There Is No Such Thing As A “Creative wall”: 3 Truths That Will Start Your Victory Over Writers Block
It’s as you’ve read.
I haven’t published once this month.
For 31 days, I’ve done nothing to bolster my written portfolio.
I hit a wall.
And this month of absolute radio silence from the internet saved me.
You might be scratching your head.
Doesn’t this contradict everything I’ve ever written about?
How many pieces have I written about consistency? ( 5 times )
How many have I written about surpassing limits? ( 10+ times )
How many have I written about how to find a way where there is no way? ( 13 times )
Purpose? ( 4 times )
Letters to myself? ( 5 times )
Hell, I’ve even written about not being ruled by my situation 15 different times!
Yet, here we are.
Nothing published in a calendar month.
I remember when preparing to publish my first piece,
I heard these words and held onto them:
“Only write at a rate you can maintain.”
And before this month I’d nailed that standard.
Well, at least officially.
Before June finished, I made a deal with my editor.
Here is the deal that resurrected my punctured creative heart:
The title is very telling.
I was fed up with my inconsistency, so I went to war with it.
As advised by James Clear in Atomic Habits, if you can’t beat your bad habits, simply make them impossible to achieve and your good ones unavoidable.
And, that I did.
For every day of this month, I wrote one longer piece and three shorts.
This is the final piece, my 31st ‘long’ piece.
The longer pieces take me 2 hours on average, and the shorter ones 15–20 minutes each.
So, this month I devoted at least 93 hours to my writing.
How’s that for someone who hit a creative wall?
Sadly, it wasn’t all roses and flowers.
It was hard.
I sat down day after day, especially after day 20-ish with no clue.
I had nothing to write.
No inspiration.
No direction.
Nothing.
I doubted a million times,
Flashbacks of start-up advice plagued me,
Of which, this was the most prevalent:
“Don’t write about something you can’t write about forever.”
Especially since self-improvement isn’t some niche subject,
I worried.
What if I couldn’t keep it up?
What if all this was for nothing?
What if? What if? What if?
The results speak for themselves.
This is what I’ve learnt from refraining from publishing for the month of July 2023:
1. There is no such thing as can’t.
I forced myself into a situation where I had two choices.
Make it or, pay irrecoverably for failing.
So I did everything in my power to prevent failure.
Every single day I sat down with no idea was another day I taught myself how to find one.
There is only no way when you accept there isn’t.
2. Creativity favours those who are willing to do anything to seek it.
There were days I was tired,
Frustrated,
Sick,
Even angry that I’d overslept and, in turn, missed a submission,
Rather than deterring me, those days produced some of my best work.
Why?
Because I was willing to overcome anything to write.
No wonder creativity smiled upon me.
3. “Walls” start in your mind.
It’s funny that, before this month, I wrote 18 pieces in total.
12 of which (all shorts) were written in one day.
So, aside from that sudden burst of creativity, I wrote six pieces in 29 days.
And I’d told myself, “I’d hit a wall”.
Yet, as soon as another calendar month started, the wall disappeared?
The difference was not the date but my mindset.
More often than not, the “walls” we face are built by our own doubts.
Rather than build them higher, tear them down.
Put yourself in a situation where you can do nothing but tear each brick down.
And watch that so-called “wall” crumble.
At the start of this month, I started with the intention of finishing.
I told myself:
My inconsistency was a choice.
My lack of creativity was a choice.
My half-hearted attempts were a choice.
Giving into my doubts was a choice.
The “wall” in my head was a product of my choice.
And, after 31 gruelling days, I proved the verity in those words.
I made a different choice.
And stuck to it.
There is no such thing as a “wall”.
LM
Thank you for reading!
American psychologist Alok Konojia, or ‘HealthyGamerGG’, says:
“The absence of reflection is the reason you’re stuck.”
To solidify our growth, let’s reflect:
Petrichor’s 1-Minute Reflection:
- How did you feel before reading?
- How did you feel whilst reading?
- Do you feel any different now that you’ve finished?
- What is your one takeaway from reading this?