Do More than Survival with a Brilliant Me Revival

Last week we talked about focus, but sometimes the lack of focus isn’t because you don’t know how to focus, it’s that you’ve depleted your focus energy. Do you feel you’re running on a hamster wheel and still have a mountain of a to-do list? Unfortunately, you’re not alone. All creatives, especially those who strive to share their passion with the world, have more things to do than they have hours in the year. Feeling like it will take more than in a century to get it all done can be discouraging. If you’re feeling discouraged, disappointed, or simply exhausted, you need a Me Revival.

What is a Me Revival? 

The word revival is often associated with renewed religious interest, but in this instance, revival means restoration. This isn’t a new concept. All creatives know that replenishing their creativity is important, but a Me Revival is more than that. It’s a fundamental restoration of who you are. It brings your mind, body, and soul back to your center.

Every person, self-identifying as creative or not, needs Me Revival. Me time is the more common way to refer to this attention to who you are and how you feel. Unfortunately, many of us (raising hand high) hear “me time” as something that is selfish. A Me Revival may be simply a different way of saying the same thing, but the phrase focuses more on restoration than on “me.” 

You might notice that rest is in the word restoration. That’s because rest is vitally important to being a healthy, centered person. Rest allows your body to heal, resets your hormones (get your mind out of the gutter—we aren’t talking about your sexuality—we’re talking about the hormones that keep your body healthy and regulated.) Rest allows your mood to reset. It reduces stress and can give you improved immunity to all kinds of illnesses. Finally, rest allows your brain to return to default a state of mind that is more flexible and innovative.

While creativity may be vitally important and consume most of your waking hours, it isn’t the total of who you are. You may also be an intimate partner, a friend, a mother or father, a son or daughter, an employee, a CEO, an old-time movie buff, an opera enthusiast, a model maker, or any of an endless list of hobbies and interests. Being a well-rounded person is vital to being a creative. Having a variety of skills, interests, and abilities gives you an openness to experimentation and new ideas that can take your creativity in completely different and interesting directions.

Why a Me Revival Strategy is Important

So if all us creatives have heard about this before, why is a strategy important? Because we are so busy, it’s extraordinarily easy to overlook or devalue the things that restore you. Making a strategy will help you align personal and career and creativity goals without depleting one (or all).

How to Create a Me Revival Strategy

Strategy is defined as setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve those goals, and mobilizing resources to execute those actions. But how does one make a Me Revival strategy?

Know what you value in life. Joy? Safety? Honesty? Service to others? 

What makes you feel balanced? What helps you when you have one of the many setbacks you will inevitably experience?

Decide what you want your life to look like in the future. Happy mom, loving wife, best-selling author, world-renowned artist or singer, or CEO of your own company? 

Write a personal mission statement. Yes, like companies use, but much more personal. You don’t have to show it to anyone.  

Examples of personal mission statements:

• To use my skills as a writer to help others understand their own self-worth through blogging and publishing fiction and nonfiction books. 
• To use my love for science to teach and inspire children through schools and other activities and to be a leader in my field by age 40.

A mission statement helps you prioritize and helps you decide when to say yes and when to say no. It also helps you decide which tactics of restoration will help you be the best you. 

60 Tactics You Can Store in Your Me Revival Toolbox

Schedule your Me Revival tactics. Make it part of your routine. Some people need a brief revival every day, some can get by with a weekly dose, and others may need a longer stretch at a time, once a month, or every few months. 

Be certain to schedule your revival time. Tell your family/whoever might interrupt that you. Don’t ask for the time. Tell them you NEED this time. By scheduling it ahead and telling others, you’re saying to yourself (and others) that this time is important. 

If Time Is Short 

You can adjust most of the tactics below to last from a few minutes or to much longer. Pick what both appeals to you and helps you stay centered on your personal mission.

1. Meditation. YouTube is one resource for short and long guided meditations. You can also use white, pink, or brown noise recordings. 
2. Scent therapy. Literally, stop and smell something. Flowers, scented candles or even spices that you associate with happy, productive, or restorative times.
3. Music — listen and do nothing else. It’s time to focus on you and how the music makes you feel. 
4. Journaling. Simply putting your thoughts down can help clarify what you’re thinking or feeling.
5. Breathing Techniques. If you need examples or instructions, Google “breathing techniques for” and the search engine will offer multiple choices. 
6. Step outside. Do nothing, just breathe and notice colors.
7. After running your kids to school or an activity, sit in your car and do nothing for a few minutes.
8. Spend the first two minutes of your bath or shower listening to and feeling the water.
9. Walk around the building. Just one or two circuits can lift your mood.
10. Turn off your phone and set the timer for three minutes. Sit in a comfortable position and do nothing. 

If You Have 30 minutes or more

1. Have lunch or coffee by yourself. Turn your phone off and do nothing but enjoy your meal or beverage.
2. Put your phone away and listen to a playlist. Have at least two or three playlists to choose from: one that inspires you, one that relaxes you, and one that makes you want to sing or dance.
3. Take a drive by yourself. Choose to do nothing but drive and notice the scenery or listen to a playlist, a podcast or audiobook. 
4. Paint, watercolor, or color in a coloring book. 
5. Use your hands to do something that you can do with little thought. Knit, crochet, some mending, or even something like origami. Allow your mind to wander.
6. If you have toddlers or older children, establish a Quiet Time. This is a specific time of day (usually after lunch or after school) and for a specific period (30-90 minutes) where the children and you are to do quiet activities. Have supplies available so they can color, do puzzles, read to themselves, or do other solitary and quiet activities.
7. Play. Let your inner child out. Swing on the swings, play with dolls or cars, or play hopscotch. Indulge in activities the younger you enjoyed. Have fun.
8. Cuddle with a pet. That’s all. Just sit and enjoy the time with your pet.
9. Exercise. A walk, swimming, yoga, or whatever you enjoy doing enough that you’ll do it again.
10. Work in a garden. The point isn’t to do a chore but to get your hands in the dirt and connected to the earth.

If You Have More Than an Hour 

1. Watch a movie and just enjoy it.
2. Join a sports team or league.
3. Indulge in a phone call with a creative friend. Someone who gets what you’re going through and will support your creative endeavors.
4. Phone a creative friend. Someone who gets what you’re going through and will support your creative endeavors.
5. Go on a date with your significant other, a stranger, or with yourself. Give yourself permission to unplug and simply enjoy the date.
6. Let your imagination play. Play a game of pretend (with children or not) or look at the clouds and identify different shapes. 
7. Take a class. Whether that’s a new physical activity or a new-to-you instructional/educational class doesn’t matter. The idea is to do something different, something new.
8. Talk to your server or barista or a neighbor you don’t really know. Keeping yours and their safety in mind, ask them about themselves, what they do, what inspires them, or what they are passionate about.  
9. Volunteer and serve others. Help at your child’s school, the public library, an animal shelter, a hospital, or homeless shelter. Serving others takes us out of ourselves and opens up new connections, both personally and creatively.
10. Create a creativity-diet. A creativity diet is an intentional consuming of the content you want to create or content that serves you and your craft. Choose active content. Content that is active engages us by making us think, learn, or feel inspired.

Bonus Me Revival Tactics

1. Start a weekly or monthly chat or meetup with like-minded creative folk. Talk about your projects, what’s inspiring you, and what’s has been restorative for you lately.
2. Put together an inspiration scrapbook. Photos, copies of your work, praise from other people, even cartoons and memes that help encourage and motivate you.
3. Create a Me Revival toolbox. Fill it with a list of tactics and the items that you can use during your Me Revival time. Include things like coloring books, watercolors, play doh, yarns, playlists, noise-canceling headphones.
4. Design a Me Revival space. Find a space in your home that you can customize to be your quiet revival spot. Ideally, it is not also your workspace. Use furniture or screens, a closet, or even a small pop-up tent to make it a defined area. It doesn’t have to be large. Decorate it with a comfy chair, lots of pillows or candles or books or artwork or all of the above. Make it a space you feel calm, comfortable, and refreshed.
5. Travel to new places. Learn about the area, the culture, see the sights, experience local food. 
6. Take a staycation or revisit favorite locales. Recreational time off is restorative. 
7. Protect your Me Revival time like you protect your creativity time. You protect yours, don’t you? We all have people in our lives who want or need us to do other things. Refer to your personal mission statement and learn to say no to the things that take you away from that. It won’t be easy if you’re not used to saying no, but it will get easier. And when the people around you learn, you’re serious about your creativity and revival time, they will help you protect that time.

Start Your Me Revival Today

Work is not a substitute for a Me Revival, even if it’s what you love to do. Your brain, your body, your mental health, and your creativity thrive with a balance of work and revival. Note balance doesn’t mean equal all the time. Heck, you may never make it equal. Find the balance of restoration and creation that works for you. And remember, self-care is NOT SELFISH. It’s restorative, and that is power.

Do you have a Me Revival strategy? What tactics are helpful for you?

Image Credits: all images purchased from Depositphotos.com