This Might Hurt a Little: Big Time Creative Rut

So far, I’ve received around a hundred question submissions for this column. I’ve responded to around twenty of them privately because the questions were delicate and the subject matter was tender. Readers have wondered whether or not they should get a dog or buy a car or go to therapy even when they disliked their therapist. These questions required a certain amount of understanding of the situation, and so they needed correspondence, not a column.

Of the other eighty submissions, forty of them are along the same lines:
How do I escape a creative rut that is eating me alive? 

So today we’ll talk about what to do when your creative energy stores are completely empty. 

This is This Might Hurt A Little: part advice column, part pep talk.

What do you do when you are in such a creative rut that making anything sounds awful for months at a time?

Welcome, dear burnt out reader. I know how you’re feeling. No, really. I can only speak to this topic because I’ve been there, often. In the worst of it, I was there for an entire year, and in the end I pressed pause on my freelance career and got a job at an agency for a while, only to end up re-starting my freelance career three years later at a time when my burnout was at an all time high. I’m still recovering from that very same burnout that reached its fever pitch in February of this year.

So instead of giving you a five point how to, I’m going to talk about what I’m doing, and then before we part ways I’ll give you a few things to try on your own. 

There was a day in December of last year where snow was falling outside of my window and it felt like the most perfect day to sit by a window and write. Instead of doing that, I was at my desk and on client calls all day at a job I knew I needed to leave. I felt like I was running in sand, and when I looked down I was actually sinking. My anxiety and depression was at its height, and I was completely and totally burnt out. All of this happened because I was trying my hardest to write, photograph, and consult while also working a full time job.

I was pouring myself out creatively from a completely empty tank, which is something all forty people who submitted their creative rut questions know all too well. 

The first thing I did to move past that tremendous block was talk to my husband. Through this conversation, and with the support and help of someone that loved me, I came to a conclusion: I was doing too much and I couldn’t continue with the workload I had for myself. I hit a breaking point. I said the thing that released me from a lot of my “I should” and “I have to” statements. I said, “Anything else would be better than how I feel right now.” All my fear around writing my notice and quitting my job dissipated long enough for me to put a plan into action to move forward. I knew I needed to choose myself, and I knew I needed to get honest about what it was that I wanted to be doing. Through this I began to establish a creative baseline for myself. In my journal I wrote out three questions (and I will share my answers with you too). This baseline helped me tremendously, and as I’ve encountered other smaller creative ruts, I’ve returned to these answers.

What do I want to offer to the world? 
What are the things I want to do that are just for me? 
What habits do I want to build?

What do I want to offer the world?
My number one priority during this foray into entrepreneurship has been writing and helping other creative small business owners. I wanted to write this newsletter and grow my list, and I wanted to move towards a paying model here. I wanted to work towards a career with more writing in it. I also wanted to make beautiful images of people and consult with business owners that were either scaling or experiencing burnout (or both!) In answering this, the question of how I would earn income was now defined and I knew where the work would start with getting clients. Narrowing this down helped me get to the heart of what I wanted. 

What are the things I want to do that are just for me? 
Last year I read a total of ten books. I’ve been a lifelong reader with a pretty voracious appetite for digesting memoirs and novels. My rut kept me from reading, and that really affected my mental health and my writing. When I sought to bring back a writing habit, I knew it would involve a lot more reading. I also wanted to explore ceramics and swim a lot in the summer. Beginning to visualize a life where I could do those things really helped move some of the blocks away. Then actually doing them did even more of the heavy lifting. 

What habits do I want to build, both personally and professionally? 
I knew that I would need some help structuring my time, and I knew building some sustainable habits would be a cornerstone of this. I needed a baseline of non-negotiables. For me that baseline is reading for a couple of hours a day, limiting my time on my phone, and writing daily. I also went on a walk two or three times a week. Now that it’s summer I’ve replaced those walks with swims and I usually go four or five times a week when time and plans allow.

Through having answers to three questions, I began to see a way out of my creative rut. I used the answers to these questions as a guiding light, and because of this they directed me towards caring for myself and my wellbeing while building habits that prioritize creative practice.

So many of the things I’m prone to do in a rut gear themselves towards turning me away from self care and prioritizing my own creative practice, so this directional shift felt huge. 

In addition to this, I’ve also kept two other tricks in my arsenal: alone time + building up my attention span through minimizing technological distraction.

I realized that distraction-free alone time should be prioritized after I noticed that I always get my best ideas in the shower. My theory on this is that it’s because I’m able to sit with my ideas for longer. I turn them over if they don’t work instead of dismissing them entirely. In seeking to replicate that experience for longer periods of time I found that the common thread was that the time was spent alone and free from any sort of technological distraction. I go swimming alone. I spend time in my office alone and without distraction. I go do errands and activities alone. Often, I will leave my phone in my bag or in my car. I find it to be tremendously helpful and grounding. It’s the tech-addicted millennial version of touching grass. Touching actual grass is also a good idea. 

I also find it helpful to remember that I don’t have to fully unstick myself all at once. What I need most is marginal improvements. Moving the needle forward even one percent is a necessary step in getting to a place where I feel like my most generative creative self again. It’s a rare (nearly nonexistent) occasion that I can dislodge myself from the mire of burnout overnight, so taking it a little bit at a time is usually my only option.

So I ask myself, what can I do to make myself feel one percent better? What would one percent better feel like later today and how do I get from here to there? 

For this I have a handwritten list of things that help. It sits on my desk and it’s there for me when I need it. This list has been paraphrased and elaborated on below.

• Spending time out of my environment. My trip of choice is usually going to a Getaway House (I found this link in my account that will get your $25 off!) because they’re affordable (between $80-$150 a night) and in my experience, they usually have bookings available on shorter notice. 

• Taking something I can manage off my plate. Usually this is putting on headphones and doing chores or cooking something. It can also be doing the one thing I’ve been putting off. Usually the things I get hung up on aren’t giant tasks, they’re smaller things like making a call or returning library books. I bribe myself or ask someone to body double moving those things along. 

• Doing movement of some kind. Lately my movement of choice has been swimming, but I also go on long walks. 

• Tacos. I think it’s my time spent in Texas, but tacos have become my comfort meal. When I’m in a high-anxiety time, when the burnout feels inescapable, I can usually convince myself to backburner how bad I’m feeling and let my all-consuming worries go for the duration of a meal. It’s not much, but even 30 minutes of focusing on nourishing myself alone is helpful.

• Talking about it. I’m not always great at spilling all the details of how I’m feeling, but I have gotten better at just reaching out and saying that I’m going through it. Sometimes I just send a text that says “I’m having a bad time and I just needed to say it out loud. I’m not ready to talk through it yet.” and just letting someone else into my inner universe in that way helps take some pressure off. 

• Creative escapism. I find that when I’m struggling creatively, or I’m in a time of intense burnout, I scroll more. The scrolling certainly doesn’t help because I’m inundated with everything that’s going well in other people’s lives. Instead of doing that, I try to find some sort of escape that feels better like playing Animal Crossing New Horizons or watching a tv show or movie. When I need the escapism fix, I find it nearly impossible to find enjoyment in anything else, so I like to try and at least pick the least brain-rotting escape when I can. 

This is just my list. If I were you, I’d go ahead and make your own. I was really inspired when I saw Hannah Pahl’s Dopamine Menu!

In addition to the above, there are some books I find tremendously helpful for helping me get unstuck. I’ve read virtually all of these in times of deep burnout, and some of them I’ve re-read. 

How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
Can’t Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson
Saving Time by Jenny Odell 
Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy by Martin Gayford
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski 
How To Not Always Be Working by Cody Cook-Parrot 
How To Be An Artist by Jerry Saltz

The most important thing to know is that you aren’t alone in this. All creative people go through periods of time where making anything sounds awful. For me personally, and for every working artist I know, it’s part of the process. Take care of yourself, and hopefully soon making things will come with more ease. 

Future Submissions for This Might Hurt a Little

If you have a question you’d like me to answer for an upcoming column, please submit it here.

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