You feel like you’ve ran out of new ideas. No matter how hard you’re trying, nothing seems to inspire you. Well, it’s something that every creative person experiences at various points in their life. It’s very natural to feel stuck and experience a creative block every now and then.
Creative block is a cue….
A creative slump is a not an indication of exhaustion of creativity. It’s just a sign that our brain is exhausted from all the creative thinking it does. In fact, I like to look creative block as a cue, a positive cue to taking a break.
What should be done?
If you want your creativity to flow back to you, you need to relax your brain. Do not try to force your brain to receive, retrieve or build any information that it doesn’t want to. Let your brain react to the surrounding in its natural way, however it would like, without trying to make sense of what, how and why? Let it absorb things as they are and allow it to generate a perspective without much deliberation and analysis.
Experience things actively
Your brain can not form a unique idea, if you are supplying too much information of one kind from particular sources. Let your mind wander around things that seem irrelevant to what you’re working on. Allow your brain the freedom to explore things on its own. Experience things actively without being proactive in the thinking process. Your focus should be on ‘experiencing’ rather than ‘thinking’. Watch your thoughts as they go by. If a thought feels like it’s draining you, don’t hold on to it. Let it go. It may be a new and inviting thought but if it stresses you out even a bit, it’s not worth clinging to for now. Maybe later, but not now.
Naval Ravikant in Joe Rogan’s podcast said:
A clear mind leads to better judgment, leads to better outcome. So, a happy, calm, peaceful person will make better decisions and have better outcomes. So if you want to operate at Peak Performance, you have to learn how to tame your mind just like you have to learn how to tame your body.
Therefore, to have a creatively better outcome, you must first calm your mind. You can indulge in various activities that don’t feel like work or a chore for a respite. Some activities are listed below:
- Taking a hot or cold shower.
- Going out for a walk/run.
- Spending time in nature around trees or lakes/ponds.
- Going for a swim.
- Meditating.
- Going to the gym or doing a workout at home.
- Cooking/ trying a new recipe.
- Painting/drawing.
- Watching a show/movie/documentary.
- Calling a friend.
- Having a fun conversation with family or friends.
- Spending time with kids or pets.
- Going on a hike.
- Going on a bicycle ride.
- Organizing your wardrobe.
- Dancing or singing.
- Listening to a fun podcast.
Basically, doing things that don’t feel difficult or draining and replenishes you with energy and motivation can help you get out of a creative slump. And remember to be kind to yourself in the process!