The Ultimate Creative

10 Things To Do When You Get Creatively Stuck!

• Emily Milling • Season 2 • Episode 60

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Feeling creatively stuck? Not sure how to get through your creative blocks? Well I’ve got GREAT news for ya! I’ve put together my top 10 things that I do to get creatively unstuck to start being creative again!

I’m going to challenge you to make your creativity your responsibility. That means pushing through and working on your craft no matter WHAT. Well we can all take sick days and time for ourselves, but if you have a goal and want to make it happen, it’s all going to come down to you! 

Here are my top 10 favourite things to do help me get creatively unstuck:

  1.  Go outside! Go anywhere you can
  2. Take an active recovery break - Take in someone else’s art that you wouldn’t normally for a different perspective
  3. Make lists of things
  4. Schedule 20 min per day to mechanically do your creative thing
  5. Find a writing group (yes, even if you don’t like participating in group things)
  6. Let go of control & perfectionism, just put something out there! Who cares what it is?
  7. Give yourself a set of rules to stay within.
  8. Reflect on things you’ve been super successful with creatively before - maybe even over a long period of time!
  9. Write a story about literally anything, make sure it has a beginning, middle and end. It could be 2 paragraphs long, I don’t care, just practice the art of storytelling to remind yourself of the big picture. You can also look up LOTS of free writing exercises online.
  10. Journal every day and process your FEELINGGGGSSSS! 

Your creativity is your responsibility!

At the end of the day if you’re making your creative passion a career, there is a level of professionalism you need to be bringing to it. Creativity and success need to be made possible by your dedication to your passions and craft. That means working on your creative output on the daily, not just when “the spirit moves you” - even if your creativity is stuck.

The less we work on our craft, the less we’re able to develop it. It’s not about getting things perfect every time, it’s really just about the journey and what you learn the whole way through. And yeah, that’s what they all say - and if you’re like me (totally impatient) this is basically impossible. But, that’s just the nature of creating things, pals! It’s a long game that needs to be nurtured!

What are some things you do when you get creatively stuck? I’d love to hear from you! Send me a DM on Instagram at @the_ultimatecreative!

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Learn how my team can help you launch and grow a podcast:

 Welcome to another episode of the ultimate creative podcast. I am your host, Emily milling today. I'm sharing with you my top 10 favorite things that I like to do when I get creative. Duck, because it sucks when you hit a creative block and you're like, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to finish this project?

[00:00:53] What am I going to do? I have no ideas anymore. Everything's done and stupid and ruined and blah, blah, blah. And there is a massive amount of construction happening outside of my apartment. And there's nothing I can do about that. Alas. I just have to persevere. I have to persevere for you. My dear lovely list.

[00:01:11] Because I know you need to figure out your content and your creativity. And so therefore we're just going to put up with this endless construction together and not let it get in the way of our creativity showy. Yes. Before I jump in, I want to take a quick second to answer a question from Jen EY, who asked I've received a few requests from people outside of my target audience who want to be a part of my podcast, right?

[00:01:38] But I don't feel like they're pitching what they're pitching will connect with my audience. What should I do any recommendations to let them down gently? Yes. This happens a lot. As soon as you have a podcast, all of a sudden it's like everybody in the world wants to be on your podcast, even if they are.

[00:01:54] Lion Tamers from 1874 and they've time traveled and they want to just show up and get more visibility. So here's what I recommend. Go back to your why, what is your purpose? Why are you producing your podcast? And does this pitch fit with your purpose? Annoyingly? I would say like nine out of 10 guests pitches actually come from people who have hired PR reps that do not do their research before pitching literally.

[00:02:22] Any podcast within a podcast category that they can find. So like, if you have a business podcast, chances are You're going to get random emails from business, people that are trying to get more exposure by being a guest on any show they can get with.

[00:02:37]Not only this, but these guests typically aren't in a to share love, which is sad. Anecdotally, I primarily hear about these guests showing up and then ghosting, never sharing the episode with their followers or their audience and not doing anything to promote it, which is like, Mind-blowing like c'mon it's reciprocity.

[00:02:57] You get to be on somebody's podcast for free. Presumably please share out the, the appearance, put it on your website, do all those things. But these people who send out the random pitches are the ones that never do sit us as a massage side. If the person pitching doesn't align with your purpose and it's not a good fit for your audience, it is totally okay to just tell them to take a hike in whatever way feels most comfortable for you.

[00:03:23] For me, it's just ignoring the thoughtless copy and paste emails, but if they do put effort into the pitch, you can politely thank them and let them know that you're focused on a specific niche and your guest roster is currently. Because you are a star podcaster. I also have another quick announcement. I have started a new free Facebook group. I was thinking over the weekend about algorithms and how they drive me crazy and how I'd really like to connect with you when there isn't an algorithm preventing us from seeing each other's content.

[00:03:59] So I've created this Facebook group. I'm going to link it in the show notes. So it's a free group it's publicly available right now. And it is facebook.com/groups/t U C podcasters. And you can find it under the ultimate creative podcast community. If you search it on Facebook, I will put a link to that in the show notes. I'd love to see you in there, Basically, I am creating it because I want to have a platform for us to share our creative things, our podcasts, or videos or content, and to learn and grow together. So we're just taking it beyond the podcast itself into a discussion, a community, a group of people who want to learn all of the same things together at the same time.

[00:04:42] And that is what that's going to be about. Oh right now onto the 10 things that you can do when you feel creatively stuck, I'm going to challenge you to make your creativity, your responsibility. So that means pushing through and working on your craft no matter what. caveat to that.

[00:05:00] You can take a sick day, you know, if you're not feeling great, that's totally cool. And, you know, take time for yourself as well. But if you have a goal and you want to make it happen, it's all gonna come down to you. So when you're feeling like that giant weight on your shoulders, I don't think I'll ever be able to finish my creative project or do something creative ever again, write a song, write a story, record a podcast, whatever it is, make a video, the fun edits, all the different things.

[00:05:31] Do your graphic design. Oh my gosh. There's so many creative things that you can do, but if you feel like. Oh, it just, it doesn't, it's not working. It doesn't feel good. It feels like poop to me right now. These are 10 things that you can do to get creatively unstuck. So, number one, I'm always going to say this go outside.

[00:05:51] And if you are one of the lucky folks that can go outside and beyond your little five kilometer radius of your neighborhood. Surrounded by construction and dust go somewhere else. That's going to give you a lot of perspective. Like we can't get perspective necessarily right now, if you're listening in, you're an Ontario, my partner, Justin put it absolutely astutely the other day.

[00:06:17] There is just literally no way for us to get any sort of perspective, like outside of what's going on immediately in our lives right now. So of course, if we're working on something creative and we're like, this is the only thing in front of me, then yeah. It's going to be like impossible to find a different way to move forward with your project.

[00:06:39] Or like, like find the lyrics for your song or Or figure out what the topics are for your podcast or come up with interesting new ways to engage your audience. Like. If I didn't have a full week of going out for walks last week, I probably wouldn't have thought about this new Facebook group that I want to do.

[00:06:58] I also was able to listen to some podcasts where they were talking about Facebook groups and I'm like, you know, I think this is a good idea for me. So I was able to get. Out out of my head, out of my physical space and come up with an idea that will solve a problem for me in my business. And so this is the first thing that you can do.

[00:07:16] You don't necessarily have to like go do physical activity. Either. I love running as you probably know, I go for a walk now, like every day, if possible for about an hour at lunch. And it's about to be that time. As soon as I'm done recording here, I'm going to be going out for my walk. Uh, but you could go out and just like sit in a park for a little while.

[00:07:37] And stare at some squirrels yesterday, I saw a squirrel that was like slowly creeping up at me. And it was like, I'm pretty sure it was stalking me. It was like, I'm going to come and eat all your food. And I'm like, but squirrel, I don't have any food. And then all of a sudden it was on my right side and all of a sudden it was on my left side.

[00:07:54] It was terrifying. Toronto squirrels are terrifying like them, but it gives me more inspiration when I see wild, silly Roden D animals coming at me. Being weird and acting weird. So that can be a really good alternative for you too. Oh, another really gross thing that happened, Justin and I went to the park just to sit.

[00:08:16] I was like, oh, we're going to get so much creative work done. Didn't happen, ADHD. Wow. What a party. Um, but we got ice cream at the ice cream truck and I got sprinkles on mine and there's like, Worms in the trees right now, this is really gross. So if you don't like worms, just skip through this part. So earlier that day I was on my run and I got a worm in my eye cause it was just dropping out of the tree.

[00:08:38] Um, that was really gross. And then I had my sprinkles ice cream and you can probably guess the little tiny little inchworm about the size of the sprinkle was just ice cream. It was disgusting. It was disgusting, but it's okay. Anyway, weird things that happen to you, give you a new experience. Something that you can build from at any point, it doesn't even have to be on whatever creative project you're working on right now, but at any point in your life, okay, let's look at number two.

[00:09:10]this is taking an active recovery break. So in. Exercise and running, they tell you to do active recovery so that you don't have a million days on for running because it hurts your body. And I should know, cause I ran way too much last year. And my body hurts. Great, but I don't want to not move at like, at least once a day.

[00:09:36] So active recovery for me could look like doing yoga. It could look like going for a walk that isn't a brisk, like workout walk. It could look like doing some housework and some chores, just something that gets my body physically moving. So how do we apply this to your creativity?

[00:09:54] Well, what I like to do is taken some sort of artistry that I wouldn't normally engage with. Like country music. It doesn't last very long country. Music does not last very long for me, but it gives me again that external perspective that I'm very much lacking. Like if I'm writing a pop song and I'm listening to a bunch of pop songs, I'm not going to find the inspiration I'm looking for.

[00:10:19] I need to look in polka music And I need to look in R and B and I need to look in rock and I need to look in goodness knows what else, maybe classical music, anything else to get an entirely different perspective to hear differences in how songs are structured? Like pop music is very formulaic.

[00:10:40] I don't write a lot of pop music. But it is, it's very formulaic. And so having the exact same template that you're repeating over and over, like maybe you have the same template for your podcast episodes and you repeat the exact same thing over and over. And you're like, I'm so bored with this. I don't know what to do with it.

[00:10:55] How am I supposed to make this fun and exciting and engaging for me and my listeners anymore? How can you shake that up a little bit? So find some different things. not necessarily the particular. Craft that you happen to be working on writing podcasting, video creation, music? I don't know all of the other things.

[00:11:16] Maybe you're doing puppetry puppetry as well. Very cool. Just do something entirely different. Go look at fine art or go look at statues or go just anywhere and do something. Totally totally different for a little while, but active so that you're engaging your brain still and making it do some thinking.

[00:11:40] Number three, make lists of things. Lists are so good. Creative brains have like far too many things happening in them all the time. And so I find when I get. It's probably because I'm like very, very overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of all of the things that I seem to think I need to do within one hour on a particular day.

[00:12:03] So I will start with lists that just outline the book. Basic steps of what I need to do to accomplish my goal. Other examples of lists could include, if you're writing something, if you're planning something like just write a big, long list of your podcast topics, a big, long list of the videos that you want to make a big, long list of the guests.

[00:12:22] You want to interview a big, long list of a bunch of careers and then situations that could happen. And then you like cross check them all. So like, Perhaps you have an accountant, you have an arborist, and then you have a water bottle maker and maybe the situations are, um, there is a gorilla on the loose or Batman is on fire or there's a man on the roof and he knows he needs help to get down.

[00:12:49] How can you put the arborist and Batman on fire together in a fun way? That tells a little bit of a story and gives you some inspiration to come up with solutions and ideas for the other things that you're working on. This is also tying back into that active recovery that I was just talking about as well.

[00:13:08] How can you give yourself slightly different things to do than what you're actually doing to get back into your creative brain?

[00:13:17]okay. Let's move on to number four, schedule 20 minutes per day to mechanically do your creative thing. This might sound pretty boring. And honestly, at first it probably will be because you're going to be like, ugh do I have to sit down and do this thing? again. Yes you do. Because remember you're the one taking responsibility for your creative goals and making them come true and making them a true reality and a passion.

[00:13:42] And that's your thing that's what you want to do. And you can do that if you stick to it all the time. So if you're feeling like. Man. I really just, I hate doing it and I don't want to do it. I don't want to be part of it, but I know I really want to do it. And like the mechanics of getting going, are what's holding you back, make it super easy for yourself.

[00:14:03] Give yourself a non-negotiable time slot in your calendar every single day. For 20 minutes, you just sit down, you open up your recording app, you open up your writing app. You open up your video app, your video app, or you open up your camera. I don't know, maybe you don't open it up, but whatever you set it up to film yourself and you just mechanically start doing the actual recordings.

[00:14:27] I used to have this a lot when I was working on my podcast a year ago and I would delay it for a really long time and be like, oh, I don't want to do it. I don't feel like confident enough to do it. Blah, blah, blah. So now I have a microphone boom arm that is on my desk and. It is a bit of an eyesore in my living room because that is where I'm working out of right now.

[00:14:47] But it makes it so much easier for me to actually sit down and do my recordings and not have to think about it so much because like the hard technical part, the mechanical part is like done. Right. I don't have to think about it. You can also do this for your creative brain, the creative mechanics that you are going to be implementing as well.

[00:15:07] It's not just like setting up your gear. Um, if you sit down and write for 10 minutes, or if you sit down and record yourself talking for 10 minutes, that is also a way to practice it and you don't need to keep it. You absolutely. Don't. I do this with music. I'll just sit down, open a new session, label it, the date that it happens to be that day, if something comes out of it.

[00:15:27] Great. If nothing comes out. Awesome. I can just throw it out or come back to it later. I'll probably just throw it out to be honest. But it's just the act of sitting down and mechanically making the thing happen. That actually turns my creativity into a reality. You have to write a lot of crappy stuff before it gets good.

[00:15:48] That's okay. All right. Let's go to number five. Find a group to help you. Yes. Even if you don't like participating in group things, getting feedback externally is really, really helpful. First of all, I want to put a little asterisks on this. If you find a group that's like a bunch of jerks, you don't have to stick with them and you can very happily just go find a group that is supportive and gives you.

[00:16:18] Honest feedback without making you feel like, oh, I suck at everything. Cause that would not be nice. I don't want that for you at all. So find a group that is open and positive and interested in supporting each other and helping each and every person within the group too. Get better at their craft. Um, and try to also not think about this as competition, just because you are joining a group with people who are doing the same thing as you doesn't mean that you're at all competing, you'll have completely separate audiences, but you will get good perspectives from these people.

[00:16:53] Who've been through similar challenges, or if they're posting about a challenge that you are currently going through, maybe somebody else. Can chime in like all of the other comments and everything that gives you even more perspective. And if you want a group, I'm starting one. I don't know if I mentioned that, but you can join my Facebook group.

[00:17:11] It's the ultimate creative podcast, Facebook community. And you can find it on Facebook. Oh yeah. So find yourself a little group. Um, and you can also do this with people that you already know. Maybe you just create an accountability group, like, okay, I've got my comedy troupe every week. We're going to meet, we're going to bring a sketch.

[00:17:32] We're going to talk about it. We're going to revise it. We're going to come back. We're going to film it. And you create a system and the system might ebb and flow depending on the state of the world, but it will help because it's going to hold you accountable, which is awesome. Okay. Number six, letting go of control and perfectionism.

[00:17:51]There are lots of times for me, for my clients, for people all over the world where it feels like. If I don't put out the most perfect thing, I'm going to be judged and I'm going to be left feeling sort of like, nobody likes this and nobody likes me because I didn't get that like one tiny little cut, correct.

[00:18:17] Or that one pixel just slightly off when in truth, it's probably the algorithms. It's just the darn algorithms. It's all it is. Anyway, all that to say, it's okay to let go of a little bit of control over the stuff that you're putting out, because we are creative people. We are also, the majority of us are marketers and business owners, and we have to test things.

[00:18:43] We have to try them and figure out what's gonna work and what is not going to work. And that means that sometimes you're going to put out stuff that doesn't feel like this is my best work of all time ever. But guess what that's okay. Because whatever you put out is going to give you some sort of insight into whether or not people resonate with it.

[00:19:03] And if you suddenly find that, like things that you put out that are a little bit more vulnerable and a little bit less polished and proper are actually attracting the people that you would like to have. Uh, in, in your circle as your clients, as your audience, then maybe you're onto something. You know, like a lot of the stuff that I was sharing last month about my elbow being totally screwed up and having no idea what I was going to do with myself.

[00:19:28] I got so many DMS and emails back about all of that. From just from people who were saying, like, I really appreciate that you're sharing this so openly. And I discovered that was something that I can continue working on. And it was all very clunky stuff because I just, I don't know. I felt the urge to go live on Instagram and start talking about this stuff because it was like true and real and raw right there.

[00:19:54] And I knew for sure. Somebody out there was going to need to hear that message today. So I just put it out there, but it wasn't perfect. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was messing up the whole way through, but it made a difference. It made an impact. And that gave me information to create even more like that.

[00:20:12] And I can perfect it. In my own way over time. So letting go of control can be a really great way to just let things flow a little bit more, not think so much about like, oh, I don't want to put it out just because it might not be amazing or someone's going to be like, you don't know what you're talking about.

[00:20:34]I'm here to tell ya. It's probably amazing. And you just need to let it go. She is. You just got to let it go. This is your friend. Emily speaking. You just got to let it go. That was a weird, weird little singy song mayor. Okay. Let's move on. Let's move on to number seven. So now that we've talked about letting go of control, I want you to think about creating a set of rules that you need to stay within because creativity really thrives when there are rules and specific boundaries in place, because you have to find like different.

[00:21:09] Interesting ways to get out of boxes to problem solve. So if I am writing a song about a gorilla and the gorilla cannot eat bananas, cause he's allergic, but he loves bananas. then I have to figure out a way for him to feel sated and full without letting him eat the bananas. This is sort of what I'm getting at.

[00:21:32] Not necessarily like. Every morning when you wake up, you have to write in your journal and you have to eat your breakfast and you have to do your Instagram stories. And I'm just rhyming off things that are currently on my calendar of my rules that I have to stick within. That could work for you, but more on the creative side of things, like the rules of the universe that you are creating, what does that look like for you and your content?

[00:21:57]Number eight reflect on things you've been super successful with creatively before. Maybe even over a long period of time. What have you done in your entire life that you can look back at and be like, Oh, I'm super proud of that. Very creative part of my life that made me feel really good, made me feel very productive.

[00:22:19] I loved every single minute of that. Sometimes when I'm having a hard time with music and music is a pretty big focus for me over these couple of weeks here, when I'm having a hard time with music, I will look back at the score that I wrote for impossible horror, which is my. Feature film, my independent feature film that I made with Justin to clue.

[00:22:39] And I'll listen back to it and just kind of think about like, wow, like that took me, I don't know, nine months to write, but by the end of it, I was so proud of it. And I was like, if I can finish that, then I know I can finish. Whatever else it is that I'm working on currently. It's just little songs, like little 15, second songs for tick tock because I need a creative outlet.

[00:23:03] And that is what is making it happen for me. So think about the longterm success that you've had with completing your projects and how can you pull those feelings in so that you're having sort of like a, a visioning for yourself of like, this is how I'm going to feel when I finished this particular project.

[00:23:24]Number nine, write a story about literally anything, make sure that it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It could be two paragraphs long. I don't care. Just practice the art of storytelling to remind yourself of the big picture. And you can look up lots of other free writing exercises. But this one I really liked because it's like you have to force yourself to start thinking about.

[00:23:49] An overall experience for whatever you're working on versus like the little tiny details. This one goes really well, hand in hand with the letting go of control and perfectionism, because it's like, these are little throwaway stories.

[00:24:04] You don't have to share them anywhere. Um, but it helps you to see a bigger, broader picture. When you have the beginning, middle and end, then you have.

[00:24:14]A bird view of the situation, and that's kind of what you need to give to yourself when you're feeling creatively stuck. Right? You really need to pull yourself out of the weeds to see everything else that's happening around you as it relates to your project. Okay. Now, Number 10. And by the way, none of these are in any particular order, they just came out of my head as part of my list activity, listing things, which is number three.

[00:24:39] Okay. So number 10 is journal every day and process your feelings. Because when we can't get perspective on stuff is really, really helpful to see from the outside again, like what it is that's going on in your head. Like if I talk about to myself, why did I make this particular decision in my business?

[00:25:01] Why did I not make that decision in my business earlier? That kind of thing? Or like, how can I reach more people with the, the message that I want to share about. Sharing your message with the world via podcasting. If I can reflect on that a little bit and write about it, I give myself like two pages in the morning every morning.

[00:25:21] Then it gives me an opportunity to kind of dig in deeper as to why I might be holding myself back. Like, what am I afraid of? It's like a little therapy session for myself. I've been to a hell of a lot of therapy by the way. So this might come a little bit easier for me, um, or for you, if you have been to therapy, but if you haven't been to therapy, this is a great way to just start thinking about like, what are the internal motivators That are leading to decisions that you're making either creatively in your business. What have you process those feelings? Let them out, just tell a piece of paper, everything or feelings so that you can just go about your day and stop thinking about it. Just get it out of your head at the end of the day.

[00:26:06] I want you to know if you're making your create a passion, a career. There is a level of professionalism that you need to be bringing to it. Creativity and success need to be made possible by your dedication to your passion and your craft. So that means working on your creative output on the daily, not just when the quote unquote, the spirit moves you, even if you are feeling creatively stuck.

[00:26:31] Okay. The less we work on our craft, the less we're able to develop it. And it's not about getting it perfect every time, like I said, it's really just about the journey and what you're learning the whole way through. So you can look back and be like, oh yeah, yeah, I did just write like the score for that film.

[00:26:46] Oh, that was a really cool thing that I did, you know, way back when, give yourself more stories to reflect on and yeah. You know, that's what they all say, but if you're like me. And I'm totally impatient. Like it's, it's really, really hard to pull yourself out of the little nitty gritties and give yourself the big picture.

[00:27:04]but, but that is just the nature of creating things. My friends, it is a long game that needs to be nurtured. So I'd love to hear from you. What are some things that you do when you get creatively stuck? Send me a DM on Instagram at the underscore ultimate creative or. Come on over join my new Facebook group.

[00:27:25] It's just me right now as I'm recording here today, because this is the first time I'm promoting it. Haven't told anyone except you you're the first hear about it. This is that thing about like letting go of control and just putting stuff out there. Oh my God. Anyway, you can find it on Facebook. It is the ultimate creative podcast community for creatives and content creators.

[00:27:46] Just like you. Entrepreneurs business owners, people who want to have really awesome creative content to support their goals. And I want you to come join. I will drop a link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next week, buddy.