The Key to Creativity: Overcoming Writers Block and Procrastination

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on finding inspiration and overcoming writer's block. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Interestingly, this was a question that came up in response to the video on stopping ruminations. Somebody had asked about. Well, my problem isn't that my mind is talking too much. It's that my mind is completely blank. So we're going to talk about that today. Problem, part one. There are multiple parts to this question. The creativity block. The person said, when I tell myself consciously, I'm going to be creative and original right now, all of my thoughts and creativity disappear, and I get absolutely stuck with not a single thought in my head. All right, well, let's look at why that might happen. Creativity, unfortunately, doesn't happen on cue. And I've talked to people who are creatives, like my daughter and people like myself who are not creatives. We're much more analytical. And nothing's wrong with being a creative or not being creative. But there are times when in our different situations, we need to exert some level of originality or creativity. But again, it just doesn't happen on cue. When you start demanding creativity out of yourself, it creates stress. You're saying, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it now. And when it doesn't instantly pop into your mind, it's like, ah, crap, here I go again. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to have a blank mind. And then your brain just kind of shuts down. It says, overload, overload. Turn off the system. You may start thinking with everything out there. How can I possibly think of something original? Well, you may not, but anything you do is going to have your own flair. I know when I was trying to figure out what I was going to write my dissertation on, I kept going into different catalogs of things people had written dissertations on and written articles on. And I couldn't figure out how to come up with something original. And part of the dissertation was that it had to be an original contribution to the field. So that was a real stumper for a while. And ultimately, I realized that most people were taking something that other people had been talking about or studying and put their own twist on it. And that, for me, helped take a lot of stress off of me. For artists, for example, people have painted nature scenes for tens of years, maybe even hundreds of years. And so you're probably not going to paint the exact most original nature scene. You may be painting the same area or the same scene that somebody's painted before, but it's not going to be exactly the same because it's going to have your flow layer on it. When you don't quickly have a creative thought or it isn't completely original, it increases your frustration further, putting you into fight, flight, or in this case, freeze. So you're not feeling angry, you're not feeling anxious, you just freeze. Your mind goes blank. It's like, oh my gosh, what do I do? Once that happens a few times, you start expecting it and creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You start as soon as you tell yourself, I am going to be creative. Right now your brain says, we've been down this road. No you're not. So how do you find that? Creativity preparation. And some of these will work for you, some of them won't. And that's okay. I'm just giving you a whole bunch of different ideas. Some that work for me, some that I found online, some that I found talking from talking with creative people. What I call morning dreaming. And morning dreaming is when you get up in the morning and either before your first cup of coffee or when you're drinking your first cup of coffee or tea or whatever you do in the morning, you think, what is it that I'm going to do today? Or how is it that I want this project to manifest itself before you start thinking about all the things you have to do and getting into that autopilot mode where you've got a lot of different pressures and you start criticizing yourself. Just blanket dreaming. If I had all the money in the world, if I had all the time in the world, talent in the world, whatever it was, what would I want this project to look like? Now that may not work for you. You may still be stuck going, I have no clue. Okay, that's fine. Open awareness meditation is another thing that can be helpful for a lot of people who, especially with more creative endeavors. Instead of focusing your attention on one thing like a candle flame or a spot on the wall, open awareness meditation encourages you to just be and to notice everything. Not paying any particular attention to one thing over another, just kind of being immersed in the moment. That can help you develop a greater awareness of things that you generally filter out. Now, for me, open awareness meditation can be annoying because I'll be sitting in the living room and I'll be paying attention to everything just as it is. And I'll suddenly start to notice that there's a dust bunny here or that I need to vacuum or something else. And that is counter to what you're Supposed to be doing with open awareness meditation. So it doesn't work for everybody. I encourage you if you're a little. Structured with cleaning like I am, if you're going to do this, do it outside. Do it in a place where you're not going to look and go, oh, that needs to be cleaned. Use an idea folder, what I call browse and clip. You're looking for inspiration, not competition. When I am getting ready to design a new website, I am not going to come up with a completely original website. And you know what? I don't really want to because there are things out there that work and things out there that don't work. So I want to build off what works, but I want to make it my own. So I will go to other related websites. Like when I was making Doc Snipes, I went to other counseling related websites and I looked and I said, what is it that I like about this and what is it that I don't like about this website? And I would take screenshots and I'd make little notes about it, trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to do. When I got closer to doing it, I would go into the themes that were available to me because I'm not a from scratch coder. And I started identifying what is it that I like about this theme, what is it that I like about this other one? What, what don't I like? Trying to figure out what, what is it that I like? And then taking all those things that I've clipped, either mentally or actually, you know, with clipped as with screen capture or something. And I try to figure out what it is that I want to make all those things merge together and look like. You want to strive for progress, not perfection. When I've done websites before, I started designing websites back in 2001, okay, so you can think about what websites looked like back then. If you don't remember, go to Internet internetarchive.org and you can see a lot of websites circa 1999, 2000, 2001. And they were pretty awful, they were pretty basic. So it's important to recognize that you can revamp, you can redesign your website. Once you get it up, then you can use it. You can have other people use it and tell you what is it they like, what is it that they don't like and then you can modify it. The same thing is true if you're doing interior design or if you're painting or if you're doing other things. Now with painting, you may not be able to change the painting itself, you may have to do a different one, but once you have something done, it doesn't mean it, in most cases, that it's set and done forever. You can always revise it. If you're writing an article, if you're writing a book, if whatever it is, you can usually revise it. Even if you're building a house, you can remodel. It may take a bit, but you can remodel. Keep a jot pad with you at all times. Now, again, creativity can be in a lot of different forms, but if you keep a jot pad with you, then if you have a flash of inspiration, write it down. It could be triggered by a song you hear or something you see, or a commercial, or who knows? But if you have that jot pad with you, then you can write it down, add it to your Browse and Clip folder, and then use that to inform your project. Spend time with other creatives. Brainstorming. That doesn't mean brainstorming what you are going to do for your project. You're already. You've already hit a block there. So instead of trying to run up against that blockade, say, okay, let's just get together and get our creative juices flowing, so to speak. You may get together with them if you're trying to design. Maybe you're all website designers or maybe you're not talking about what would a website with a nature theme look like? We all go to websites, so everybody has opinions about what they might want to see if they were going to a website for the National Park Service, for example. Or what would you do in order to take a photo that shows X concept? Maybe it shows somebody pondering what they're supposed to be doing, or it shows somebody expressing frustration. Or, okay, those are feelings. And there are a lot of other things you can do, but you can go to, like, Pexels and you can find different concept photos and you can look at them and say, okay, I kind of get that concept, but I might show that concept this way. And yes, that may not be exactly on point for what you're doing, but it's getting that creativity unblocked. It's getting that creativity opened up. So you realize that, hey, I do have some creative ideas. And your amygdala says, hey, you might actually have this. Or if you're a music person thinking of a melody that evokes a certain sound and you can strum it on a guitar, you can hum it, you can play it on a piano or a keyboard, or there are a lot of different ways you can make sounds. And my guess is there are also synthesizer type things online where you can use other instruments. You can imitate other instruments like oboes or French horns or something else. When I think of music and sounds, my mind always goes to Peter and the Wolf. And I remember listening to and seeing that as a child. And the songs in Peter and the Wolf are so very emotive. Thinking about if you were going to design or write a melody, it doesn't have to be a song, it doesn't have to have lyrics. But what instruments would you use to convey that message? Try to get inside the mind of another creative. And I know a lot of people do this when they go to the Louvre or something like that. What was this person thinking when they painted this? What was this person thinking when they programmed this or when they wrote this story? Switch perspectives. This is one of my favorites. For example, if you're designing a house, maybe you're an architect. Think of it like a child. If a child were going to design a house, what would it look like? And you know, how would you set it all up? If you were an old person designing a house, how would you design it? And when I'm thinking old person, we're getting ready to try to design our retirement home. And I'm thinking, I want something. That's one story I want, you know, and I have a lot of I wants in there. Things that I've learned over time. A child isn't going to care about a kitchen. I care about a kitchen. So there are a lot of different things that an older adult would consider. And in designing a house, a child is going to do the facade much differently than an older person. And part of it depends on your taste, not just your age. And you can even do this, like if you're drawing it out like a child, use a crayon. What would it look like? Or a king. I know my son went through this period where he wanted to live in a castle and he was very concerned about he. He would set up a moat and he would have the turrets and everything else. And he would go into great detail about what he was going to build his house to look like when he got to be a grown up. But it was interesting to just kind of go down that avenue with him. And sometimes we would even get online and look at castles that were, that had already been built and see what had already been done. And again, he would kind of clip and in his, in, in his mind, what he saw and said Oh, I like that. I don't like that. And he put a lot of things together, and then came Minecraft, and from then on, he was designing his castle. Change the medium. Use construction paper. Even if you're writing a story or writing an article, you know, maybe that's not super practical. If you are thinking of painting something, you may try cutting some things out in construction paper and setting them down and using that medium instead of using paint. Because you may look at paint and go, oh, as soon as I get my paint out, my brain shuts down. Okay, well, get started by using something other than paint. Do an initial sketch with charcoal. Maybe again, the paint is going to shut you down, so try sketching it out with charcoal. Do it in a theme. For example, if you're doing a website, maybe you decide you're going to do an entire website that has no corners. Everything is going to be curves and bubbles and circles. Okay. It was a challenge, that's for sure. Thinking about how you're going to use that space or how you're going to do it with just that shape and communicate your meaning, it may be a activity that you're not going to use. You know, in the end, you're probably not going to do an entire website in circles. But by doing it that way, by forcing yourself out of the zone where you have to do something that's perfect and original, and there's so much pressure. This is more whimsical, and you know you're not going to use it, so the pressure's off. Start doing that, and then you can get some creativity and at least get moving. And as soon as you get moving, as soon as you get past that blockade, creativity typically comes a little easier. Address your thoughts. If you say, I have to come up with something creative now, all right, maybe you work in that agency and you have to come up with something creative now. There are some people who are kind of expected to do it on cue, but again, it ain't that easy. So think of about what does creative and original mean? As I mentioned earlier with my dissertation, it's unlikely that I would ever come up with an idea that was completely unique, that somebody had never thought of before, hadn't researched, hadn't even hinted about in psychology. I mean, psychology has been around for literally hundreds of years. However, I can put my own twist on it, and I have done a lot of original research using building off of what people have already done and synthesizing it in new and unique ways. Change your environment to one that's not Associated with frustration. If every time you walk into the office and sit down at that desk, you feel your stress meter going up, it's like, oh, crap. But this again, well, change your environment. There are sometimes. And a lot of writers do this, or at least that's the excuse I use when I do it. When just sitting at your desk, you have that block. But going somewhere, to a retreat, maybe it's an Airbnb, maybe it's you. You go visit your parents, and so it's just a complete change of scenery. Whatever it is that you do, change your environment so it's not associated with frustration. Explore what was different before your creativity got blocked. You were creative back here, and now you can't seem to get anything going. What's different? Maybe you're stressed out in other areas of your life. Maybe you've altered your perspective and you're putting a lot of pressure. It's like, if I don't get this thing perfect, then I'm a failure. And I used to have a lot of stress about that when I was grant writing. And I know that doesn't sound super creative, but it is. It requires you to think about how you're going to implement a project, how you're going to make this goal happen and come to fruition. And there was often a lot of stress associated with coming up with the ideas or for what we were going to submit to the government. And if we got the grant, that was great. And if we didn't get the grant, people would potentially lose their jobs. So there was a little bit of stress there. Unplug and restore. As I mentioned, sometimes you may just be burned out. There's just too much input, too much going on. I find when I go on those retreats, I actually unplug. And not literally because I need my computer, but I don't hook up to the Internet. I don't connect to the Internet on my phone, on my computer. That way I'm not tempted to check my email or browse Twitter or do something else that might trigger my stress response or send me down a rabbit hole. And that can also be helpful because then I'm not being bombarded with all this excess information. Because, let's be honest, we get a lot of input every day that we really don't need. Think about your typical day and how much input you actually need in order to survive. I was watching a movie this weekend. I think it was like 2149 or something, but it was after an apocalypse and this family was living out in the woods, very Little House on the Prairie style. And I started thinking, how awesome would that be? They didn't have connectivity to everything. They relied on themselves to be aware of what was going on. Think Little House on the Prairie. They didn't have Internet either, but it was a village, if you will, and they helped each other and they relied on each other, but what was going on in town was not in their face all the time. So I've talked about a lot of different ways to kind of start getting that creativity unblocked or get those creativity juices flowing. Another big obstacle is perfectionism. The person said, whenever I try to push myself just a little bit, I get overwhelmed by the thought that it's never good enough. I might as well give up now. And then my mind shuts down, or I can do things that I've done before, but anything original instantly shuts down my brain. So again, we're back to that stress response. Fight, flee or freeze. And this person's brain is freezing because they're saying, you're going to fail, it's going to be miserable. And. And so the brain is registering a threat. You can find more information on handling perfectionism, dealing with anxiety, etc, including worksheets and resources@doc snipes.com so how do you handle perfection? Recognize that expectations of failure create stress and stress blocks creativity. If your work was criticized as a child, you may have formed some unhelpful beliefs. Help your inner child feel safe and loved. A lot of us are experiences. Our first experiences with creativity were just that, drawing with crayons and cutting and doing other things. And if we met with a lot of criticism, then we may question our ability to be successful at being creative or if a lot of pressure was put on us to be creative. If you don't perform perfectly at this recital, you're a failure or I'm going to be mad at you. Then you may have formed ideas about performance. And if I'm not creative, if I'm not, if I don't do this perfectly, then I am a failure. It's important to unhook the behaviors or the event from yourself. Unhook that. If you fail at this task, if you don't come up with anything creative, all right, you don't. Let's go back to that ad agency. If you come up with some ideas to present to the client, the client may not like them. That doesn't mean you are a failure. It means the client didn't like your ideas. They fell flat. Maybe you didn't get the account. Maybe you did not succeed at getting the account or but you did not fail as a human being. Again, help that inner child feel safe and loved. When you are a creative, you're being vulnerable. Being creative means putting out part of yourself that is original and unique and saying, hey, what do you think about this? And that can make you feel very vulnerable. So it's important again, to unhook from the behavior themselves. If somebody doesn't like what you did, they don't like what you did. It's not that they don't like you, they don't like what you did. And potentially you can get some good advice from those people who didn't like it about what they might like instead. And then take what's useful and leave the rest. You may completely disagree with them. Let go of all or nothing thinking, I either get this, get every account that I apply for, or I'm a failure as an ad executive. No, you're not going to get every account that you apply for or whatever the word that ad executives would use. Find an aspect of creativity in everything that you do, find aspects of creativity and how you decorated your house, in how you dress. Find your creativity. Notice that you are creative in a lot of things. Get advice from other creatives on breaking through these blocks, letting go of perfectionism and being authentic. Sometimes it's not about getting advice on how to do something, how to be creative, but how to get through the blocks. And some of the things that I saw online were suggestions that I read. And I'm like, well, if I'm already having trouble being creative, then doing writing prompts might make me feel more thwarted because I wouldn't know how to finish the sentence. If you try something to unblock your creativity and you start to feel blocked, pivot, say, okay, this is. This one's not going to work. Let's try something else. Learn from the past. Who said it wasn't good enough? Was it you looking at your drawing and comparing it to other people in your class and going, yeah, it's not good enough? Or was it somebody else saying that, yeah, that's a C or a D at best? That really hurts a kid, especially with creativity, because again, they are being vulnerable. They're doing something that is unique and different. Be more specific. What was not good enough? So ask the person, okay, you said that this was a C or D paper or painting or whatever it is. What about it could be improved? How would you improve it if you were writing it? Take what's useful, leave the rest. You'll hear some things and if you agree, great. Add those to your little clip it file. If you don't agree, let it go. Learn from your mistakes and evolve. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to do things that you look back on and go, oh, my gosh, how could I have done that? Oh, or that was a poor choice to do this here when I probably should have done this. Okay, you can evolve. We're looking at progress, not perfection. We're looking at evolution of skills and creativity. Nobody expects you to be Picasso the first time you pick up a paintbrush. Decide what good enough means. Most creatives have difficulty looking at anything they do and saying, that's perfect, that's done. That is, that is it. Sometimes it happens. But my, my aunt was, is, was. I think she's retired now, a professor of art. And she did material arts through her, through her lifetime. And she had a lot of art shows and stuff. She was evidently very good. However, there were a lot of times where she had something that was finished and she looked at it and said, I don't know, that's just not quite it. And other people looked at it and they were like, wow, I have that same experience. Sometimes I'll do a video and I'll go, oh, that one probably is not going to do well. And typically when I say that, those are the ones that do the best. So recognize that sometimes you're being too hard on yourself, or sometimes you're striving for your idea of perfection that may not be the same as other people's. So at a certain point, you've got to decide what is good enough to put out there with the understanding that I may evolve it, I may do another iteration of it at another point, but what is good enough? Remember that a vase begins from a lump of clay. Just get started and do 15. Just like if you were sitting down at a wheel and you're going to spin a clay vase. Get started molding that vase. Do it for 15 minutes. You know, by the time 15 minutes is over, you're not really getting too much into the shape of it yet, but. But you've gotten started. Most people find that the hardest part is getting started. And once they get started, they quit thinking about thinking about it and they just start doing it and then evaluate and modify it as needed. Until you put that vase in the kiln, you can still modify it pretty easily. The same thing is true for most things. And I say most because if you're doing sculpture or paintings, it may be Harder to modify. But oh gosh, his name escapes me. Bob Ross used to refer to mistakes as happy little accidents. And he would modify. It's like, oops, I got a little splash of paint up here. We'll just make it a bird. Modify as needed. And finally, problem three, depression. I can think maybe for an hour, like really well during a week. Lately I rarely have anything to say to people. Even if the conversation has already been going for a minute. I just freeze and my mind shuts down. Well, you've identified it. You freeze. Depression is a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. So when you're going into these situations trying to be creative and you're not getting anything and you go into freeze, you feel helpless to become creative. That starts triggering depression, that starts generalizing. And you're in that stress response pretty much all the time than when you're around other people. It's hard to think of anything. Your brain is just kind of frazzled and almost afraid to try to engage in conversation because it's afraid that it will lose its train of thought, if you will. So finding hope is the final aspect. Develop a sense of hope. Developing a sense of hopelessness and helplessness can lead to depression, including impaired sleep and brain fog. When you're feeling depressed or when you're feeling anxious or frustrated because you're not creative and then you're feeling hopeless to change that you're struggling with all those feelings, it's likely going to impair your sleep. Impaired sleep is going to impair your cognitive abilities. It's going to cause brain fog. And I've got other videos that explain why that is. But let's just stay with that. It's going to keep a log of your successes. What's different leading up to the days that you have a moment of inspiration. Did you get better sleep? Are you eating better? Is there less stress? Are you on the Internet less? What's going on or what are you doing more? Maybe you go went out for a walk in the morning and for my grandfather, he swore by that, he said that that got his brain cleared and ready for the day. If he went out and did his five mile run every morning. Reduce as much stress as possible in other areas of your life. You want to not be in fight, flight or freeze all the time. You need time for things like GABA and serotonin and endorphins to kind of build up. You need the opportunity to feel good. And feeling good will help you with balance your neurotransmitters and try to turn half dos into opportunities. For example, if you have to go to a meeting today, may not be looking forward to it. All right, so how can it be an opportunity? Maybe you can use the time to people watch looking at people as they come in, maybe trying to pick up on how they're feeling, or maybe trying to analyze their. What they were thinking when they got dressed that morning. Whatever it is, using it, use it as an opportunity to try to be creative in your own way. Use it up as an opportunity to hear other people's successes, their creativity, or even their struggles as they talk so you feel maybe a little bit more connected and recognize that a lot of people are struggling with creativity. Creativity block can be at best maddening and at worst terrifying. And I get it. If you are in one of those jobs that relies on you being creative most of the time, whether you're an artist or an ad executive or a. A novel novelist, that can be absolutely terrifying. If you get writer's block and you're like, ah, my livelihood, I get that. Either way, you're triggering your stress response, which will further shut down your creativity. When you start fighting with that block instead of backing up and figuring out a way around it, when you start getting terrified because it's in your way, it will get bigger and it will get stronger. Feeling safe and not judged is essential to tapping into something as personal as creativity.