Break Through Creative Blocks With These Simple Suggestions
We asked Eric Maisel, creativity coach and author of many books about the creative process, how to get past the anxiety that so often accompanies creativity. His most recent books include Rethinking Depression, Mastering Creative Anxiety, and (with his wife Ann Maisel) Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions.
BOYT: Your book is incredibly helpful for creative minds but also for anyone interested in breaking the barriers preventing success. What was your inspiration to write Mastering Creative Anxiety?
Eric Maisel: I’ve been working with creating and performing artists for three decades and I am continually reminded to what extent anxiety gets in the way—whether it’s anxiety about talking to a marketplace player or anxiety in front of the blank canvas or the computer screen. So although I’ve written about anxiety before, I wanted to take a shot at doing something comprehensive, both in terms of identify the different sources of anxiety and presenting a large menu of strategies for dealing with the anxiety.
BOYT: What are the most common barriers that creative minds experience when “creating”?
Eric Maisel: The process itself is the main barrier. You can’t know what you need to know until you know it and many projects will never come alive or work—that’s the reality of process. We want everything we try to succeed but it can’t, not unless we repeat ourselves in some formulaic way. So accepting that your first novel didn’t work and bravely moving on to your second, as simple as that sounds in the saying, is actually very hard to do.
BOYT: For someone who may not feel they are creative, how can they tap into their creative abilities and explore?
Eric Maisel: By identifying what they love—where love is, that’s where passion and motivation reside. If you love gardening, then your garden is a terrifically likely place to manifest your love and be creative. Devotion is more important than discipline—identify what you love and spend time there.
BOYT: What suggestions do you have for someone experiencing writer block?
Eric Maisel: First is the simple “Show up”—nothing is more important than showing up on a daily basis, even or especially if you claim to be blocked. Next is trying to identify the block—is the chapter giving you trouble, are you worried about future criticism and rejection, are you trying to write at night when you’re exhausted, and so on. There are countless possible sources of blockage and it’s our job to identify what’s going on in our own particular case.
BOYT: What happens psychologically when a hobby turns into a profession, and a person can no longer creatively produce? Is it the expectation of great material, the sudden push that seems forced?
Eric Maisel: The bar is raised tremendously when we turn a hobby into a profession. A multitude of challenges arise, from competing in a highly competitive marketplace to pitting our wares against the best folks out there to feeling like our work suddenly matters so much more, with all the pressure that “mattering” produces. You also must deal with the ideas and personalities of marketplace players—in your studio, anything is permitted, in the real world, not so much.
BOYT: What recommendations do you have when a person is under pressure to produce and is experiencing a block in creativity?
Eric Maisel: Learn anxiety management skills, whether it’s a deep breathing technique, a relaxation technique, cognitive techniques that alter your self-talk, or some other useful technique. In Mastering Creative Anxiety I cover more than 20 anxiety management techniques available to you. If you don’t try some of them out and learn to make a few your own, you’ll handle pressure that much more poorly.
BOYT: What daily practices keep a person “creative” and attune to their creative passions?
Eric Maisel: Do the work! If you skip too many days you begin to forget what your project is about and lose real touch with it. The main daily practice is waking up each morning and turning right to your creative work. That way you get to make use of your sleep thinking and create some meaning first thing—and the rest of the day can be half-meaningless and you won’t mind so much! Getting to the creating first thing every day is THE practice.
BOYT: What are common traps that are experienced in the flow of creativity and what can be done the correct these obstacles?
Eric Maisel: The first is not taking charge of your self-talk and regularly saying things to yourself that don’t serve you, whether it’s “I’m not talented” or “There’s too much competition” or “I’m too busy with other things to create.” The second is not honoring the realities of process, including how hard and intractable the work can be. The third is not throwing enough passion, love, and life into the work—not getting productively obsessed and not taking a sufficient interest in your own ideas. There are many other traps, too! That’s probably why I’ve written dozens of books on the subject.
BOYT: What are daily practices of those that you know who are most creative but have also successfully turned their passion into a career?
Eric Maisel: Well, I’m going to repeat myself here: mainly, it’s showing up. But it’s also biting the bullet with respect to the marketplace and doing those things that are necessary in order to have a career, especially proving the exception—that is, if it’s normal to do x, folks who make it to do 2x and 3x. They do more, try more things, take more risks, and accept that they are salespeople.
BOYT: Lastly, in the process of writing have you personally experienced writers block? If so, what did you do to correct it?
Eric Maisel: No, I don’t experience writer’s block but, like anyone, I have days when I’m not happy with the work, don’t believe in the book, and so on. For all those shadowy moments I remind myself that I am creating a body of work, not just one book, and that I can’t get on to the next thing, which might prove excellent, if I don’t either mindfully abandon my current project or work hard to complete it as well as I can. I tend not to get lost in current projects, as if they meant everything—I prefer to keep my eye on the bigger picture of a body of work.
About Eric Maisel
Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of Mastering Creative Anxiety and numerous other titles including Brainstorm, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and A Writer’s San Francico. America’s foremost creativity coach, he is widely known as a creativity expert who coaches individuals and trains creativity coaches through workshops and keynotes nationally and internationally. He has blogs on the Huffington Post and WholeLiving.com and writes columns for ArtBistro and Art Calendar Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com.
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