Tips for overcoming a creative block
Tired of staring into a blank piece of paper/illustrator artboard/word flashing cursor? Stress, perfectionism and fear of failure can cause our brain to go into overdrive and stop our creative flow.
If you’re going through one, here are a few things that might help you:
Go for a walk. Preferably for an hour and outside where you can see actual trees and green.
Have a shower. You’ve got a deadline and a creative block, so you’re stressed for both reasons and this can be a vicious cycle, so you need to relax somehow.
Do some exercise. This is exactly for the same reasons as above.
Pick up a book on the topic, read about it for 30min with no goal in mind.
Get your hands busy. Fold your laundry, do your dishes, cook something. Sometimes all you need is to focus on something monotonous to relax.
Purposely ‘fail’ at the task. Write something that’s totally inappropriate. Doodle some impossible-to-make-solution. Sometimes just doing something bad will make you know what you need to do.
Break it into small tasks. A favourite solution of mine because I love completing to-do lists.
Do a brain dump. Grab a piece of paper and write down all the things that you have on your mind. From the mundane tasks to the deep worries.
Visit a gallery/library/cinema or go to a gig. Indulge your senses with other people’s work.
And finally if all else fails, remember that even Pablo Picasso said ‘Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working’.