The Creative Headspace
Or, "Mental shifts that might help stop blocking your own creativity".
I've struggled with feeling creatively blocked for years. Post-covid especially did a number on my mental health, dragging my confidence and creativity down with it. I wanted to write and create, but moments of flow were few and far between. Mostly I just felt stuck.
Lately, however, something has shifted. I'm writing again. Creating again. Finding joy in the process.
If you consider yourself a creative person who's battled some version of writer's block, you've probably consumed hours of content about how to overcome it. I know I did. I devoured all the advice: YouTube videos, TikToks, Instagram captions, and countless books. So. Many. Books.
Implementing the advice was another story.
I think there are two parts to absorbing advice.
First, you hear it over and over, in different ways, until it finally resonates with your particular brain. You go “ahaaa, NOW I get it”, despite hearing it 385,703 thousand times before.
The other part is playing with it. Like trying on jeans. You can’t just look at the advice and gather if it’s going to work for you, you have to try it on. See how it fits. Sometimes you feel right away how wrong it is and you take it off. Sometimes you have to wear it for a while, sit in it, walk around, maybe do some jumping jacks, what do I know. Maybe the fit is perfect, but you’re just not feeling comfortable with yourself, and then it doesn’t matter anyway. The issue is not advice, it’s how you feel, in this moment. /
For whatever reason, I feel more at ease creatively now than I have in a very long time. This post is my attempt to explain what I think helped. Maybe this will fit like a perfect pair of jeans at just the right time for someone else. Or maybe I'm just having a temporary creative surge and will be back in my slump next week. Either way, here are the three shifts that I think made a difference for me!
Ignore the judgy little voice
When I was doing a writing workshop in Berlin I told my therapist I struggled to speak up. I felt like I didn’t have the same insights the others did and whatever I would say would not bring any value to the group. “Do you also have something you want to say?” she asked. Which I did. This was the point where I realized I could separate the judgy little voice in my head and make the active choice to not listen to it.
I’ve heard people describing this a thousand times without seeing I had this too — I wholeheartedly identified with judging myself. And apparently it took me 37 years to realise I didn’t have to? Wild.
This translates to writing and publishing online as well. I always hear that voice saying it’s not good enough, valuable enough, but I publish anyway and you know what, nothing bad has happened. Quite the opposite, actually.
Follow the sparks
Every time I had a spark of wanting to write something, or do some design change on my blog, I would immediately think about all the things I should do that is more important. Like, writing a blog piece that has more value, or telling myself tweaking my design is just procrastinating.
The story I told myself was that everything I felt inspired to do was not worth doing, until I did the “important” things first. This might sound healthy, it is one of the more common productivity advice out there, but the result for me has been that I pretty much don’t do anything creatively. I would kill the spark to create before it ever had time to catch fire and bring life to what I’m trying to do.
What I’m exploring now is to go with my hunches. Whatever sparks joy, any little idea I have, I just start. Some things might never see the light of day, and you know what, that’s perfectly fine. I’m creating. I’m taking action. And with every action, the things on my “should” list becomes so much easier to do as well. Momentum. Do not underestimate it.
On Sunday I had nothing on my schedule and felt the urge to rebuild my blog. I found a template, bought it, spent the whole day tweaking it to my liking. A typical thing that could feel like "an excuse for not doing the real work", but happens to make me really happy and inspired. Now I have a new design and structure that feels much more in line with what I want to explore. And – I had fun doing it! Not unimportant, no matter who tells you otherwise.
Focus on vibes more than plans
I heard this story from Shaan Puri on How I Write podcast and it set my brain off in the best way possible. It was about a creator on TikTok whose creation strategy did not involve making plans and lists. Instead, she focused on getting herself psyched up and in the right mode, and based on that, she created what she felt inspired to in the moment. I think Shaan compared it to professional athletes who focus on getting themselves in a winning headspace before a competition.
And you know what? This works for me. Putting on a playlist and dance around to what inspires me works a lot better than sitting down and listening to calm piano music “in order to not be distracted by lyrics”. If I want to write now, I put on a sassy song, dance around the room, walk to a coffee shop, treat myself to a flat white and get writing.
That’s it, my key changes which has helped me get unstuck creatively. I'm not winning a Pulitzer prize anytime soon, but at least I'm creating again.
If you have thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them!