How to Get Your Creative Energy Back

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All I’ve heard and read about during lockdown is creative juices run dry. That feeling of hitting a wall, slightly numb, with no sense of ideas flowing. It happened to me. For weeks I felt I could not think of a single idea, a single pitch. And the pressure to do so made it worse. Surely, now, with so little time to do other things, I should be at a creative peak? It was the opposite.

You don’t need to be in a “creative” industry to feel similarly drained; it’s a form of burnout, which, during Covid-19, we’ve all been exposed to. Burnout is the opposite to inspiration. Physical burnout, emotional burnout, and cognitive burnout can all be creativity blockers.

Creative burnout, in particular, can happen to all of us, even those who consider themselves naturally creative people: it's normal for your creativity to ebb and flow – especially during the stress of this pandemic. It’s dependent on factors like your stress level, sleep and work, as well as whatever else may be going on in your life, so if your mind and body aren’t aligned, your creative process won’t be either.

How can we rejuvenate ourselves and help get our creative mojo back? As with most things, it’s simple steps that will make the biggest differences.

Get to the root issue of the burnout

The most important thing is to ask why? Ask yourself whether it feels like physical burnout. If so, getting more sleep and eating the right foods can help. Or is it emotional burnout? Emotional exhaustion is caused by a long period of constant life stress and it can differ from person to person. Taking time out, a break from work or creating some distance from what is a particular source of stress is important if you are to be rejuvenated. It’s also helpful to seek counsel from friends and family, or a professional if you’re feeling truly overwhelmed. What’s important is to allow yourself space and time to allow yourself to be creative again.

Allow yourself to be bored

The Dutch call it ‘niksen.’

Niksen can be when we’re not doing the things we should be doing. Because perhaps we don’t want to, we’re not motivated. Instead, we’re not doing very much. On a practical level, the idea of niksen is to take conscious, considered time and energy to gaze out of a window or sitting motionless. It’s almost embracing the idea of ‘doing nothing’ but what it really is doing is allowing your mind to be still, and to wander a little. “Psychological research suggests that doing nothing is essential for creativity and innovation, and a person's seeming inactivity might actually cultivate new insights, inventions or melodies,” according to LiveScience.

Move on to something else

Whether it’s working on a different piece or another activity entirely, a change of scenery can help push the reset button in your mind. Leave your desk. Even better, use the time to find a way to have a mini-refresh throughout the day. Drink some cold water. Go for a walk. Take lunch outside. Turn on your favourite TED Talk or documentary. If your situation allows, a 20-minute power-nap during the day remains highly underrated. Once you sit back at your desk again, you might be surprised to learn you’re not feeling as creatively stuck as you once were.

Spend time with people who inspire you

Inspiration is contagious. Taking the time to even talk to those around you who you know are doing great things can be a tonic. They will absolutely have been where you are now and often, just talking about this aloud to someone who understands takes a big burden off. And you’re feeding off their energy which will leave you feeling more inspired in yourself. It isn’t the easiest thing to meet during Covid-19, so a friend gave me a tip which has helped immensely…

She explained that whenever worries or anxieties or whatever else were leaving her feeling stumped creatively, she simply spoke into a WhatApp Voice Note. She might not even send it to others, she’d just delete it straight away, but the act of saying the words allowed and putting it in the trash right after had an invigorating effect – it meant the thoughts weighing her down were out in the open and physically had been deleted – leaving ample room for her creative mind to wander.

Like everything that ebbs and flows, your creativity really is never-ending. Like us, it just needs to pause every now and again. Don’t force it, don’t rush it and soon you’ll see yours return.

Jennifer McShane, August 2020.

What do you do when feelings of creative burnout surface?
Tell us in the comments below!