THE PRINCIPLE

Creative blocks are obstacles you can overcome – not the end of the road

On our most creative days we don’t even feel what we’re doing is work. We’re in a state of flow and time passes without us noticing.

On the worst days, nothing’s flowing. Our brains feel empty and even the effort of trying to come up with a bad idea, much less a good one, is too much.

Fortunately there are a variety of ways to overcome creative blocks. In this section you’ll discover half a dozen approaches – not the usual ‘take a break’ or ‘go for a change of scenery’ tips you’ve heard a million times, but methods that are themselves creative and therefore more likely to ignite the rest of your creativity.

1 Interview the block

When you imagine your creative block, what image or sound or feeling comes to mind? Maybe it’s a wall or a growling lion or a feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Imagine a dialogue in which you ask what it’s trying to do for you. As with the inner critic, assume it has a positive intention. Often it’s trying to protect you, perhaps because what you are creating is bringing up difficult memories, or you fear it might upset someone, or you worry that nobody will value it.

Once you know the intention of the block, you can create the conditions that make the creative process safer. For instance, let’s say you find yourself blocked from finishing a painting and your interview with the block reveals that it’s worried that the painting will not be good enough. You can make a deal with yourself: you’ll finish it, put it out of sight for two weeks, and then return to it to decide whether it’s any good. If not, you’ll discard it – or paint over it.

2 Look for the source of the problem further back

When we get stuck in the middle of a creative project often it’s because we didn’t lay the groundwork for it properly.

For instance, if you are plotting a novel or screenplay and get stuck in the middle, go back to the first section and make sure you’ve complicated your characters’ lives enough there to give you material to work with in the middle.

In you run out of steam halfway through crafting a presentation, go back to the audience’s starting points: how much do they already know about your topic, in which aspects are they most interested, what do they expect to hear, what would (pleasantly) surprise them?

Even in a painting, getting stuck may come from being so eager to get to your brushes that you didn’t plan the composition carefully enough.

Getting unstuck is just a matter of finding the right approach to handle the specific issue that’s causing the problem – and often the source is somewhere earlier. Go there and you’re likely to find the solution.

3 Make the right comparisons

Sometimes the work of people more skilled can be inspirational, but at other times it can make us think, ‘I’ll never be that good, why bother?’

There will always be somebody worse than you and somebody better than you. Others will judge whether or not they like what you have done. Sometimes nobody likes something when it first comes out and later it becomes a cult hit or even hugely popular (Van Gogh’s paintings, for instance). Other times something is a big hit when it first comes out but is forgotten a few years later.

You have no control over these things. You just have to get on with your work. If you want to make comparisons, here are three that are useful:

‘Compared to what else I could be doing, is this the project for which I have the most passion?’

‘Compared to what I’ve done in the past, am I applying to this project what I’ve learned?’

‘Compared to my dreams, does this project reach high enough?’

These are the comparisons that can spur you to getting back to your creative work.

4 Try a different medium

The novelist Janet Evanovich once told an interviewer how she got started writing. Initially she was a painter and one day, while drawing with her daughter, she realised that whenever she drew or painted she was telling a story in her mind about what she was portraying. She decided to write down some of those stories, and that led to a successful career first as a writer of romance novels and then of crime fiction.

If you’re a stuck writer try telling your story with simple drawings first, even if you have no particular talent for art. If a specific character is eluding you, draw them and see what new ideas come up.

On the other hand, if your creativity normally take a visual form try using words instead.

Using a different part of your creativity takes the focus off the block and allows fresh ideas to emerge.

5 Give up

Give up – but not on the entire project, just on the part that’s giving you the trouble at the moment. We’re taught to start at the beginning and work through to the end, but sometimes the beginning is so daunting that it’s hard to get started. No problem – work on another part of the project.

For example, if you’re trying to come up with a presentation and you have no idea how to start, instead create your big finish or an important moment in the middle. Then figure out what might come just before or after that bit and keep going. By the time you’ve got everything else done, the perfect opening will probably pop out at you.

6 Make a choice

Sometimes it’s the inability to choose between two or more options that stops a person like a deer in the headlights. What if you choose the wrong turn of the plot, the wrong colour, the wrong way to present your great idea to the people whose investment you want?

There are three points to remember that can relieve your anxiety:

1. These choices don’t have to be permanent. Do commit to the ones that seem right and follow them through all the way. Don’t jump back and forth. But recognise that if, when you are done and have given it your best shot, it turns out you chose unwisely, you can go back and make changes or adjustments. There is always the option of a new draft, a different colour scheme, a new audience.
2. Often the choice is not as important as how you execute that choice. In other words, it’s about how well you write whichever version of the story you choose, or the confidence with which you present the idea more than the exact words.
3. Your anxiety will decrease once you get more deeply into the process. Recognise it for what it is – a version of first-date jitters. Go past it and you may find yourself in a beautiful relationship.

Stay calm

Above all, don’t panic. If you are walking along and find your path blocked by a tree, you don’t give up your journey or blame yourself. You analyse whether to go around it, over it or maybe even under it, and then you continue. With the six methods you’ve just learned you can do the same for a creative block. It’s a temporary obstacle, not a creative death sentence.