The benefits of a creative new year

Do you have a New Year’s resolution?

In the new year, the majority of new years resolutions seem to revolve around eating better or spending less; going to the gym as much as you physically can, or any other new habits that can be hard to keep up with. They don’t always give you the result you’re actually looking for – just to feel bit better.

Taking up a creative pass-time for the new year that offers mindfulness, is usually really inexpensive (especially in comparison to most gym memberships) all while giving you a new and healthy way to focus your mind and express yourself.

A creative break

Giving yourself a creative break from your normal work or uni assignments (particularly if you study a science or essay based subject where opportunities for being creative are rarer within your coursework) is a great way to break up your day and give you a separate sense of achievement.

If you feel stuck with the other things that you’re doing, being able to create something might give you that little boost of confidence and sense of achievement that you needed to get you going again. Additionally, its been suggested that having a creative hobby helps to curb the urge to overspend, as the feelings of expression, satisfaction and focus you get from creating, help to fill the same needs of self-expression that buying unnecessary things would have previously done.

So instead of having to cut down to save money in the new year, taking up something creative means you can do more and have more! While also breaking a habit you may have made a resolution to try and fix on its own.

Creativity can relieve stress!

But the most often talked about benefit of being creative is its ability to relieve stress! Creativity focuses your mind on something outside yourself. Creating is very mindful; writing something based on what you’re dealing with, can really help in processing those things in a more healthy way, letting you explore how it’s affecting you.

Mindfulness is always important, but particularly for students around the start of the year, with many of us having deadlines or exams coming up. Trying out and finding new ways to manage stress is vital.

There are a handful of habits often found with creative people which if you can develop them yourself, will help these artistic New Year’s resolutions stick; the main one being, engaging with this new creative outlet every day. Even if what you paint, draw, write or photograph doesn’t come out exactly how you wanted it to, practice makes perfect and trying something new every day will help develop your skills, while also figuring out what parts of whichever type of creativity you’ve chosen you enjoy most.

Keep a broad perspective on what you’re creating, have a look around for inspiration and keep a little note of any ideas that come you to you. This helps both keep the habit of engaging with your art everyday and also keeps it fresh for your brain.

Don’t let any new year’s resolution become boring, or why would you dedicate whole year to it?