Take A Holiday

I’m Suggesting You STOP Being Creative

Given my focus on being creative, that sentence just below the headline must look insane. But stay with me for a moment. During the long Independence Day holiday, I was thinking the creative process. Scanning social media, I see a lot of people who are struggling with one part of the creative process or another. Can’t get past a creative block, can’t think of any ideas to pursue, or even, can’t muster the energy to work on anything.

The thought dawned on me, “Maybe they just need a holiday” Here’s the twist though, I was thinking about the need to step away from your creativity. To “take a holiday” FROM it. My first reaction was negative. Why give people another excuse not to do what they want to do? Sometimes, it’s not that easy.

Creativity can become a “job”, a duty, even a burden. When we’re struggling, maybe the best idea is to set a time limit, and re-group. Something is keeping the creative juices from flowing, is interrupting the muse, digging potholes and using the dirt to build roadblocks. It’s easy to fall into the mindset that says you must play that ridiculous protestant work ethic card, even in your creative life. You have to keep going, you must not stop. Stopping is failure, and at least here in the States, failure is a curse. It’s the one thing people won’t forgive, not even themselves.

Of course, that’s utter nonsense. I’m actually a big fan of failing, but that’s a topic for a different day. The creative holiday I’m suggesting is intended to avoid “failure”. The goal here is to help you find your path forward toward whatever you need to be doing at that point.

Here’s my rationale: sometimes we need to lift our heads and take a look at where we are. It’s amazing how often I’ve realized that I’m not where I wanted to be. A couple decades back, I came to a crossroads in my career. I’d done OK, but for a variety of reasons I didn’t see a way forward. The only thing I could see was the same goal I’d had for the previous two decades. A wise friend of mine got me to take a step backward, or at least to the side, to see what lay ahead of me from a different point of view. It was mind bending! The process was simple, and it changed my life in a huge way. I launched on a new career, and found great happiness there for many years.

So how does this connect with creativity? If you’ve hit a problem (or even you haven’t. Taking regular holiday breaks is important in real life for our health and happiness. Why not in our creative life, too?) Take a day, a weekend, maybe a week. This is full on “Your Mileage May Vary” territory. Stop being creative, but start thinking about it. Why am I stuck? Is this still what I want to be doing? Taking an honest look for and at the root causes of the problem is a great place to start. Maybe it’s time to try a new subject/topic for your current work. Maybe it’s time to think about doing something different, altogether. Doing something simply because you’ve always done it is a terrible reason to continue! You’ve run dry on ideas? Go on an idea safari. You have to discover new images, ideas, characters, emotions, whatever. No excuses. Take a notepad or a sketchpad or whatever you need to record ideas, and go on a hunt. Open your eyes and ears because the world is overflowing with ideas. The problem is that we can become blind to them. Force yourself to look.

My bet is that you’ll find that an answer, or even a batch of answers will present themselves.

Then, the holiday is over and you’re back on your creative path again.

Peace