Did you know that nostalgia is the secret tool you can use to spark your creativity? (Think: 👶🏻 ➕ 🎡 = 🚀🧨✍🏻🎨🔥‼️) Nostalgia reconnects you with your childlike self, breathes new life into your writing process, and reminds you what creating for FUN used to feel like!

Learn how it works—both psychologically and practically—and how you can use this hack to spark your creativity today! Yayeyayeyayeyayeyaye.

How does nostalgia spark creativity? 🤔

Nostalgia is a deeply emotional experience

Not to scare you—but you may cry. And that’s allowed here. (*gently hands you a tissue*)

Stepping back in time to a mental state when life wasn’t so complicated, when we were safe and curious and open to everything. Before X happened… Using emotional triggers like songs, smells, toys, and cartoons can evoke strong feelings from the past. Emotionally charged memories may rise to the surface. They might even surprise us—which is exactly why we should do it.

Creativity thrives on emotion. It gives our ideas texture, and soul, and honesty. Without honesty and the exploration of human emotion, what are we even doing here? Writing an entertaining book with a racially diverse cast about a girl who runs into a glass door, with a few dirty jokes sprinkled in, and a hot man on the cover—and that’s all?

I digress…

Nostalgia gives access to our imaginative mind

Shockingly, kids are wildly imaginative. They build entire kingdoms from cardboard boxes and believe in magic without a fingernail’s breadth of hesitation. Nostalgia helps us bypass our stale “Adult Brain” (with all its super-awesome, pounded-in filters and rules) and step back into that freer, wilder headspace.

And it’s awesome.

Nostalgia brings us back to when everything was new and flexible

Childhood is where our personal stories began. The places we grew up, the characters who surrounded us, the games we played—they’re like foundational folklore. Revisiting them gives us rich, authentic material to draw from.

As kids, our lives, dreams, and even our personalities were malleable. We could be anyone we wanted to be—no restrictions and all the possibilities. Nostalgia helps reawaken that sense of unencumbered freedom. Nothing was so serious as to be permanent, and everything was new. Anything was possible.

Seeing the world with fresh eyes is the cornerstone of creativity.

Okay. So obviously—I’ve convinced you. 💅🏻

Nostalgia’s the bee’s knees. So let’s get started.

How to use nostalgia to spark creativity 👇🏻

Think of ten-year-old you. Can you picture her? (So cute.)

What was she like? Was she a tomboy? Girly-girl? Was she outgoing? Shy? Talkative? Adventurous?

By contrast, think of Current You. Are they the same? Was there a crossroads in your life where things changed, or was it a gentle fading away? How are the two You’s different? How are the two You’s the same?

Take out a pen and paper, spend some time, and really think about this. Only you know you and what makes you tick. Time to bring that old girl to the surface—because she never left.

I am of the belief that we never really grow up. We are simply our ten-year-old selves—
but with a credit card and more responsibilities.

Why go back to ten years old?

To me, ten was the age when I was undeniably, one-hundred-percent me, and no one could change it. I was obnoxious. Confident. Chatty. Observant. Dripping with charisma.

I stared—A LOT. At ten, I voiced my opinion, did what I want, and wasn’t afraid to be “weird”. I wore ankle warmers on my wrists. One day, I’d dress like a grandma, complete with a tweed vest and pearls. The next day, I’d be a skater chick with baggy jeans and a backwards baseball cap. (I went through a whooole backwards-baseball-cap period. Oh yeah—I was very cool.)

I loved The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and playing in mud. Fashion, and Nancy Drew, and dancing to my Barlow Girls CD in front of the mirror like the Vanilla Baddie (that I still am) while getting ready for church on Sunday.

Because that girl is me. At her core. Stripped of all the gunk and funk of “growing up.” And by reconnecting with her, I can tap back into her vivid imagination, her endless stream of daydreams, and her obnoxiously confident curiosity about the most mundane things.

Your turn. 🤗

Think back to an age when you were oblivious to outside influence. When you were creative and curious and open to new things. When life meant safety, and bicycle rides, and skinned knees, and eating popsicles that dripped down your elbow, and lying on your back, watching the ceiling fan spin on a lazy summer afternoon.

What were you like? What books did you read, or TV shows did you watch, or games did you play?

Did childhood smell a certain way? Feel a certain way? Taste a certain way?

Write. Down. Everything.

25+ ways to jumpstart your nostalgia and spark creativity 👇🏻

[Comment below if you’d like me to go on—because I can go on. Ohh boy, can I go on.]

The short on using nostalgia to spark your creativity 💁🏻‍♀️

Nostalgia works to spark creativity because it reconnects us to the part of ourselves that was curious, unfiltered, unjaded, and imaginative.

It bypasses the inner critic and gets us back to the why behind creating—ie, to have a gosh golly darn good jolly time* (and sometimes, because we were bored 🤷🏻‍♀️).

By bringing the nostalgia from your past to your present, you may find that your childhood self—that doe-eyed, adorable, free-spirited, creative girl comes with it.

And that’s what it’s all for. 😎

What activities, snacks, shows, and smells take you back to childhood? Does it help spark creativity from a childlike perspective?

Comment below!