ecause most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our c

Most of us have embarked on new diets or exercise regimes in an effort to be more healthy, lose weight and get our bodies in better physical shape.

Here’s what usually happens:

We start with huge motivation and the best of intentions, and for a few days or weeks, all goes fantastically well. The weight comes off, our fitness noticeable improves, and we start to feel a little healthier.

But then, a few weeks, or even days in, almost inevitably we begin to falter. We start to miss how we were before. The extreme structure of the diet plan, so different to how we exercised, ate and lived before, starts to feel too demanding, too much of a strain and too much to maintain.

In short, the radical plan we began on may have helped us to gain some very short term benefits, but it’s simply not sustainable. Because most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our c

motivation and the best of intentions, and for a few days or weeks, all goes fantastically well. The weight comes off, our fitness noticeable improves, and we start to feel a little healthier.

But then, a few weeks, or even days in, almost inevitably we begin to falter. We start to miss how we were before. The extreme structure of the diet plan, so different to how we exercised, ate and lived before, starts to feel too demanding, too much of a strain and too much to maintain.

In short, the radical plan we began on may have helped us to gain some very short term benefits, but it’s simply not sustainable. Because most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our c

a few weeks, or even days in, almost inevitably we begin to falter. We start to miss how we were before. The extreme structure of the diet plan, so different to how we exercised, ate and lived before, starts to feel too demanding, too much of a strain and too much to maintain.

In short, the radical plan we began on may have helped us to gain some very short term benefits, but it’s simply not sustainable. Because most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our c

to feel too demanding, too much of a strain and too much to maintain.

In short, the radical plan we began on may have helped us to gain some very short term benefits, but it’s simply not sustainable. Because most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our c

ecause most diets are aimed at short term weight loss or an increase in fitness, not at a long term new way of healthy living.

How does this relate to our creative lives?

Similarly in our creative lives, we may have an idea for a new creative project, begin it with huge enthusiasm, commit hours a day to it for a few weeks then realise that this too is not sustainable.

We see other things in our lives start to slide, the motivation we had when we began the new project starts to falter, our creative resistance notches up a few gears, and before long, the new project is resigned to a dusty shelf in a dark cupboard along with the dozens of others we’ve begun equally enthusiastically in the past.

Sound at all familiar to you?

And, in that same forgotten cupboard, take a look at the shelf below. Yep, there’s all those crash diet plan books...

Why don't these crash diets work?

So what can we do? How can we maintain the impetus and momentum we gain from those first few days of