Reading Time: 3 minutesThis is the suggested Well-Being Practice for week six of the challenge. If this practice does not work for you (for whatever reason), then you can choose from one of our 3 Foundational Well-Being Practices. If you are a veteran player or these three practices are not new to you, then feel free to select from our comprehensive list of Well-Being Practices.
This Week We’re Going to Brainstorm
Simple Instructions:
- Each day, brainstorm a list of 5 ideas and write them down.
- They don’t have to be “big” ideas. They can be about anything: ideas for a loved one’s birthday, ideas for things to do this weekend, ideas for restaurants you’d like to try in your neighborhood, ideas for making that stupid movie you saw into a great movie.
Watch this video for an explanation of this Well-Being Practice from Whole Life Challenge co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck.
Why Is It Important to Brainstorm?
We are all creative and imaginative people. All of us. We have ideas all the time — yet, most of us say things like, “I’m not creative.”
Creativity is just imagining something that wasn’t there before or imagining a way you’d change something that already exists. Think about the last time you said something like, “I wish there was a thing that did X.” That was your creative mind at work, solving a problem that existed in your world.
That’s what creativity is. Seeing the way something is and imagining another way it could be:
- An artist might see a lump of clay and imagine a figure inside of it.
- A writer might think up a character and imagine how their life would change through a series of circumstances.
- A parent might have forgotten their kid’s soccer shoes for the fifth time and imagine a way to never forget them again.
- You might be tired of cooking broccoli the same way over and over again and imagine a way of changing the recipe.
The way to foster your creativity is first to acknowledge it’s there and allow for the idea that it is valuable. The next step is to just start using your creativity. Hence, this week’s Well-Being Practice.
Remember as you begin this practice that, as in any brainstorming session, there are no bad ideas. You don’t have to love the ideas you write down — they can even be hysterically weird!
Letting the process happen and giving your imagination freedom to do what it’s crying out to do is the only way to hone your creative skill. It’s also the only way to get the fantastic ideas hidden in the dark corners of your brain out into the world where they can do some good (and the rest of them can potentially enjoy them, too).
For More on This Practice
Do you find yourself wondering how to organize your thoughts, tasks, and errands? Well, you’re not alone.
WLC Co-founder Andy Petranek talked about these feelings with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and the world’s leading expert on personal and organizational productivity.
Listen to the podcast to learn the fundamentals of David’s system, along with why much of what you believe about “productivity” is not actually helping you.
He graduated from UCLA with a BA in philosophy as well as a degree from the Southern California School of Culinary Arts, and feels food is one of the most important parts of a life - it can nourish, heal, and bring people together.
Michael believes health and well-being are as much a state of mind as they are a state of the body, and when it comes to fitness, food, and life in general, he thinks slow is much better than fast (most of the time). Stopping regularly to examine things is the surest way to put down roots and grow.
He knows he will never be done with his own work, and believes the best thing you can do for your well-being starts with loving and working from what you’ve got right now.
