How to deal with creative blocks
3 ideas that may help inspire you out of a creative block
I’m an artist and I express myself through various art forms and I love exploring new areas of all art. I sing/rap and perform the music I produce, I sketch, paint on canvas using acrylic, and I enjoy trying to write Fantasy Novels. I love the connections I find between all creative art forms and the more I explore the more I find; it’s so inspiring. There was a period of time where I dove deep into spirituality, it was so therapeutic. I pictured the concepts described in a lot of teachings as stories and creative ways to describe the intangible things we can only imagine. This offered me more confidence and a new perspective I could apply to my work.
Music is my main focus and where most of my effort as a creative is spent but, occasionally I face the dreaded writer’s block. Sometimes writer’s block doesn’t show itself in plain sight it hides behind the distraction, prioritizing social media over creating, and visiting friends and family instead of sitting down and doing the “work”. We don’t always catch it when it pops up but when it does pop up, it disguises itself so well, months could go by before we notice we haven’t sat down and finished something we started.
At one point in my life, I started to notice how far away I’ve drifted from one of my most favorite creative outlets; my music. It was such a difficult thing for me to just sit with my work and put something together I was excited about or something that felt good getting off my chest. I reached out for help from other musicians and friends I had formed creative partnerships with but, I still felt as if I couldn’t get the ideas I wanted from inside my head onto the sheet of paper. Writing music felt painful when it use to feel so empowering, exciting, and fun.
I started watching a show called genius, a friend suggested it to me after we had a long conversation about life and art. He thought I would love the season that focused on Pablo Picasso and since I enjoy painting but I didn’t know much about him I thought it would be insightful. Toward the last episode of the series, a scene stood out and that stopped me in my tracks, I understood exactly why my friend wanted me to watch the show. The famous Pablo Picasso had a block during a period in his life with his paintings and he began expressing himself through poetry.
Once I saw someone who I began to admire have a moment of difficulty but still have the courage to pick himself up and search for a new outlet; it inspired me. I started to think about my love for music and my intention behind creating the music I make. What was stopping me, and how could I make it show its ugly head?
Here are three ideas to help you get a headstart on getting out of creative blocks.
Get out of your thinking brain and let your spirit tell you where to go.
This was important for me; in order for me to figure out what was stopping me from creating, I had to let go of thinking. Sometimes our thoughts aren’t constructive at all, we think we’re solving problems but we’re really just creating detours from our creative efforts. When I stopped thinking and started feeling, I didn’t have room to judge myself; I simply just felt and expressed. Everything that came out felt so much better because I connected with the emotion rather than my thoughts and opinions of the emotion. I just expressed myself and didn’t hold anything back until the art was finished and my reward was the good feeling from transmuting those ideas into a tangible reality.
Try new creative outlets
Occasionally I want to challenge myself and see if I can express myself clearly through another art form. I’ve tried sculpting with clay, I’ve even played around with the idea of doing comedy. Anything that you feel you might get some excitement out of, give it a shot. Art is a form of play and when we think of it as a business we lose the passion that inspired us to take on our art, to begin with. Disconnecting from our normal creative routine can be very healing and give us great insight and challenge toward creating by using other parts of ourselves. Try sketching even if you aren’t good at it the less you judge yourself when doing things you aren’t used to, the less you will end up judging yourself doing things you’ve done for years.
Sometimes Focusing on the Intention helps you eliminate unnecessary distractions
I recently discovered at times my mind can be scattered all over the place thinking about what I have to do next. This is especially true when I have a deadline or a list of things I need to do following the release of a song or a project. I have to think of the video, I need to make sure the mix sounds good, what songs do I want to add to an album? All of these thoughts can stop you from creating. The thing to recognize is that they all have a time and place and thinking about too much at one time can stop you in your tracks. When focusing on the important things while beginning any creative task, the very first thing you need to figure out is; “what is the intention of this project?”
If you sit with your intention at the beginning of a creative session you can narrow down your thinking to what’s important. For example: let’s say I want to create a song that is a club banger; I know that sad chords and a slow tempo won’t support my intention. You want to allow yourself to feel free enough to create anything you want but you want to give yourself some guard rails or things to stick to when creating. If you do this then you can avoid burning through ideas that don’t sound or feel like what you set your intentions on creating.
I hope these ideas work for you or help you get closer to something that can help you create with more presence and intention.
