Suffering from Creator’s Block?

Do you sometimes find yourself just staring at the computer screen, or scrolling through social media on your phone just waiting for that motivation to find its way through your veins to spark that excitement to get creating again? I know I certainly do!

So what can we do about it!? How do we get rid of this creator’s block? Well hopefully The Creator’s Block can be of some help.

Before we can work through creator’s block or this lack of motivation, we must first look into what may be causing it.

Impostor Syndrome is a common culprit here.

If you’re the kind of individual who’s a bit of a perfectionist, a bit of an expert, where no matter what you do, or what you achieve, it just doesn’t feel genuine. Something feels fraudulant in your achievements. If you’re someone who is hesitant to put yourself forward for a job opportunity because you don’t meet EVERY criteria in fear you’ll be caught out and made to look like an idiot in an interview. If you look at all your accomplishments to date and feel you got this far due to pure luck, and not because of your qualifications or talent. Then you probably suffer form some form of Imposter Syndrome.

This is stopping you from STARTING!

I remember being at school and whenever the teacher would raise a question to the classroom, I would NEVER put my hand up. Even if I KNEW the answer. I still wouldn’t put my hand up in fear that for some reason I was wrong. For some reason I hadn’t understood the question properly and my answer would have made me look stupid.

If only I did. If only I took more risks by putting my hand up. I may have gotten an answer correct and I would been right! I would have shown to the rest of the class, but more importantly I would have shown to myself that I do know what I’m doing. I can fit in with my peers! Perhaps this would have lead to me putting my hand up more, putting my name forward more, applying for that job role and lead to… who knows! Writing this down, and probably reading this, it sounds ridiculous! What have you got to lose, right? Well, unfortunately this “Imposter Syndrome” is a real problem and it holds so many people back from what it is they truly want to achieve in their lives.

So, where does it stem from? How did this negative mentality come to fruition?

Unfortunately I don’t have that answer. Some experts believe it can have something to do with personality traits, anxiety, upbringing or even your ethnicity and the stereotypes surrounding them. You could argue that it’s simply down to confidence, and how your confidence may have been impacted during your life. Perhaps you had trouble fitting in as a child, you were picked on, bullied or made fun of? Maybe you were rejected by someone you admired or even betrayed by someone you loved? Maybe you went through something traumatic, or have been subject to some form of discrimination?

These are all horrible feelings to be subjected to, and especially in this day and age with Social Media, so much harder to escape but perhaps you can find comfort in the fact that the reasons are so broad that you’re almost definitely not the only one experiencing this.

I’m writing this because I’m one of those people, it is something I have lived with my entire life, and something I have tried to overcome.

How do we deal with it?

This is one of those ‘easier said than done’ scenarios I know, but there are definitely ways in which we can learn to suppress imposter syndrome. My first piece of advice would be to work on one thing at a time. Take a leap of faith in yourself! Whatever it is you want to achieve, no matter how big or small, ask yourself this question ‘Will it make me happy?’ If the answer is yes, then you owe it to yourself to give it a shot! If you’re wanting to start that YouTube channel you’ve been thinking about for weeks, months or even years. Will it make you happy? Yes? Then start!…Now!… I will wait while you set up an account haha.

In all seriousness, the real key takeaway here is don’t feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the overall picture and how that may bring about it’s fear of starting something. Just start! Make the first step to whatever it may be and at every further step acknowledge your achievements, maybe write them down and tick them off as you go along. Most importantly don’t dwell on the steps that don’t go your way. If you fail at the next step, go back and look at the list of progress you’ve made up to this point, take pride in all of those ‘ticks’ and ask that question again. Will it make me happy? Yes? Then you know what to do.

Let’s help each other!

If you have any feelings you wish to share or any words of wisdom you’d like to pass on, please leave a comment below and we can curb imposter syndrome together!