Your creative spirit is the essence of who you are, and it deserves to be nurtured, celebrated, and given room to flourish. It’s what makes people love your art.

But just like you might have learned in therapy: you need to put on your breathing mask before putting on other people’s.

To truly show up for yourself, you need to understand that creativity is an exercise.

And if creativity is an exercise, then rituals are both your warm-up and recovery.

Let’s talk about some powerful ways to take care of your space, body, and career, so you can create the best space for yourself to ✨ positively thrive. ✨

🫶 10 Ways to Show Up For Yourself to Nurture Your Creative Spirit

Learning how to show up for yourself first means prioritizing the 3 lifestyle muses: your home, your body, and your creative career.

This is “self-care routines” but with a twist — remembering that my favorite self-motivation tips have been turning routines into rituals and romanticizing that part of my creative life.

🙏 1. Establish a Sacred Creative Space (Home Studio)

Building self-confidence and love in your process and craft starts with turning your home into your home studio.

This sacred space can become a physical manifestation of your commitment to creativity, where your ideas can flow freely. How, might you ask? Well, in a perfect world, you’ve designed this home studio to be the colors you love. Surrounded by the things that make you happy.

With artwork and pieces you’ve curated or thrifted to truly design a space that says, “hi, it’s me.”

🔮 2. Create Daily Rituals

Effective daily rituals can be simple. I’m talking about chores, but updated and turned into true, romanticized rituals you go through like a practice.

I talk about rituals more in-depth in this video 👇

Some rituals I like to have:

• Get out of the house 1x a day (I work from home, so I need it!)
• Watching a funny, upbeat show before bed
• Falling asleep to red lights and Headspace meditations

It sounds really cliche, I know, to talk about the mindfulness practices I have, but mindfulness and meditation doesn’t always have to be actively taking time out of your day to sit down and do it (though it’s a great way of doing so).

I also want to make it a point to do Morning Pages a la The Artist’s Way! I’m not there yet… but soon.

😍 3. Go on Artist Dates

Speaking of the Artist’s Way (a book that I have started 5x and have finished 0x), Artist Dates are an amazing way of showing up for yourself weekly. It’s like a little play date with your inner artist. A time to refill your creative well and spark new ideas.

Artist Dates can be as diverse as your imagination allows, granted they have something to do with artistry. Some ideas include:

• Visiting a museum or art gallery
• Going to a local show
• Exploring a new neighborhood in your city
• Taking a cooking class or going to a new restaurant by yourself or with a book

Even if you’re an extrovert, these dates can be a great way to recharge your creative energy. They can also expose you to new experiences, perspectives, and stimuli that can fuel your artistic work.

Like this so far? You might like this next → The Law of Least Effort: When It Can Transform (& Backfire) In Your Art

🥗 4. Make Healthy Eating Easy

Does the phrase “healthy eating” make you cringe? Because same, and I’m meat-free, dairy-free, and 75% of the time, gluten-free (lol).

But for artists, our bodies are our instruments. So yes, it does matter what we put in them (and the types of products we buy, too).

I’m not going to sit here and tell you to eat exactly like I do — but if you’re reading this thinking “ugh, you’re right, I do have to change a lot about how I eat,” what would it be?

What do you know first-hand, right now, that you should change about what you eat? And what’s holding you back from doing it?

So there’s the food — but there’s also the products you buy.

We’re in a graduate phase-out of plastics and purchasing as much glass, food-grade silicone, and non-toxic pans and products as we can. I also think about what I put on my skin (lotions, deodorants, soap, shampoo, conditioner, cleanser, makeup, clothes) and the air in our space.

🤸 5. Find Intention in Physical Movement: Roller Skating, Hot Yoga, Walking, Etc.

We talked about rituals, we talked about healthy eating — now pair it with the perfect match: movement.

Movement increases blood flow to the brain, releases endorphins, and can help shift your perspective — aka, fewer creative blocks, more inspiration.

The beauty of intentional movement is that it should Spark Joy for you. If you love yoga, then yay! Feel great on roller skates? Awesome. Love a daily walk? Let’s go.

Of course, you might want to advance and diversify your exercise journey at some point — but I’ve found having a few go-tos is great so you can switch things up.

My favorite part of this is habit-stacking. If I know I should go to the gym one day after riding my roller skates for weeks on-end, then I play a podcast I’ve been listening to. Or I put on a show I love.

I do something I know I’m already going to do, and pair up that habit. Simple as that!

🤳 6. Create a Manifestation Lock Screen

The concept is simple. But it’s my favorite way to have easy manifestation right at my fingertips (literally). I either put affirmations or a vision board right on my phone’s lock screen.

This way, I’m beating myself to the punch. I’m putting my dreams and goals at the forefront of my mind, before I overthink too much about how it’s going to happen.

Of course, I have systems in place to make it happen. I do have some weird and wonderful tools for artist productivity.

🕺 7. Set Boundaries In Your Cozy Girl Job

If you’re lucky enough to have a Cozy Girl Job, then yay! You’re remote, you have your own hours, and you’re getting paid 👏 what 👏 you’re 👏 worth (or, at least, more than minimum wage, which is still awesome!).

Now, it’s about creating boundaries for yourself. I loooove how Teal Swan defines boundaries:

According to Teal Swan, boundaries are guidelines for how someone relates self to the rest of the world.

I love that! Sometimes, it’s not just all “no” boundaries. It’s simply what you believe and don’t believe, defining you like when you’re a mere shape in TV static, versus holding up a hand and saying “no.”

So, when it comes to your Cozy Girl Job (and, heck, any job you have), ask yourself how you relate to the world? What is super okay and awesome for you? (For me, it’s when people send me GIFs. Super cute and fun!). What is not okay with you? (For me, it’s making fake fires out of small things and shaming and yelling at me/your team as a result.)

These boundaries can also include time management for self-improvement, like batching your work or time. For instance, as a freelancer, I’ve loved waking up early (around 6:30 or 7am) and working until noon so I’m done with work for the rest of the day!

Of course, this needs to mean the people you work with and for respecting those boundaries. Thankfully, I have that now, but that wasn’t always the case.

Think about the boundaries you have both for yourself and that others have with you. Is there anything you’d change? Workshop things. See what fits.

🎓 8. Be a Forever Student From YouTube University & Courses

If you have creative dreams, I bet you’re the first thing to say that you’ll never stop learning.

As artists, we always want to advance more, both inside and outside of our craft! I fully believe in investing in great training for your specific art as one of many personal development strategies in your artist toolbox. But when it comes to further education after getting that fundamental training, it doesn’t have to cost anything!

On the contrary, I love me a good online course. But you have to be at the right place to do it. I’ve only ever bought online courses after seeing that I was super committed to learning everything I could learn for free on YouTube, first. Once I saw that I was committed to it, then I invested in the course.

A little tip I loved from Deya is to find an online course you want to buy, look for the module outline, and then create a YouTube playlist of videos that are roughly named the same as each of those modules. Voila — you’ve DIYed a YouTube course, totally for free.

Speaking of free learning, you might want to take a peek at this blog post, next: How to Find Free Creative Coaching to Light Your Path 💡

🙌 9. Create Beautiful Artist Systems

Artist systems are the backbone of a sustainable creative practice. We can’t talk about the manifestation lock screen — or manifestation in general — without talking about the goal-setting techniques to make it happen.

So, what do these systems look like? Well, it can largely depend on what your goal is. If it’s to make money to save up, then maybe your system needs to help you get more clients, or get a full-time job.

For you, I’d ask: What are 5 things you can do every day to get closer to that goal? Break it down.

If your goal is to put a record out, then you probably need a project management platform (I love Asana) to help track the songs, and use Google Calendar to block out times.

“But Kira, you said beautiful systems.” Yes ma’am, I did!

Because within these systems, you should make it YOUR OWN. Do allll the customizations. Color-coordinate everything. Use emojis YOU LOVE. Customize all you can to make it feel like it’s oozing you (like your home!)

Because who says project management and organization has to be boring?!

After all, we’re artists. We’re here to make beauty. And we’re much more likely to use something that’s also beautiful, itself.

👯‍♀️ 10. Find Artist Friends & Body Double

Creativity thrives in community. Finding like-minded artist friends and engaging in body doubling can significantly enhance your creative practice and provide much-needed support and accountability methods.

But wait… what is body-doubling? (It probably sounds really weird if you have no idea what it is, lol!)

Body doubling is a technique where you work alongside someone else, either in person or virtually, without necessarily collaborating. The overall energy of having someone else doing work with you has been proven to help increase your focus and productivity. For creatives, it can be particularly powerful in overcoming procrastination and maintaining momentum and accountability on projects.

This could be literally Facetiming with a friend and saying “alright, I need to work on X, and you need to work on Y. We’ll check in in an hour and see how we are. Now… go!”

Or, you can purchase a body-doubling subscription, like Flow Club.

🎥 Let’s Be Accountability Buddies on YouTube

Wait, did we even meet yet?! I’m Kira, a female singer-songwriter and lover of talking about everything artist lifestyle. I’m pursuing my creative journey just like you are, and figured you might want to be friends on YouTube. If not, I’m just happy you’re here, reading this. Stay inspired, friend. 🫶