[00:00:00] What do you do when you find yourself in a creative rut and no matter how much you love to create your content or how much you love to create in your business, you just suddenly lose interest in doing it. How do we get out of it?
I'm going to share with you my top tips for how to get out of a creative rut and stick around until the end because I have a free tool for you that I know will really help with your creativity. So make sure you stick around for that. All right, let's get on with the show.
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Okay, full disclosure, this has been me lately. I think of myself as being a very creative person, but lately I have just [00:01:00] had no drive to create. But this isn't the first time I've been here, so I knew what to do about it. Now, you might have noticed there was no podcast last week. That was not because of this creative rut I found myself in.
That was because I fell on the ice three times the week before. Three times. Within two days. It's ridiculous. And, uh, my TMJ acted up in my jaw and my jaw was so sore. It hurt too much to talk. So other than talking with my clients, I was not recording content. Uh, it was just too painful. And so last week was an exception, but that said, I have been in a creative rut and taking time off of the podcast last week, I think has helped me move through it.
So this isn't the first time I have felt this way, and we experience these creative ruts, and there's ways that we can help ourselves work through [00:02:00] them. And I'm going to share with you some of those tips today of how you can get through it, or how we could even prevent a creative rut from happening to begin with.
So first of all, it's okay to take breaks. And I think that what last week reminded me of, is that it's okay to take a break. Because I've been feeling this way for a while, where I felt like I had to force myself to create. Not specifically with the podcast, because I feel like this is always an avenue where I can think of something to say, and I always feel connected to this show, but I haven't created an episode for my other podcast, What the Poop, in months.
And if you listen to that podcast as well, I apologize. I am coming back to it. I've been brainstorming ideas. I'm coming back to it. There will be episodes soon, maybe even later this week. But I just haven't felt like it. I've just lost my motivation. And [00:03:00] not that I've lost my motivation for the idea behind that podcast, because I love the concept.
And for those of you who don't know what that show is about, it's about living with ulcerative colitis and really thriving. with ulcerative colitis. So we make a little fun of colitis on that one and inflammatory bowel disease. Uh, we poke light, we talk about poop and we talk about how to deal with this disease.
I've lived with it since I was 12 years old. So I've had a few decades behind me. of dealing with it, and I share from my own experience. I still love that concept, and I love the idea of helping people who are maybe newly diagnosed and feeling isolated and alone, and they don't have someone who understands or who gets what they're going through.
I love that idea. I want to continue it, but when it came to sitting down to record, I just suddenly had all this internal resistance to it. And then that started filtering into [00:04:00] other forms of content. I haven't sent an email out since December. It is February 17th now, as I'm recording this, and I was very consistent before then of sending an email at least once a week to my list.
I haven't sent one since December. If you are on that list, You should be getting an email soon, I promise, uh, but I haven't done it lately, and even when it comes to creating social media content, which normally I tell people I love doing, and I do love doing it, my content has been lagging lately because I just have had no drive to create.
So I got to thinking about this over the weekend, and this is why I thought we would talk about it this week. You know, last week I took a lot of downtime because I was pretty banged up and pretty sore from my three falls on the ice. Um, that I spent a lot of time the last two weeks kind of on my couch, relaxing.[00:05:00]
I mean, the first week of that, there was also, we had a huge snowstorm here. Big dump of snow. I live in the Vancouver area. If you're not familiar with this area of Canada, we don't do snow well here. We're not equipped for it. We live in a warm rainforest type climate. So when suddenly it snows, which it maybe happens once a year, and usually it only lasts for a couple days and then it's gone, when it snows a lot, things here shut down because we're not equipped for it.
We don't deal with it. We're not like the rest of Canada. And it gets really slippery out because it is so humid here. So that week I was pretty much hibernating at home with my dogs. My husband was also away for work that week. So I was on my own and took the snow day opportunity to just hibernate indoors.
I was still working though, still seeing my clients online. I was still working on stuff behind the [00:06:00] scenes, but not in the same capacity that I have in the past. And then after falling, of course, I was super, super sore. My back was really hurting. I didn't feel like sitting at my desk for long periods of time and my jaw locked up and I was in a lot of pain.
And so I also did not really create during that time. And that kind of just kept carrying over. So this rut started months ago. Let's. You know, put it in perspective. It started months ago, but it's just been getting worse and worse and worse. And why I'm thinking about it now, or why I'm sharing this with you now, is because Friday was Valentine's, and I hadn't left my house.
I did not get my husband a card. Uh, but he was at work on Friday, and I thought, well, I can make him a card. I love watercolor. Why don't I sit down and make him a card? And as I was painting, and I did a couple practice runs of what I was going to make, And [00:07:00] as I was sitting down with my watercolors and painting, I started to think about how easy it was for me to sit down and create that.
But why am I not creating content right now? Why has my content shut down, slowed down to like a grinding halt? What is going on? And as I sat there and gave myself permission to just play with the paints for a bit, I started thinking about all these different ideas for my business and all these things I could be creating and programs and hypnosis recordings and all this stuff I could create.
And I realized something that I knew before, but I had forgotten about, I wasn't paying attention to it, is that creativity begets creativity. So it's no wonder that sitting down to do something creative started to open up creativity in my brain. And that's my first tip I'm going to give you is that if you are not feeling creative, if you don't feel like creating your content, if you feel like you're out of [00:08:00] ideas and everything feels like you've done it before and everything feels stale and you've lost your motivation for it, do something else that's creative, whether that's painting or gardening, whether that's You know, redecorating your office or a space in your home, making a wreath, I love making door wreaths.
So that's why I'm saying make a wreath. Go go to the craft store and just find something that interests you, whether it's painting or scrapbooking or whatever medium you find. But just go find something that you can make that you can do. Maybe it's writing. You know, I remember. Many years ago, when I was in theater school, a friend of mine who was a playwright, she was going through a writing rut and she just had no ideas and nothing was working.
She didn't feel like writing anymore. She even started to question whether she should be a playwright. And then [00:09:00] she challenged herself to just write one haiku. Every day for 30 days and to see what happened. See, a haiku to her was safe because it's only three lines. Five,
it's only three lines. Five syllables for the first line, seven syllables the second line, and then five again for the third line. And it needs to rhyme, and a traditional haiku is about nature. So she thought, I can do that. If there's nothing else I can write in a day, I can write three lines, five, seven, five.
I can do that. It also gave her really tight boundaries on her creativity. Creativity loves boundaries. Now, as creative types, we often like to think that we need open space and loose parameters or no parameters at all to create, but it actually works the opposite way. Creativity thrives within boundaries.
You know that expression, think outside [00:10:00] the box? Well, when it comes to creativity, we need the box to create in. And in fact, that very idea of thinking outside the box presupposes that there has to be a box to begin with. And I've talked about this before on the show, but I think it bears repeating. So by giving herself that structure, it started to open up her creative channels again.
And by the end of the 30 days, she was She's writing freely again. So she just needed some constraint around her creativity. It's like if someone just tells you, Hey, go create something and you're like, well, what? You need, you need some kind of restriction on it. Listen, we are all creative beings. So if any of you are listening to this and you're thinking, but I'm just not a creative person, Terry, you are creative.
You have been creating your life. Every day, every day you create your future based on the decisions you make today, based on your perceptions, based on your [00:11:00] interactions, based on how you perceive the world. You are creating your future. You are creative. Every single human being is creative. What's not natural is not creating.
That's not natural for humans. We are meant to create, but sometimes we get stuck. We find ourselves in a rut. So my first tip for you is that you need to give yourself some constraint. Give yourself boundaries to create and give yourself a timeline just like my friend did. And you know, and I've shared that story several times.
I've shared it here. I've shared it when I've been speaking and in my mastermind groups and stuff. And other people haiku every day to unlock their writing creativity. So the next thing is change your environment. You know, I found, I usually create in my office. I sit in my office and I work and I love my office.
I've created a beautiful space. That's all me. You know, the rest of the house, I [00:12:00] need to, I need to incorporate my husband into the flow of our house and the design. But in this office, it is all me. 100%. It's filled with things that I love and that inspire me. But the last two weeks, I've hung out on my couch and things start to open up again.
Well, I've been sitting on my couch, just a different environment. So it doesn't have to be dramatically different. You can just move to a different area of your house that maybe you don't normally work in. Go down the street to a coffee shop. Go to a co working space. Last summer, I went to a co working space once a week.
And I got so much done just being in the energy and the environment of other people working was so inspiring. Probably going to do that again this summer. The only reason I stopped, you might be wondering, well, why did you stop? The only reason I stopped is because I take transit, I drive, and I don't [00:13:00] like coming home when it's dark already.
I'm very much, uh, Hibernation kind of person in the winter. I don't like being out as much and but as the weather starts to get nicer and as the days get longer, I'll probably be back there again once a week. So find a co working space that works for you. Go out in nature, especially if it's nice where you are or as the weather warms up more, take your work outside.
I love sitting on my porch to work in the summer. Just get into a different environment. Or even change the environment that you're in. So maybe you don't have the option to work somewhere else. But what can you do within the environment that you're in to change it and inspire you? Adding some art, add some plants, move the furniture around.
Make the environment different. My second or my third thing that I want to share with you is doing a creative warm up. [00:14:00] So sometimes we try to just dive into creating something and you might not be in the headspace for it. So you need to warm yourself up so you could do free writing, set a timer for just five minutes and write whatever comes to mind, just.
Stream of consciousness writing, or mind mapping, start with a central topic in the middle of the page, write down whatever that central topic is, and then start branching out from there and see how many connections you can make to that topic. I like doing this. I'll do this with topics that I speak on often, like confidence, and then I'll see how many connections can I make to confidence?
How many different ways can I talk about confidence? How many different tips can I give for confidence? How many different strategies can I provide? And then see how many ideas come to you. Even something as simple as before you go to create, sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and just [00:15:00] doodle for a bit.
Connect to that part of your brain that is creative. Especially if your business isn't creative. Like if you're a bookkeeper or if you are an accountant, if you're a lawyer, and I'm not saying these are not creative roles where you're not using creativity, but you're using a more analytical part of your brain most of the time.
So if you, if your business, if your day to day work is very analytical, very logical, then do something before it's time to create your content. Warm yourself up to it. Get in that headspace of, okay, now it's time to create. Otherwise it could feel like jumping into a cold pool of water. It's a bit of a shock on your system to suddenly go from being very analytical to very creative.
And here's my favorite one. Here's the favorite one. Number four is consume different forms of content. Sometimes we get into our own [00:16:00] worlds and we just listen to the things that are within our niche. We consume information and content that's related to our businesses. This is one that I fall into a lot.
I love what I do and I tend to read books about it. I listen to podcasts related to it. I'm consuming content every day related to what I do. And that doesn't help my creativity. So we need to consume different forms of content to get different ideas. So listen to podcasts that are completely outside of your niche.
I mean, don't turn this one off, keep listening to me. But, uh, but after this, maybe listen to A podcast, like a true crime podcast, if that's not something you normally listen to, or a literature podcast, or, um, listen to a podcast about sports, finance, something totally different outside of what you would normally listen to.
Maybe some [00:17:00] juicy celebrity gossip. Watch some TED Talks. I get so inspired by TED Talks. So go on to the TED Talks YouTube channel and pick some that you normally wouldn't watch or listen to. Pick some that are, like, really out there, off the wall ideas, and just let, let whatever connections you make to it be made.
And read books and articles that are outside of what you normally consume. For years, I did not read any fiction. And I love fiction, but I thought, no, I better read. Everything I read has got to be self help, business, marketing. That's all I was reading. And then I got so tired of reading because I was getting bored by reading the same kind of information.
And it's not that I wasn't interested in it anymore. I was just craving something different. [00:18:00] And then one day I gave myself permission to just read some fun fiction and I got so many new ideas from reading it. It was fascinating how quickly. I was making different connections creatively within my business and coming up with new ideas by just consuming something that was totally different.
So do things, put yourself in environments that are different and also consume different content
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. And now for the women who are listening. Whether you have a menstrual cycle or even if you don't anymore, and if your cycle isn't regular, that's okay too, but we are more creative at certain times of the month.
So start paying attention to your cycle and how your cycle feeds into your creativity. If you are trying to create during certain times of your cycle, certain times of the month, you are not going to feel like it. You're going to feel drained. It's going to feel forced and instead capitalize on the times when we want to be creative.
Spoiler alert, that's usually [00:20:00] ovulation time. So during that part, that window of the month, maybe you want to batch a ton of content. It's where you're going to feel the most lively, the most expressive, the most outgoing, because you're literally signaling to the world, I'm ready to make a baby. And if you're interested in learning more about that, listen to the interview that I did with Renee Fick last, I think we did it last summer, last spring, summer, somewhere in there.
I'll tag it. I'll link it in the show notes. Um, but listen to that interview because this is her jam is teaching women how to align your business with your cycle. So, also look at like, when is the best time for you to create and start noticing those trends during the month. Like when do you feel the most creative?
When is it? When is it time to create and take advantage of it? Batch create during those times. That's something I have implemented after that interview with Renee. It's made a huge [00:21:00] difference. I don't force myself to create during my period. If I don't feel like it, I don't feel like it. When I'm really on the ball and I'm really in a good creative flow, so to speak, um, it's always during ovulation time and when I'm really on the ball and paying attention, I will batch create a bunch of content so that when that seven days hits where I don't feel like creating and I don't feel like being seen on camera, I have a whole bunch of content that's ready to go.
Also, think about that. And oh, like I said, if you don't get a cycle anymore, or if your cycle is irregular, you can sync it with the moon. So follow the moon phases, and it will give you an idea of what your cycle would still be like because your body will still respond to those same cues.
But also think about the mediums you create in. So here's my next tip. [00:22:00] If you've been writing and maybe you've been blogging for years, maybe try something different. Try podcasting. Or if you've been podcasting for a while and you're feeling kind of like, Oh, I'm tired of podcasting right now. Maybe you start doing more videos.
If you're creating short form content on video all the time, maybe you want to think about switching to long form or writing an article instead or blog. Maybe. If you've been doing lots of content in your Instagram feed, maybe you just want to switch to stories for a bit. Be a little more casual, show behind the scenes.
So mix up your medium. And I don't know if you've noticed yet, but the common thread through all of this is change things up. Creativity loves two things, in my experience. We've already mentioned it loves boundaries. But it also loves change. So you need to change things up. Make it different. Whether that's changing your environment, whether that's changing the time [00:23:00] of the month that you do your creation in, whether that's changing your input channels, what you're exposing yourself to, you're changing your type of content, change.
Creativity loves change and it loves boundaries. But then also, it's okay to take a break. Sometimes the best way to get creative again is to just step away. Give yourself permission to take some time off, whether that's one day or three days. I would say try not to go beyond three days because then we start to get stagnant.
So to avoid getting stagnant, you want to be creating where creativity begets creativity. I guess three things creativity loves. Creativity loves Loves creating, loves boundaries, and loves change. So take a break. Take a short break. Because a long break can turn into more of a rut. It can be counterintuitive.
But take a day off. Take a couple days off. Do something [00:24:00] fun. Do things that are completely unrelated to work. And rest. I have to tell you, this past weekend, my husband and I both agreed we both needed a rest. We were feeling run down. And other than attending a family dinner on Saturday night. We were in our sweatpants on the couch all weekend.
We did a few things around the house, like threw in some laundry, did the dishes, like a couple things that had to get done. But otherwise, we were complete couch potatoes all weekend, Saturday and Sunday. In fact, and I, maybe I shouldn't share this with you, Because it's kind of embarrassing, but we were so sedentary yesterday that my Apple Watch logged that I was sleeping from 3 p.
m. to 8 p. m. I was not sleeping, but because I hadn't moved, and I was so relaxed on the couch, um, My watch logged it as sleeping [00:25:00] time. So there you go. And we watched I think four movies yesterday and I don't know a hockey. I think we watched a hockey game. Maybe that was Saturday. There was hockey somewhere in there.
And yeah, we watched movies. We watched shows. We watched a documentary and we just chilled out. We ordered food. We were just lazy. Sloths for two days and it was wonderful. We're both feeling so recharged today because we gave ourselves permission to just literally do nothing except for that Saturday night dinner.
Okay, my final tip for you, and this is where we're going to give you something free. So if you've stuck around this long, here's the payoff for it. Uh, hypnosis, hypnosis, or you could just do a visualization. So you could just do a visualization on your own, close your eyes, relax your body, and imagine yourself being full of creative energy.
[00:26:00] Or you can make it even better and more effective by downloading my free hypnosis that I created just to go along with this episode. I'm telling you these tips work. I am full bursting with creativity today, bursting with it. So I created a hypnosis for you.
It's called Confident Content Creation, and I will link it in the show notes. It's free. You do need to sign up with your email in order to access it, and that puts you on my email list, but you can unsubscribe anytime you want. But I'll give you that for free. So I don't normally give my hypnosis recordings for free.
So there you go, a little gift for you to help you overcome a creative rut if you find yourself in it. And if you're not in a creative rut, it's still a good one to listen to because it will keep you going. And that's, Oh, that's something I want to mention as well is that all of these tips I shared with you today, they work even if you're not in a [00:27:00] rut, like don't wait until you are stuck creatively.
And you feel like the well has dried up before you start implementing these, do them, implement them now before things get challenging, and it'll help you to stay creative and to make even more powerful, meaningful, creative connections inside. So I hope this was helpful. If it was helpful, can you do me a favor?
Can you leave me a five star review on whatever platform you're listening on? And if that platform happens to be Apple. Can you also please leave a written review? Because that really helps other people like you to find my show. And if you listen to a few episodes back, my goal this year is to grow this podcast to 15, 000 downloads a month.
So it helps me if you leave those reviews. Thank you so much for being here today. I'll be back again later this week with another episode. And if you also listen to what the poop there will be an episode either this week or next week, I promise. [00:28:00] Thank you so much for hanging out here today and I'll be back with you later in the week.
All right. Bye for now, my friends.
