Creativity blocks are a universal frustration, plaguing artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and anyone who relies on their imagination to thrive. They can leave you feeling deflated, uninspired, and unsure how to move forward. You stare at a blank canvas or a blinking cursor, waiting for sparks of inspiration to ignite a creative furnace. Do you begin to worry that you’ll be waiting longer and longer until it doesn’t happen at all.
But what if there was a way to break through those mental barriers and unleash your inner creative genius? The good news is, there is. There are powerful techniques you can learn to overcome creativity blocks and reignite your creative flow.
Let’s get started:
- Shift Your Perspective: Unlock fresh angles and approaches.
- Quiet Your Inner Critic: Turn your Inner Critic into a positive ally before negative self-talk stifles your creativity and stunts your confidence.
- Spark New Ideas: Summon inspiration-on-demand and generate innovative solutions.
- Enhance Your Focus: Dive deep into your creative zone.
- The Root Cause: Move past creativity blocks and cultivate natural creativity.
If you can do this on your own without hypnosis then that’s great, it’s totally possible. By implementing these strategies, you’ll not only overcome creativity blocks, but also develop a toolbox of techniques to maintain a consistent flow of creative energy. But what if you could learn the skill of self hypnosis and use it as a tool to enhance your creativity. Would it help to try on a different perspective; see, hear and feel as someone else? What if you could push a button and switch on all the resourcefulness of past projects, all the rewards of past successes? You could roll them all together into a brain-chemical powerhouse that fuels your next project? How about just stepping into sublime focus rather than having to work it up from nothing? Want to learn self hypnosis? I’m not talking about listening to some audio tracks and feeling fuzzy about stuff. I mean actually learning how to hypnotise yourself and being able to direct that hypnosis session towards your own needs.
Shift Your Perspective
It sounds like a trite thing to suggest but I’m not just saying “think about it differently”. There are scientific principles at work in this suggestion. Specifically, I’m referring to the theory of cognitive flexibility. This is, in its simplest form, an understanding that information and expertise can become limited or restricted when oversimplified or linked too narrowly to one particular context. It’s a trait I see in myself all the time and recognise in other creatives: We can overthink stuff. Rather than getting a bigger picture, this habit narrows and cuts off our connection to other aspects of the topic. (OK so I have to explain this simply, without oversimplifying …).
A major reason creativity blocks exist is because our context is too small or too narrowly linked to the project. We need a wealth of concepts surrounding our ideas, otherwise there’s little room for creative exploration. While you are feeling blocked, try being creative in a variety of settings, in nature, in the coffee shop or supermarket, among friends… Also try changing the parameters of your project: Sculpting in steel? Try making it in wool etc.
Self-hypnosis and Perspective:
Why do I teach self-hypnosis instead of providing audio recordings of hypnotic suggestions? Because you’re unique! The best approach is to empower you to apply self hypnosis to your own specific needs. Imagine exploring different perspectives in your mind, without physically doing anything. It gives you a new breadth, but also allows for more depth of knowledge and experience. This shift in perspective through self hypnosis allows you to experience your topic with your own senses from a wide range of sources in a wide variety of media. It works for sculptors, painters, musicians, novelists, songwriters, playwrights, no matter what you do. Doing it differently will help you do it better, even if you revert to doing it the same as before: You become aware of the things you don’t know about your topic and explore them too. It’s the difference that makes the difference!
Quiet Your Inner Critic
Ooh I could write reems on this topic! I find it so ironic that the world’s most creative and awesome people are the ones who have the most overactive and negative inner critics. However much this tempts us to do fierce battle against our inner critic it is more beneficial to learn to harness your inner critic as a resource. The damn thing never shuts up anyway! Creativity blocks can occur when we listen to our inner critic before even starting. This is one of the areas where my treatment plans lean into the lessons of ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). You are a whole person; your critic is a part of you; you operate best when all parts are united towards a goal.
Self hypnosis can help you to identify the voice of your inner critic as a part of you which desires the best of you. How powerful could it be to have that constant voice as a source of positive motivation rather than a drain on your energy as you fight to shut it out? I can help you learn to use your inner critic to benefit you.
Spark New Ideas
Inspiration is like a wind out at sea. Sometimes it blows on the shore where you are. Sometimes you get in a sailboat and let it power you along through a spell of creativity. Other times you sit by the shoreline watching others sail around out there wishing you had a bit of that wind in your sails too. There are stacks of things you can do to get yourself into a position to generate fresh ideas and place yourself in the path of inspiration.
One thing I love to do is to have my clients create a button. When pressed the button invokes all of your memories of being creative and all of the feelings of being a successful creative, wraps them up in one shot and delivers a powerful hit of “I CAN” and “HERE I GO” straight into your brain. Why wait for the wind to blow your way when you could grab your oars and row out to it?
Enhance Your Focus
Staying on track vs everything else you could be doing… Distractions come from a busy mind. A mind that is rushing around itself, concerned with all the things it hasn’t done, would/wouldn’t like to do, did but could do better and so on.
This is really a key benefit of hypnosis: Attention is the fuel of hypnosis. Learning how to hypnotise yourself gives you a unique window into directing attention and focus at a particular task for a specific outcome. One of the first things you will learn is how to relax or calm your mind. A calm mind is not chasing itself in such ways and is much better able to home in on the task at hand. Even if you’re not (technically) hypnotised, just knowing how to perform this calm focus can deliver huge benefits.
The Root Cause
Ah yes, I did mention that I would talk about the root cause, didn’t I. We discussed the need for cognitive flexibility already, but I have to be honest we are such a diverse species there’s no way I could target everyone’s root causes here. While understanding that things do have a root cause is valid, identifying the root cause is not always useful or necessary.
Consider this: I’m driving in my car and I get a puncture, the tyre goes flat, what do I do? Go back and find the root cause (the nail)? Or is it ok to fix the symptom (flat tyre), put on the spare and get moving again without looking back. In life it’s important to note that flats and punctures can happen as so we learn to drive with an appropriate level of care and anticipation. With self hypnosis you can move past blocks that you are experiencing now, but more importantly you can learn how to cultivate a lifestyle that produces natural creativity and derives its own inspiration. So you can literally be on-form whenever you want.
Conclusion
While it is possible to practise creativity and defeat that stuck feeling without hypnosis. Self hypnosis can be a means of getting past those speedbumps, focusing on your task and also a tool for engaging with your subject in deep and meaningful ways.
Self hypnosis is a valuable tool for creatives. By practising self hypnosis, you can develop the skills and master your artistry. Book a free 15 minute zoom call to find out how I can help you.
Photo credits
Cover, Creative hands: Amauri Mejia
Facing the blank page: Mike Tinnion on unsplash
Sparks of creativity: Hanny Naibaho on unsplash
Shhh!: Silvestre Leon on Unsplash
Flat tyre: Denny Müller on Unsplash