

If you’ve been following this work for a while, you know that creativity is hands-down the most overlooked aspect of our well-being. It’s not about being a talented artist or getting famous on social media - it’s the basis of how we build resilience, freedom and the capacity to imagine a better, more connected world.

And, for a long time (a very long time) most of us have been disconnected from it - upwards of 70% of adults today consider themselves creatively unfulfilled. We’ve treated it like a luxury. We’ve relegated it to an option only after the chores are done.

So, that’s why this year - I, we and this Creative Health movement we’re building together - is taking a stand. It’s going to be Our Year of Creative Vitality: putting in the effort, intention and commitment to get our spark back for good.

The reason I’m so bullish on this isn’t just because I want it to happen (erg, if that were the case, it would have over half a decade ago 😅).

It’s because I’ve been closely monitoring some core, cultural trends that are breaking out into the mainstream - and I think the real unique mix of signals that we’re all onto something here:

1 - We’re all going analog: The craving for offline living, creating and connecting has never been higher. And, the biggest bang for our buck when it comes to Creative Health? Expressing ourselves in the physical world.

2 - We’re beginning to prioritize play over constant optimization: We’ve reached peak efficiency - every breath, step, sleep has been measured. Now, we’re looking for iteration, novelty and enjoyment.

3 - We’re reclaiming our human, critical thinking instead of outsourcing it: We’ve started to see the real, scary impacts of offloading every thought to a robot. Our creative brain requires consistent exercise to think deeply.

4 - We’re over living in a completely frictionless world: We can do pretty much anything in our lives with the click of a button - but we’re starting to realize what else we’ve lost in the process. Challenge, friction and ultimately, flow aren’t wastes of time; they’re building blocks of the creative process.

5 - We’re craving energy, not just rest: We’ve been so burned out that we think the way to rejuvenate is to rest more - but we actually need to close the stress cycle and restore our energy. Creative Health is both a burnout reducer and energy expander.

All of these signals are really just a peek into the tip of the iceberg of what Creative Health really means. They’re my core predictions that this work is on it’s way to mass adoption. I’m curious: which one(s) resonates most with you?

This year at Creative Health - our Substack and community - we will be going deep into every single one of them: dissecting the latest scientific research behind them, the cultural barriers and trends, and exactly how you can start strengthening your own creative brain.

Because, our creativity is going to be the most important human trait we have over the next millennium. It’s how we adapt in an increasingly uncertain world, find meaning, connect more deeply with ourselves and others, experience beauty in the midst of chaos and keep on keepin’ on.

It’s how we really stay alive, stay here, for all of it.

I couldn’t be more proud, excited and honestly, a bit impatient, for all that’s to come. I am so thankful that you all, 15,000+ of you, continue to choose to be on this journey with me each week. We’re really, truly building something here - and every creative act you take expands this momentum.

Creative Vitality is ours for the taking - ready to get it back? 🤓

From my brain to yours,

Katina, Creative Health Scientist & Daydreamers’ Co-founder + Chief Science Officer

Tell me what you think: Did this resonate? Comment below or hit reply - I read every response 🫶🏽

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CREATIVITY IS NOT ONLY FOR STOLEN MOMENTS 🧙🏽

“I’ve seen [women] insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it’s a funny thing about housecleaning - it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a [woman]. A [woman] must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”

Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés

→ I would venture to say this one of the most important texts on creativity that exists. Dr. Estés is an artist, poet, psychoanalyst and expert on mythical stories - and this book weaves together how wild our creative nature really is. I was once reading this book in a cafe, and a stranger came up to me, whispering that this book was like a secret manual, passed from person to person; when I was done I had to send it to someone new. How cool is that - take this as my symbolic passing forward 🫶🏽

A LAUGH BEFORE “REAL LIFE” BEGINS 🫠

“I get out of bed and start another optimized day. Next to my wall of self-help books, such as “How to Maximize Happiness,” sit my self-watering plants, all thriving without any effort on my part. In my former life, I’d waste anywhere between five to ten minutes a day pruning leaves and judging the wetness of soil, but now I use that time to get ahead on my next task—consuming every piece of news as quickly as possible.”

A Day in my Highly Optimized, Convenient Life, The New Yorker

→ I laughed. I laugh-cried. I know this piece was in the humor section, but I honestly felt in awe of how incredibly real and scary this type of life is for a lot of people. It couldn’t be more opposite of what a Creatively Healthy life looks like in practice. So, read it as a wake up call - and then go do an inventory of how many aspects measured up to your life right now 😅

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INSTEAD OF OPTIMIZING, I’M LIVING BY THE 1% RULE

After learning about James Clear’s 1% rule, I have never felt more free.

Here’s the TLDR: You don’t need massive transformation to have outstanding results. Instead, if you focus on making 1% improvements every day, you will be 37x better by the end of the year. Let that sink in.

This is exactly how your creative brain works, too. Creativity, like any habit, compounds with time.

I started applying this framework to my own life and so far, it’s completely shifted how I started off the year. Instead of diving in with an all-or-nothing mentality (hello perfectionist tendencies), I’m just aiming for incremental exposure.

Here’s a concrete example of what I’m personally doing: I decided to read one chapter of a book on flower color theory instead of trying to become a flower expert by week two. That’s it. One chapter. 1% more knowledge about something random that fascinates me. It takes that constant pressure to achieve off and actually allows you to have fun.

The funny thing is, this is exactly how we build cognitive flexibility - a core component of Creative Health. There are no straight lines when it comes to our creativity, only incremental change and messy progress. So, here's to flexibility, freedom, and moving ahead this year - 1% at a time.