Why Creative Blocks Aren’t Blocks At All

Your inability to create is much deeper than you think.

I used to believe in creative blocks.

I would sit at my desk and wait for inspiration to hit. Pen to paper, hoping and praying the muses would whisper in my ear and inspire me. But as I got older, I realized it was nothing more than an excuse.

A fear of creation.

Instead of falling in love with the process, I allowed the fear of creating something less than perfect hinder my progress.

This resulted in years of stagnation. Of creating nothing and wasting precious time.

After years, I realized that creative blocks were just a form of procrastination and perfectionism.

Why creative blocks are a form of procrastination

Ever get distracted when you want to write?

Sketch?

Design?

You sit down, and the blank page just stares back at you. You wait for inspiration to hit, but nothing comes. A notification hits your phone. You decide to check it, for just a second, and then three hours have passed.

You got nothing done.

Damn, I have a block, you think. Without a second thought, you decide to do something else and wait for the muses to start singing their tune. You’ll create them.

Sound like you?

If not, then procrastination is not an issue for you. Feel free to move on to the next section. But if that’s not the case, then you do have a procrastination problem, not a creative block.

Now what?

There are a number of techniques you can use to help deal with your procrastination. I’ll write about those techniques more in the future (wink, wink). But, for now, I just want you to recognize the problem. Because a problem can’t be solved if you don’t know it exists to begin with.

Knowing that procrastination is the problem is half the battle.

Why creative blocks are perfectionism in disguise

Perfection is the killer of creativity.

You sit down to create. Fingers to keys, pencil to paper. You’re ready to create your magnum opus. You get to work and time flies. But then you notice an imperfection and you stop. The flow is dammed. Suddenly, your work looks and feels like shit.

You can’t create. You’ve hit a creative block.

But have you?

Perfection can’t be reached, no matter what we do.

This was a hard lesson I had to learn because perfectionism was preventing me from getting anything done. For years, I had nothing to show, paralyzed with my work not being good enough to share. That was time wasted practicing in public and learning not to care about being perfect.

What I thought was a creative block was really a fear of my work being judged. Of being anything less than perfect.

Reject perfection.

As soon as you’re willing to practice in public and allow the imperfections to be seen, the creative blocks disappear. It’s almost as if the block wasn’t a block at all.

So what are the next steps?

If anything I said resonates with you, then the first steps to take is to tackle your procrastination and/or perfectionism.

There are many sources out there can help you do just that, but I plan to write about in the future. If that is something that interests you, please consider subscribing to get those solutions straight to your inbox.