Free Your Mind… and Your Business Will Follow

Feeling stuck creatively? Struggling taking your business to the next level? Having trouble following your intuition? Maybe what you need is a time off. Maybe, you need to stop thinking for a minute so your mind can be free from your never-ending to-do list and deliver your best business idea yet.

Have you ever noticed that you get great ideas when you are in the shower, washing the floor, or walking in nature? We get our best ideas when we are not paying attention to what we are doing. When we are on autopilot, our mind can take a vacation from overthinking and come back to work with great insights.

In this blog post, I share with you five tips to unplug and get the creative juices flowing so you can step up your game and move on to the next level with your business.

Take some time off

That’s right. This is my tip number one. When you’re overworked and start to feel frantic about your to-do list, it’s time to take a break. Rest is an essential part of the entrepreneurship journey. I refuse to fall into the hustle culture vortex (been there, done that), and rest is at the top of the list when I think of the best practices to grow my business. Because I know that if I don’t rest, I get exhausted, and when that happens, I am of service to no one. Which is really a shame for a service provider.

How often do you take time away from your business and to-do list? Ideally you would get several days off a week. If that’s too much, maybe try to get at least half a day each week. I know it can be hard to walk away from our businesses and to-do list, but it is essential in order to become a healthy business owner who can run the distance and not burn out at every obstacle.

Once you manage to get some time for yourself, be careful not to spend it on your social media channels, checking your emails, or answering clients' requests. It is called TIME OFF, not “on-call”. It is so easy to get distracted by notifications and anxiety when we are trying to rest. The best way to relax is to completely ignore your business, at least for a few hours. It is not because you can manage your business with that one device stuck to your hand that you have to be on-call at all times.

Get your hands busy

Getting busy with your hands is a great way to relax your mind and get the juices flowing. When you bring your focus and attention to manual tasks, your mind is free to go wherever it wants and is most likely to bring you new creative ideas.

I usually get in the zone while cooking, knitting, or editing pictures. Every once in a while, I will open a coloring book or doodle something. But it can really be anything that gets my hands busy and my mind wandering.

I usually get great ideas in those moments, but instead of diving in and leaving the moment, I take notes and save them for later. The trick is to not get busy right away, let the thoughts and ideas come, write them down, and then get back to what you were doing.

Go off script

Going off script is one of my favorite things because I know it will bring me great insights and ideas, but it is not always easy to pull off. We are trying to run businesses here, we are busy people, and some of us have families to care for, nevertheless, it is not impossible.

Next time you get up in the morning and don’t feel like starting your routine or jumping into your work day, see if you can move things around and do something spontaneous. Go out for breakfast, go for a walk, open a book, and allow yourself to think about something else than your to-do list. As you relax, your mind will start to wander, and your creative juices will get activated.

If you can, go wild and take the whole day off, or half a day; go to the movies, spend time in a coffee shop with a good book, go to a museum... the goal is to do anything but what you were supposed to do that day. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I invite you to try this at least once and see how it goes!

I am aware it's not easy to pull off if you have kids to pick up from school or clients to deal with that day. So what about planning to go off-script? What if, once a month, there was a special day, with a light workload and the possibility to get out of your routine if you feel so inclined?

When I manage to pull off a day like this, I usually get home with twenty notes on my phone for blog posts and content ideas to start working on. And I am super excited and refreshed when I get back to my work routine the day after.

Take a hike

Literally, go for a walk, move your body, get your heart to pump harder, and enjoy the scenery.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. And according to a Stanford University research led by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz “Whether one is outdoors or on a treadmill, walking improves the generation of novel yet appropriate ideas, and the effect even extends to when people sit down to do their creative work shortly after.”

I love walking. I walk almost everywhere I go around the city, I walk to the park, I walk to do my grocery shopping, and I walk (and run) on a treadmill... Walking makes me feel good, happy, and healthy. And, I am glad to report, that it does activate my creativity. I cannot count how many times I end up taking lengthy notes on my phone in the middle of a stroll or a workout!

As a bonus, walking every day is beneficial for your physical and mental health. You can also use your walking time to meditate, listen to a podcast, an audiobook, or even the latest Taylor Swift album. This too should tickle your creativity cells. Before you leave, don’t forget your phone or notebook, you will want to take notes as new ideas start bubbling!

Have an insomnia

Ok, I do not recommend doing this on purpose, but have you noticed that when you can not sleep and shuffle around your bed until 3am you get great ideas? Of course, I don’t enjoy the process, but I do enjoy getting genius ideas.

When this happens, I open my notes app on my phone and write down anything that remotely sounds like a good idea for my business. Like last night, when I took notes for this blog post.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I get such great ideas that I wonder if there is a higher power purposefully keeping me awake to deliver me these ideas, ever felt that way?

Following your intuition, breaking your routine, moving your body... those seem like simple tips, right? Yet, they contain great power. I hope I inspired you to try at least one of those techniques! If so, feel free to reach out on Instagram to let me know what came up for you!