A while ago I was at home, looking at my creative studio, feeling a bit down. I haven’t been using my music instruments and my camera in a while.

“You say you’re an artist, but that’s not true. You’re a liar. You’re an impostor.” That’s the voice inside my head, shaming me. And trying to prevent me from doing anything about it.

But then I tell myself, “Hang on! You do creative stuff all the time. It might not be in the way you expect it, it might not be songs or videos, but you still make stuff!”. For example, writing a letter with a fountain pen, putting on a coordinated outfit that I feel good in, or leading a brainstorm session at work.

This is confusing. So am I still allowed to call myself an artist, or not? I go through this process on a regular basis.

I’d rather say I’m a stuck creative. It feels more temporary. More optimistic. Because I am stuck, but not all the time. It’s not permanent. It’s more of a cycle.

There Is A Way Out

I can break down my approach to my creative process in two phases: the things I do when I’m not stuck and in flow state, and the things I do when I am stuck and trying to get unstuck.

When you’re stuck, you can do things to get out of the quicksand. You go for a run. You put on your hiking boots and go for a walk in nature (like the Cote Sauvage in Le Croisic, or a nearby forest). You do something different; like making marks with crayons, or painting, or you use a timer to move yourself into action. You go to a local concert. The idea is to do something anyway. And if it involves using your hands or your body, even better: it keeps you connected to the present.

When you’re not stuck, you do all the things you wished you were doing when you were stuck. You write. You play guitar. You write lyrics for a new song that’s been in your head. You paint. You start designing a new project and get super excited and write write write again. You build a software program that will make people’s lives a bit easier, and you make it a “product” with a name and an identity.

Sometimes, you wake up like this, and creating is easy. Sometimes you have to work for it.

When it happens, you jump on it, and you do those things as frantically and as passionately as possible. You go at it as hard as you can before you get stuck again. Almost as if it was the last time you’ll ever get creative.

Be Curious

Deep down, you know you are going to get stuck again. When you suddenly get creative for the first time in a while, it’s easy to be scared that it was just a lucky one-off. But I’d rather compare it to the way the ocean moves with the tide.

Imagine you’re a child, hunting for sea-life in the rocks at the beach. At low tide, you find all those cool rocks, sea shells, seaweed, you play with crabs and crevettes. But then high tide comes and takes away all your treasures. All gone, forever!!! Oh no!!! You declare that life as you know it is over, and from now on, forever boring.

But then low tide comes again. It reveals new treasures. The old ones are gone, but the new ones are cool too. There’s one crab that’s blue! Blue!!! You spend time being curious about what new things the ocean brought you.

We wish the tide was low forever, but we have no control over it. It’s interesting how both having fun and being in a rut feel like forever things.

So when you’re stuck, remember that it’s not permanent. There are things you can do to nudge yourself in the right direction, and they don’t require any “good ideas” or “creative genius”. They just require action. The tide may be low but if you stay at home you won’t find the cool crabs.

And when you’re in flow and everything is awesome and you feel like a butterfly riding a dragon… Remember you’ll get stuck again. In a few hours, tomorrow, next week. It will happen.

But don’t be afraid. You’ll be fine. Because just like flow is not forever, being stuck is not fatal. Just remind yourself of that. Your job is to just keep moving. You get stuck, and you move on. And then you get stuck again. And then you move on.

It’s how well you are able to navigate those moments that allows you to move from stuck to flow more easily. You just have to trust that if you keep doing things outside of your head¹, you’ll move on and find the treasures on the beach again.

So put your boots on and leave the house, because the tide is going to fall again.