Getting through creative block, permanently.
I think it’s fair to say that most artists will have struggled with creative block in their lifetime. I find this especially true when you work in the creative industry and have turned one of your passions into your career. Compound that with exposure to excellence on social media, and you get a nice little mix of inspiration and debilitating self-sabotage. But how can you avoid falling into this creative pitfall? How do we transcend our own self-judgment to be free in our creative flow?
Here are some strategies to help you navigate this territory. What works for you will depend on the reasons for your creative block. It’s important to understand ourselves as a system, where a lack of balance can throw other areas out of whack. Nothing is isolated, so always examine your current life circumstances with a keen and honest eye if you really want to get to the bottom of things. That being said, let’s get started.
1. Find other creative outlets.
If your only creative outlet is related to your day job, I would highly recommend changing that. There are so many attachments that come with our careers, it can be incredibly difficult to stay open and neutral. When you’re being paid to make something, there’s a level of quality that’s expected, which adds a lot of creative pressure. When you move from doing client work to your own, you may have added expectations, or negative connotations from past experience. You likely find yourself judging what you do before you even give it a chance. If I think about what drawing and illustration became for me, it didn’t feel like a safe refuge. It felt more like a trap of expectation and resistance, like I was forcing myself to do it because “that’s who I am”. And it just never felt right, it hasn’t for a long time. There’s too much attached to it now and it isn’t fun anymore, lacking passion and excitement. So, for now we move on to something else.
2. Learn new skills
Learning something new can be very rewarding because you can clearly see your progress. This creates satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment, which is a part of the feeling we’re chasing when we create something. This absolutely does not need to be a creative, or traditionally creative, skill. The important aspect is to stimulate your mind in new, active ways. Exploring new skills allows you to broaden your perspective, opening you up to new possibilities. This means that when you go back to your original block, you will likely see new options, or just have a totally new approach altogether that you don’t have to force out of yourself. I’ve been learning Japanese on Duolingo, and find it incredibly satisfying, stimulating, and rewarding. A new language is particularly good for opening the mind.
3. Visit a new place
You don’t need to travel, but make the effort to see more of the world around you so you can broaden your perspective. Open yourself to new sensual experiences — new sights, sounds, smells. Chase what inspires and interests you. It really is important to make an effort because it’s like opening a door. If we make no effort to expand our horizons, they will remain the same until change is, usually brutally, forced upon us. Don’t limit yourself to only “nice” things. All experiences have something to offer, the value is yours to determine.
4. Relax your thinking mind as often as possible
Part of creative block is over-thinking. When we practice something like meditation, we are practicing neutrality in our perspective. Remaining neutral means you aren’t judging an experience, but accepting it for what it is. You don’t have to meditate if it doesn’t speak to you, but I would highly encourage you to give it a shot. Breathwork may be a more accessible entry point as it gives you an action to focus on. Qigong and Yoga are both fantastic and can be fundamentally transformational, just ask Nick Loffree. Choose an activity in the moment that feels right and helps you to equalise — sometimes you need more action, sometimes quiet. You will know. My recommendation is to do something in this line every day — the effects of these practices compound over time. It is much more effective to do a little bit every day than to do a lot randomly.
I started meditating every night before bed in February of this year (2024) and cannot recommend it enough. Sometimes it’s a led practice, sometimes I just put a timer on my phone and close my eyes until it goes off. Sometimes I find myself meditating randomly throughout the day because I genuinely enjoy it so much. It wasn’t always the case. Find what works for you.
5. Have fun in other areas of your life
Fun is something we can take for granted as adults, especially when you deal with a lot of life stress. It is a great cure for many ailments, even more so when there’s a lack of it your life. It can be anything really, as long as you can let go for a moment and just enjoy yourself. It may sound ridiculous, but try giving yourself permission to do this. In my experience, there’s a tendency to hold myself back because I’m so in my head. But when I consciously give myself permission, there’s an intention behind my state of being. This intention can be incredibly powerful— you can try it out in different areas of your life and see how magical it can be. Intentions should be positive and aim to serve in some fashion. There is always a why behind an intention that fuels it, so keep that in mind when you set them — superficial intentions lead to superficial results.
Concluding…
The strategies I’ve laid out here are practices that you can incorporate into your daily life to help you establish balance when your creative energy gets stagnant. I would encourage you to implement these gradually to avoid overwhelming yourself with more obligations, and find what resonates with you. You can also combine them. It’s important to remember that our creativity is an energy, and energy requires a clear channel through which to flow in order for it to work properly. It is typically a lack of balance that leads to blocks and stagnation, so the more you can practice finding balance in your life, the more your creative energy will flow.
