The benefits of giving yourself a break

It can be helpful in overcoming your own creative blocks.

Like many creative people, I sometimes get bored with my “art” and have to take a break. Stepping back can be a great way to unblock your creativity. I just did this and came back much stronger.

This process has also proved helpful to my writer and musician clients. Hopefully, it will be helpful to you in overcoming your own creative blocks. Doing this can work for almost anything you want to get better at.

I started my writing career as a musician, a singer-songwriter, wanting to be the next Cat Stevens or James Taylor. Needless to say, that didn’t work out, but I still love music and play a lot and create in my spare time.

Recently, my music was not flowing, and I felt like I wasn’t growing creatively. I was getting frustrated, and I realised I should do something different. I can’t say that I knew what would happen next, but I needed a change. The truth is that getting stuck creatively is not a permanent roadblock; it’s just a bridge that you have to figure out how to cross.

Anyway, I wasn’t growing, and I got bored, then angry, and I decided to quit and put my studio away. I took down all of my equipment, packed away everything, then closed the closet door, so I wouldn’t see it. I also barely listened to music during this period, but strangely there was almost always a song in my head.

I even stopped looking at guitars online. I honestly thought that this part of my life might be over. I’ve been working so much through the pandemic that I thought I might not ever have the time I needed to get better at my music — but I guess I never fully bought into that idea.