Solution #9: Creativity Blockage

What it feels like:
You feel so blocked. When you do get a few minutes to be creative, it just doesn’t flow.

You sit down to create and nothing comes, or what comes feels horrible.
You have been pushing so hard and working so hard that you feel burnt out and there is nothing left to give to your art.
Or you are performing and are so worried about doing it right, that you aren’t able to let go and enjoy being in the moment.

This shouldn’t be so hard. You’re an artist – it should just flow easily. And maybe it did at one time, but doesn’t seem to anymore. So how do you get back to the joy? How do you release the muse? How do you unblock your creativity?

Success Solution:

Time Management Solution

For some people, the solution to this problem is simply a time management issue. To carve out a set time that you consistently “show up to the page” as writers say. It may also be an issue of figuring out your own bio-rhythms and setting your creativity time to match when your creative energy is at its height.

And then, if you just show up, day after day, with consistency, the block will dissolve. Because it was created from all the times you broke your promise to yourself. You promised yourself that today you’d give your art some time. But, the phone rang, the kids begged, the boss demanded, whatever, and you broke your promise to yourself.

The creative muse that lives inside of you is a sensitive creature. He or she needs a safe, non-judgmental place in which to grow and flower. She needs nurturing and feeding that has no relation to production. He needs you to keep your promises to him!

So if you block out the time and keep that promise like a sacred vow, that alone will begin to lower the wall. It may not happen immediately. But if you determine that you will show up and you do, day after day. And you allow yourself to improvise, noodle, write badly, brainstorm, etc. And no matter what the results, you keep showing up like you promise, the creativity will begin to flow.

But for some of you, the solution isn’t that simple. Because the real challenge is your own inner critic and the only way you can break through this block is to give yourself permission to create badly, to do it wrong, to make mistakes.

A Time to Create and a Time to Edit

If your creativity block is being created or even reinforced by your inner critic, the first thing I’d recommend is completely separating the creation process from the editing process. These two activities actually use a different part of your brain and if you activate the editor while you’re in the birthing state of creation, it can shut the creative voice down.

So schedule different blocks of time to edit the work you’ve initiated during your creative time. And I recommend, if you’re doing both in one day, that you do the creative segment first. You’re editor is probably pretty stubborn and if you start with her, you may not be able to get her to shut up long enough to free up the creative voice.

During the creative segment, don’t try to finish or perfect anything, write badly, create rough sketches, brainstorm ideas, riff and improvise (though figure out a way to record those riffs and improvisations). Then during your editing period, take those ideas and develop them, hone them, polish them to the finished product.

Transforming Your Inner Critic

One of the primary things I teach in the class, Transform Your Inner Critic Into Your Staunchest Ally, is that your critic is actually on your side! He or she wants you to succeed and is doing his level best to ensure that you succeed. The problem is that very often your critic’s communication skills suck!

Notice how you speak to yourself and how you judge yourself and find ways to be more forgiving, kinder and gentler with yourself. Ask your critic if he or she can give you the information in a more supportive voice. Ask her to tell you what she wants you to do, instead of telling you what’s wrong with you.

As you retrain your inner critic to be a better coach, you will free up your inner muse and allow for a more vibrant and alive creative process. This can be challenging to do on your own, because you have spent your entire life either suppressing or denying your critic or agreeing with your critic when he or she tells you that you’re doing it all wrong. So, you need to retrain your listening for your critic as well as retrain your critic to become your coach.

This is more than using affirmations and the power of positive thinking. This is about learning completely new habits and skills to deal with your inner critic, because what you’ve been doing has only been empowering and strengthening him while dis-empowering you.

It’s time to teach him who’s boss in your head. That takes being conscious of how you’re interacting with your critic and choosing a new conversation with him or her. It requires you first to acknowledge her and that she really only wants the best for you. And then you need to become his coach and teach him a more supportive way to communicate with you.

Creating IS Hard Work!

And finally, the truth is, creating a really high quality product that is original, highly polished – the best work you can do, is HARD WORK. If it were easy – everyone would do it, right? In order to reach the potential of your talent, you must be disciplined, committed, strong-willed and willing to do whatever it takes to express your unique creativity.

So, you must ask yourself – what are you willing to do in order to be truly your best? And settle for nothing less.

Recommended Actions

Use your new found Time Management skills to schedule a consistent time block for creativity and protect and defend that time with your life. Use Time Management from the Inside Out to polish those skills
Nurture your inner muse. A perfect tool for this is the Artist’s Date that Julia Cameron speaks about in The Artist’s Way.
Read Taming Your Gremlin
Separate your editing activities from creative activities – schedule a consistent and separate time block for each.
Practice, practice, practice
Get professional external feedback on your work – so you can discover whether your inner critic is accurate in his or her assessment of your work.
Hone your skills so you can produce the quality of work you believe yourself capable of.