when you're on your creative a game
firing on all cylinders it's a great
feeling but what about the opposite end
of the spectrum when you find yourself
struggling and the creativity just isn't
flowing how do you break through that
creative block when we had a creative
block it's often stressful and this
stress can stifle our creativity even
more so it can sometimes be helpful to
step away from a project or focus on
something else entirely Alfred Hitchcock
the director of films like psycho and
vertigo sometimes struggled while
working on screen plays with co-writers
they'd hit a creative block which led to
heated arguments about the script out of
nowhere Hitchcock would start telling a
story about something just completely
unrelated and it would seem random at
first but he was intentionally trying to
take focus away from the project and
remove the stress from the situation so
if you're stuck feel free to take a
break or do something else an idea may
just come to you while your mind
subconsciously processes things
another common tactic is using creative
constraints a constraint is a kind of
rule that you place on yourself that
determines what you can or can't do
during a project for instance if you're
painting maybe you only allow yourself
to use a limited number of colors
studies have shown that constraints
cause people to produce more varied
results because there are less choices
for them to make for example dr. Seuss
constrained himself to using only 50
words when writing green eggs and ham
resulting in one of the most popular
creative children's books of all time
when we're in a rut we often spend a lot
of time thinking about what to do
instead of actually creating so a third
method for breaking through a block is
to just create something anything don't
worry so much about the outcome the goal
is to just not be not creating Thomas
Edison the famous inventor was a big
proponent of this he believed that in
order to find a great idea you have to
generate many many ideas for example it
took him thousands of different theories
and failed experiments to invent a
practical and cost-efficient lightbulb
when you hit a creative block it's easy
to panic but know that it happens to
everyone there's no right or wrong way
to deal with one it's up to you to find
what works best on a personal level
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