Do you adapt your daily routines to your seasonal energy cycles?
It sounds an odd question when we look at the definition of routine and how we build habits. But there is a difference between consistency and rigidity. A difference between being adaptable and being constrained. Which way do you approach taking action, following through on your rituals, routines and actions? And have you noticed the difference in how you behave when your energy is contracting or expanding?
Our energy levels change through a cycle - the same ebb and flow shown in the the tides. How could it be anything else? You can’t give and give and give with no rest. (You can but that’s called burnout and exhaustion, and even that has an ending.) The seedy underbelly of being human is that how we feel and what we are inclined to do fluctuates. It’s nature and discounting the inconsistent ways we interact with the world does us a disservice in flourishing creatively.
Yet if you read popular books on morning routines, successful habits, personal development, work and productivity… they tend to advocate doing the same thing every single day; day in, day out, season after season. Consistency is seen as possible only through rote and repetition, as if humanity can be programmed to behave like a machine on the assembly line.
the only constant is change
But does that even make sense? Are people so habituated to “the daily grind” that there is a perfect, singular routine that works every day of the year? No. And when you’re a woman you learn early on that your energy levels change. You start to understand that, despite all noise to contradict, some days of the month your body’s cycle changes how you feel, how you think and your energy.
But energy fluctuations happen to all of us regardless of prescribed biology. Our energy runs to our own internal clock, and much like nature, it relates back to circadian rhythms, lunar cycles and seasonal changes.
adapting to your instincts…
Let’s talk about seasons. I am not a winter person - ask any of my childhood friends how often I got the comment “you’re a terrible Canadian!” after admitting I neither liked cold nor watched hockey growing up. (And I retrained myself from saying “eh?” after some mocking.) My energy cycles confirm this truth. In winter, the morning is a cold and dark monstrosity I back away from in favour of warm blankets and stillness. At 8am, I might crack an eyelid to see some light through the window and drag myself out when external forces demand it. Some days I wake up earlier - 6, 7, and I curl into a ball until finally my circadian rythmn is activated and I fall into a light sleep.
In summer, I wake up at 430, 5 - coming to life as the first beams of light dance through the window. By 7 I am rating to go. I can read, write, go for walks, clean - all before sliding in front of the computer at 9.
Conventional wisdom would dictate that I continue this morning ritual of productive living through the fall, force myself through it in winter and so it would be ready to go when summer comes around again...
This year I didn’t do that. From about October my morning activity routine and creative rituals went out the window. I snuggled. I welcomed the warm bodies of cats finally wanting to curl up on my feet as the weather cooled. I slept more. I conserved.
screw convention…
Being adaptable is a trait lauded in business classes and yet some of the most successful personal productivity viewpoints deny its existence in favour of a one size fits all fixed point.
Here’s the shitty little truth about forcing yourself to carry a routine through all seasons, unchanging - you stop trusting your inner wisdom. You stop paying attention to your body. You stop listening to your inner cues. Resentment builds. You become a strict disciplinarian instead of a supportive coach. Forced to go against your natural inclination, you start to hate doing things that you love, things meant to nourish and energise your heart, not deplete it. Personally, I‘ve experienced sitting down to write exhausted as every instinct tries to pull away; callously compelling myself forward with the mantra that this this is the only way, but loathing the process. And I’ve sat down excited about my ideas and the unfurling creativity ahead. I prefer the latter.
Conventional wisdom is often made out as if it’s the final say. Look, he’s great at it, he’s making it within the artificial structures of the world - do it this way.
Or you could change the structures you’re working in. Dial up your inner voice and inner reality, and dial down that of the outside world.
Why should we, as creatives, as the examples often held up in business classes and beyond to show how someone “changed the world by being different” be encouraged to bury those instincts when it comes to our own lives? To feel a craving to sleep in until 9 when the temperatures drop (or in general because we feel inclined to stay until 2) and instead succumb to the idea that someone else knows better than we do what will work for us.
That my friends, is how imposter syndrome forms. Or worse, resenting your forced process makes it easy to fall out of love with creating entirely.
And is forced activity a useful way to spend one’s energy?
I say no.
But as an Alchemist, I don’t do my best work in straight, steady exertion anyway. My archetype thrives on the magic of spontaneity, and I prefer sprints and bursts similar to a cat waking up after 10 hours to chase a ball across the floor without warning.
Alchemists are often at the extremes of… chaos, but multi-passionate artisans and oracles also benefit from giving up a little bit of rigid structure for flow.
gathering forces…
All December I’ve been trying to explain my lack of “productivity” to my coaching masterminds: I’ve felt like the stage before a tsunami emerges; when water recedes from the shores, drawn into a growing phenomenon that will eventually unleash. The more water amassed, the more power the tsunami has.
I’d prefer not to use a natural disaster but it’s what I identify with. I didn’t hit the pavement in December with offers and ideas because that wasn’t where my energy was at. I didn’t push myself to wake up early and do, do, do, because my mind, body and heart needed to rest instead. To gather and draw in all of me to focus inwards so that I would have a bigger impact when I turned that energy out again.
a fresh start…
It’s currently 745 and there’s just the first sign outside my window that the sun exists at the edge of the world. I’ve been awake for 2 hours. I’ve been out of bed for 1 - giving in to an amplifying buzz of energy eager to get going and make sense of the year.
I didn’t feel this way last January. Oh, I was up, dragging myself to catch a train to commute to an office. Burrowing into giant sweaters and comfy jeans to try and keep the feeling of sleep for just a moment more. But I didn’t feel excited about it. I didn’t want to be there, running to make a train (oops) after a long, cold, rainy December of doing the same thing. October and November as well.
But after an autumn and December of languid 830 wake ups to sit at a desk in my living room, it turns out this is when my energy begins to shift away from winter hibernation and into spring emergence. Not April or May as has been in years past.
I’m excited to spend January doing too much, starting new creative projects, changing interests, and discovering a pattern that works for me - the multipassionate method as it were. Being able to recognise how my energy cycle works and the focus shifts helps me find alignment in my work. It helps me recognise when a project isn’t right at the early stages, which book I want to write first, and even to push through my yoga certification knowing I’d prefer an in-person element over virtual.
being in alignment…
I don’t know about you, but I like knowing if I love an idea enough to finish it. For me, 2020 was a time to become attuned to this inner insight and understand how to be in alignment.
It’s why I was able to recognise that resistance is a good sign.
It’s why I pursued a coaching and yoga certification.
It’s helped me trust my storytelling to be better at understanding human behaviour through MBTI, human design and tarot.
This ability becomes muted when I’m forcing myself to expend energy that would prefer to turn inwards. It dulls when I’m making myself use someone else’s routine to write daily, until I’m not interested enough to finish telling the story that grabbed me.
I would love to know if you share my overarching seasonal energy cycle. You may find your energy shifts are more subtle if you’re an Oracle or Artisan, and work better with consistent energy output over irregular bursts, but we all need conservation and creation time to thrive. And I am sure for some people, regardless of archetype, it’s the winter cold that ignites the creative energy!
Find your creativity archetype
And if you’ve ever stepped out of conventional wisdom about how to run your life, and found success in trusting yourself first... drop me a note to say what you learned and how it changed you!