The worse thing for any entrepreneur is to be in a creative rut and feel as if you can never work your way around it. More terrible is when your business depends on your creativity, and you have to either force it or compromise your work in some way in order to keep going.
Creative ruts suck. Each time I speak to someone going through it in my Facebook Group Successful Caribbean Content Creators I’m reminded that creatives need something more precocious and precious than the business-minded set. Once it’s not there, the work suffers.
Getting Stuck In A Creative Rut Is Not The End Of It All
Last month in the Facebook group chat, I took a question from one of our members, Francis, very seriously. She is the owner of a private school but was feeling stuck in a creative rut, and could not find her way out.
Before I go on, can I just say the first step to getting out of anything is self-awareness? This includes the ability to know when something does not feel right and do something about it. So cheers to Francis for reflecting on her reluctance to tap into the gumption to motivate her teaching staff before the start of the school year. Francis also felt lethargic about the creative planning that’s involved in developing the school’s homeworking component.
Solitude Is Ok Once You Use It Wisely
I commend Francis also for reaching out about her creative rut and understanding that not every day or every week, for that matter, is going to be one where she charges out of bed to live her best life.
As business owners, creativity is what we thrive on. In many ways, it is who we are, part of our identity and the way we show up in the world. There is a lot of pride that we wear with the title, “creative.”
So when we lose it, it feels like as if a vampire sucked the life out of us. There is listlessness and the feelins that we are the only ones going through it. Often, it’s a lonely period accompanied by thoughts of wanting to give up.
Advice To Get You Out Of Your Creative Rut
But here is the advice I gave to Francis. I told her sometimes to get through, you have to move through. A rut may demand that we remain in silence and work out the very thing it is telling us to. More often than not, we are so caught up in the busyness of life that we forget that time away from work is ok to ask ourselves…
What’s really wrong?
Why am I exhausted?
What makes me hopeful in the moment?
Is there anything that brings me joy in this moment?
What’s the source of my angst or pain?
How can I regroup?
Where can I get help?
A creative rut can be a period of time to self reflect.