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unstuck
nine ways to
escape from
creativity
halting goo
Every artist gets stuck from time to time in “creativity-halting goo.” It can
happen at any phase of your work: when you’re beginning a project, in
the middle, or close to completion. The goo can overcome you in many
different ways – it can prevent you from finding an idea, or cloud your
mind when choosing among many ideas, or pull you downwards into a
creative void.
Whenever it happens and whatever form it takes, creativity-halting
goo is frustrating, energy draining, and harmful to the self-esteem of the
creative mind. It feels like a sticky poisonous tar that envelops you. No
matter how much you try, you simply cannot escape from the gooey spot
you have gotten yourself into – and your creative work stops dead in its
tracks.
Keep in mind that there are times when losing your creative momen-
tum is not because you are stuck, but rather that you are entering a valuable
phase of the creative process referred to as an “incubation” period.
During this time, your mind unconsciously processes new ideas and
feelings that will eventually drive your project forward. Many creative
people actually nurture such incubation periods, letting themselves
remain fallow for days or weeks without trying to force ideas. They stop
painting, writing, composing, dancing, acting – and instead sit back and
attend to other business in their life, all the while letting their uncon-
scious intelligence gently process images and thoughts in the back-
ground, without any attempt to track them.
How can you know if you are in an incubation period or a gooey
mess? Actually, the most telling cues come from your body. When you
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incubate, your physical being is at ease. You feel calm, in a relaxed state
of mind without nervous energy or anxiety. You eat and sleep well, and
have no problems performing the other work of your life. You enjoy
friends, reading books, going to movies – because behind the scenes,
your mind is hard at work “considering.”
When you are stuck, your body also lets you know it – but in very
different ways! Your mind races, your stomach hurts slightly (or a lot),
and your muscles become tense. The goo on your mind and body weighs
you down, and at the end of a day, you feel like you need an expensive
full-body massage. When you are stuck in goo for several days, your
stress level mounts and often transforms into anger towards yourself or
those around you.
Being stuck is no way to be creative – or to live. It saps your energy,
your vitality, and your joy in creating. While artists and creators cannot
get rid of all moments of stuckness, the solution is to minimize their
effect on you. You need to learn techniques that allow you to break out
of the sticky mass that holds you back, leading you back to health and
productive creativity.
In this article, I present to you nine approaches that I have found to
be useful in getting unstuck. They synthesize a range of ideas and tech-
niques that I have used with my clients, as well as with myself. Think of
these approaches as a toolbox that you can open whenever you need
something with which to pry yourself free. Keep in mind that you may
encounter various types of stuckness. Try out different techniques and
see which are best for each individual situation.
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This is when reframing can help. Rather than cursing yourself and
viewing the experience as “wasted time” or as proof that “I lack talent”
(both of which are nothing but thoughts you place in your own mind),
why not reframe the experience in a way that inspires your creative
juices instead of draining them? You might say to yourself, “This plot
twist is a great one; let me save it for another character later in this
book.” Or you could think, “Wow, what a great idea for another story.”
Or perhaps you can tell yourself something as mild as, “Well, I guess I
know my character better now. I’ll rewrite this chapter and learn from
the experience.”
Reframing is an extremely valuable tool for artists who feel frustrated
and stuck at the beginnings of projects. If you believe you are going
nowhere, it often indicates that your inner critic is halting you from try-
ing out ideas because you fear making a mistake. It can be useful to
reframe your early work entirely, viewing whatever you do in the con-
text of “This is a good start for my project and I can always come back
and revisit it,” rather than thinking, “I don’t think this is the ‘right’ start
for this book (painting, song, etc.) so I’m not going anywhere until I can
get it right.”
It is always useful to remember that you can alter your thoughts
about many situations. You can feel angry, frustrated, tired, upset with
yourself – or you can transform your feelings into patience, understand-
ing, and self-respect for the efforts you make.
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re-center yourself. Whatever you do to get centered, your goal is to be
able to approach your artistic endeavor by being fully there – mentally,
emotionally, spiritually, sexually, physically – as one integrated, wise
artist. When you are in this state, you will be capable of working with
your creativity in the same truly blissful way that potters work, becom-
ing one with their clay as it spins around the wheel, their hands becom-
ing the pot and the pot becoming their hands. In short, when you and
your art merge into one “beingness,” there is much less opportunity to
get stuck because all of you, including your inner critic, become one
with your art.
And if you cannot find an activity that centers you, I highly recom-
mend taking a pottery course!
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yourself over to whatever higher power you believe in to provide you
with the answer.
It is of course impossible to ascertain if the spiritual approach works
because a higher power truly exists and answers the prayers of artists, or
if there is something about releasing your worries into the cosmos that
allows fresh ideas to come to you. Perhaps it is a combination of the two.
What counts is that the spiritual approach seems to help many people
feel that their creative work is linked to forces in the universe that guide
us into a more harmonious, peaceful existence. By releasing their cre-
ative blocks into the ether or to their worshipped God, they lighten their
own anxiety about creating, which may indeed be an opportunity for
new creating to occur.
If you are not religious, or are agnostic, your spiritual approach need
not be any more than going up to a mountain top and contemplating
your creativity as you sit among tboulders that have been on this earth
for millions of years. I often go camping at one location in the Sierra
Mountains in California where, at 12,000 feet, I experience profound
insights into my place in the cosmos, which reinforces my love for the
creativity that I possess.
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program for your specific stuckness – i.e., the nature of your goo, its
thickness, stickiness, how deep in it you are, and so on. A creativity
coach is trained to analyze your concerns and problems, and to work
with you to devise solutions that get you out of the quagmire and back
into happy, productive creating again. A coach can help you decide
which of the approaches above –or many others they may have created
themselves – might work in your situation. You can find creativity coaches
at www.creativitycoachingassociation.com, which lists coaches avail-
able to artists and creators in many locations throughout the world.
Coaches can also work with you by email and phone, so you are never
far away from having professional assistance available to you to analyze
your creative problems and propose solutions to get you unstuck.
Rick Benzel is a creativity coach, writer, and editor in Los Angeles with
a passion for helping all types of artists get unstuck. He enjoys brain-
storming with creators to help them develop, articulate and organize
their ideas. His coaching practice has helped writers, screenwriters, and
visual artists. He offers various workshops in the Los Angeles area, a
one-day brainstorming Inspiration Tour, and 7- or 10-day retreats in
France. He is the creator of this Anthology and the founder and Publisher
of Creativity Coaching Association Press, the publisher of this book. He
can be contacted at creativitycoach@verizon.net or at his website,
www.personalcreativitycoach.com.