Pushing through creative blockages!

Today I wanted to take a step back from frivolous posts so I could address ‘real’ things.

I’ve taken a step back from blogging and writing recently but not because I wanted to, it was more like I felt like a door had been slammed in my face. I was hit by a pretty big dose of ‘what the hell am I doing?’ and ‘You’re wasting your time so you might as well stop!’.

I’m sure you’ve been there, particularly if you are a creative person who relishes in making things… anything… that you want to put out into the world for consumption.

Every day I said to myself ‘today is the day I write/blog’ and every day I was coming home from work shattered, barely able to keep my eyes open long enough to make dinner and hit the yoga mat. Winter really takes a toll on my emotional and physical body. I don’t enjoy the constant cold and darkness and it usually means I get a little bid down and maybe even suffer from S.A.D? I don’t know.

Because of all of this I’ve been really struggling creatively.

I have so many goals, when it comes to writing, that it can sometimes be a little overwhelming but I can keep that in check almost 99% of the time. I’m a pro at focusing on one task at a time, but allowing my brain to keep the other things on a back burner. What I can’t do is quiet the voice inside my head which tells me that my attempts at writing, spending hours upon hours writing and editing, are futile.

My mind turns into my own biggest naysayer; I imagine all the negative people I’ve come across in my life and I hear them scoffing behind my back about how I’ll never make it and putting me down.

Of course, I know this is ridiculous but sometimes it really knocks me off course!

The only way I know how to get over this is to think about what I’d say to someone if they were talking about a friend to me:

do you think the people that made it just clicked their fingers and became a success overnight? Do you think they didn’t try to scrape together even an hour a day to work on something? Do you think they didn’t fail at least once?

I refuse to be the sort of person who gives up because it gets hard. Despite the fact that, so many times in February, I told myself I was going to quit both writing this blog and writing books and fade quietly into the night, just keep a normal job and go  home and read and watch tv and be OK with it.

This week I decided enough was enough. I always find the best trick to do something you feel you can’t do is to try to trick yourself into doing it without giving it much thought. I used to be the same in my old job if I had to call a particularly grumpy customer; distract yourself with something else and then PICK UP THE PHONE AND DIAL BEFORE YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND!

When it came to my writing I decided to go and stir my dinner in the kitchen. When I came back from the kitchen I picked up my laptop and opened it. It was that easy and yet it seemed so hard when I was telling myself throughout the day that I was going to do it!

So, now I’m feeling better about it. I’m back. I’m ready to kick start myself into doing STUFF because I have a dream life and if I don’t keep going I’ll only be hurting myself.

I can only apologise for how long this post is and it’s not exactly ‘fun’, but I hope that, if you ever feel like this, you take comfort knowing that it happens to everyone and it’s something you can overcome. Just tell your brain to shut up and then quickly do stuff before you have a chance to second guess it.

Sam