<aside> 📌 As we know, our mental and physical health affects everything in our lives and the truth is that when we're not at our best, mentally, we can't give our best, creatively. If you're like me, then you know all of the "common" aspects to maintaining mental health and the general advice given about those aspects. It may sound like "exercise!" or "meditate!" or "go to therapy!" While all of those things are valid and have a place, I think there are other aspects that no one talks about. No one talks about them because if they did - changes would have to be made. So let's talk about them.
Your mental health is influenced heavily by your capacity. Let's think of your capacity as a battery charger. On any given day, your capacity level changes, and under normal circumstances (aka NOT a pandemic, NOT an abnormal election, NOT global fatigue, etc), you might be able to say to yourself, "okay, I have an average capacity level of X." But under abnormal circumstances, that capacity level decreases. Now throw in your own personality and limits, and you have a pretty unstable amount of capacity.
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Download a blank Capacity Battery and reflect on where your capacity levels are at. Think about all the things that deplete or recharge that capacity.
Use the prompts below to get clarity on your needs.
Hover over this image until you see the 3 dots, then select download to get your own copy
This is a starter list and is no way limited to what is here, please add, delete, tweak or reorder in a way that makes sense for you.
<aside> 🧠 PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY Do I feel psychologically safe enough to be creative?
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<aside> 💪 PHYSICAL SAFETY Do I feel physically safe enough to be creative?
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<aside> 🧠 MENTAL WELL-BEING (Ex: Stress, activation, depression, anxiety, etc). Do I feel mentally well enough to be creative?
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<aside> 💪 PHYSICAL WELL-BEING (Ex: chronic pain, migraines, flu, etc). Do I feel physically well enough to be creative?
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<aside> 🔋 CAPACITY CHARGE How much capacity do you have to be creative? What changes or tweaks do you need to make to ensure that you have enough "charge" in your capacity to focus on creativity?
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Other needs: