Five holistic tips to refill your creative jar…

Working as a creative is genuinely a sheer bliss of liberty. You get to paint the universe out of an empty canvas. You can share a kiss with your lover in the field of tulips from the manuscripts you write. Scribble a compelling article for a website blog. Or sing your heart out in fervent emotions with your acoustic guitar.

See? Being creative is a diverse mastery of craft. It is both thrilling and liberating!

However, the downtick of being one is that, occasionally, your juice runs out empty. You know, when you have zero ideas, all you do is stare in a blank space and contemplate the argument you had with a stranger seven years ago. Sometimes, it is a subconscious contention with our inner-self in the middle of bicker whether you take pizza or cereals for dinner.

Hold up! The truth is, you’re just downright terrified if you’ll ever come up with something productive today. We foresee circumstances like these during high times of stress, pressure, anxiety, and other predicaments.
And sometimes, trying to be creative is rather exhausting than easy. Of sorts, it can be frustrating! But you don’t have a choice. Your life depends on your craft. You have to survive the drought and develop some artsy-fartsy ideas to go on with life.

So, what actions would you need to do when your creative ink depletes? Those moments when we were left sobbing in front of a blinking cursor or gasping hard behind the mocking illustration?

If you share the same sentiments, you don’t have to cry in solace — you’re not alone. It’s typical for every creative person to run out of gas from time to time. The greater the days you exhaust creativity, the greater the odds you’ll have days where you don’t feel like doing anything.

These people are burned out so loud they feel like their days are blue and gray. Eventually, they can fill up their tanks again. And I’m pretty sure you can too.

If you feel like your creativity is stuck in a rut or you’re just simply uninspired, here are concrete redemption tips to keep your creative gems away from the holiday.

1. Reinvent Your Work Routine

Despondency at work periodically occurs when we feel discomfort at our habitual tasks. A creative block sometimes happens when you have too much on your plate to handle. You find yourself wasting excessive time and feel numb whenever you move a finger in friction.

Now that isn’t good! A professional grind shouldn’t feel like standing at the western edge of Gaia to hold up the sky on your shoulders as Atlas did. It must be a reinforcement for your livelihood — and perhaps you can start by reassessing your working habits.

Related: Reinvention for an Insightful Introspection

Think about your office rituals. Have you ever appreciated the vase of lilies on your workstation? How about the aroma of coffee when you sip it as you seek inspiration for your next article? Well, if not, then we have a problem here. You might shrug these little things off while drowning yourself from the tasks, but a few-minute pause won’t hurt your productivity.

During the grind, it is imperative to know when your energy peaks the most and when it flops. If you’re starting to get weary, now it’s the green light to stop meanwhile before you resume.

Take your time and appreciate the little things around you. Fuel yourself with a coffee meditation to reset the stage of your creativity. Scan your notes and smell the lily petals. With that, you’ll get enough energy to dive into work again.

2. Plan an Immediate Escape

The sound of solitude is the music that inspires restoration. A panoramic view from an unfamiliar place is a sight of motivation. Get away from your cubicle commitments temporarily and plan an exciting weekend retreat!

Great days for rebooting may not conspire quickly if you prefer swamping sluggishly inside the dull walls of your workplace. Working hard is crucial, but forcing yourself to work can be counterintuitive and sometimes detrimental to your wellbeing.

Take a day off or two and do the most dramatic activities to stimulate your interests. How about you watch a live musical at the Queen’s theatre? Seeing something out of the world can get the creative well replenished again. Check out an art exhibit, go hiking and get lost in the tall green woods, or go swimming and sunbathing on the beach of Miami. Either way, anything will do as long as you find yourself enjoying the moment while rekindling artful motivation.

Be as indulgent as you can be, limber your creative muscle by taking pleasure trips. Consequently, your creative connection will spark anew, for sure.

3. Find an Artistic Medium

Being passionate about what you do does not guarantee the longevity of artistic inspiration. If you’re feeling stuck and scratching the same empty surface, now it’s time for you to shake things up a little bit.

Let’s say you’re a writer struggling to finish a long-form article. Try something different like charcoal painting without being mindful of the result. If you’re a scrambling graphic artist, scribe on some journal — write a diary entry. You don’t have to be the best writer out there to do a journal. Just let your fingers do the work and allow your emotions to flow in to get out of the rut eventually.

Becoming creative happens when you permit yourself to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable in a manner where you can exhibit unforeseen ingenuity and diminish the stress you’re withholding miserably. Doing things out of our comfort zone will save you from the drudgery of everyday life.

Doing the opposite may sound crazy for some reason, but creativity is diverse in form and color. Allowing ourselves to execute ideas using unfamiliar mediums can help us retain creativity without judgment. The further you explore activities, the more you get new ideas that can bring you back to the game.

4. Gratify a Peaceful Slumber

Having a regular sleeping pattern is logically good for us for obvious reasons. Our brain is a central medium through which consciousness travels. Encouraging holistic hibernation habits helps you think clearly, thus making creativity come in easy. 

As a hustling adult, it is understandable that getting the right amount of sleep is like baking pancakes in a freezer—unfortunately, our minds—where creativity roots in—are connected vessels to our bodies. According to multiple research, sleep deprivation impairs performance, including a 2004 study published by Nature. Needless to say, our body requires a recharge before our brain can come to play for creativity to set free. 

So how can we fulfill artistic endeavors if our discordant minds cannot cooperate when we need it the most?

The best thing to do is gratify the need to hit the sheets and rest in a peaceful slumber. There, I said it. Now, don’t get baffled, buddy. Cast yourself away from your worries, pay attention to your repose and get back once you’ve fully charged the engine.

5. Hearty Exercise

Some of us fret about delayed creativity while all we do is slouch in the boring computer table. How often do you feel the urge to hit the treadmill, jog on the mountainside, or lift some weights?

Working out seems impossible to do — especially to those who are chasing rigid deadlines. Not to mention, some people aren’t into that kind of lifestyle. Now, if you find yourself hampered with apprehension and unable to forge ahead because of physical exhaustion, then exercise is your key solution.

Studies have shown that exercise can significantly tap your creative appetite. This is not rocket science to comprehend; in fact, it has been proven when researchers conducted the study by organizing an exercise video with participants executing a routine, while another group just watched the video. In conclusion, participants who had exercised outperformed the other group regarding rational thinking. The executors happened to come up with more feasible and creative solutions to the sample problem.

Getting your blood pumping invigorates your physique resulting in the release of endorphins for physiological function. Exercise, in general, lowers stress and alleviates physical discomfort resulting in a creative flow of ideas. Eventually, you’ll find yourself in a better state, more composed to get the work done. 

The outlined restorative tips above are some tactics to help you get back on track. However, to ultimately pull through from this predicament, one must deal with personal situations beforehand. This includes an assessment of oneself and examining one’s creative condition. What triggers you to stop? What works and doesn’t work for you? What inspires you the most? Who influences you to craft an amazing art? Who motivates you to work in a heartbeat? No one can answer these questions but you. 

Sometimes, listening to our own thoughts is self-inflicting rather than motivating in life. Insecurities can cloud over our uniqueness. But the sooner you allow yourself to shine through, the greater you’ll emerge in the end. 

Now tell us: Do you share the same sentiments? Creative blog, lack of inertia, demotivated? Share your thoughts below in the comments!