How to Eliminate Creative Blocks

You’re sitting in front of a blank computer screen. You’re trying to write, yet the ideas aren’t coming along.

There’s a reason that’s such a common image when talking about creative blocks. It shows the exact biggest mistake most people make that sets up creative blocks for them…

The narrow street of your mind

Imagine a narrow street, where only one car can pass at a time. Let’s say it’s about 100 metres long, so while by no means huge, it’s long enough to cause severe traffic jams if cars try going through in both directions at once.

Your mind works like that. You can either be focused, narrowing things down, set on getting something done… or else creative, coming up with new ideas, broadening the content in front of you.

Here’s the catch – focus and creativity are directly opposed – they’re caused by conflicting chemicals in the brain, with the exact opposite effects.

So trying to be both creative and focused at once is like trying to have cars pass both ways down that narrow street! They’ll get stuck, and nobody is going anywhere.

That’s what’s happening in the scene of sitting in front of a blank computer screen. The person is:

• trying to come up with new ideas (creative)
• trying to put them down clearly and concisely (focused)

Boom! Creative block!

Instead, when you separate the creative and focused phases of your work, it’s like first letting the cars go through the street in one direction, and then switching the traffic lights, and letting cars go in the other direction. Suddenly, everything is flowing smoothly!

Interestingly, though, some people have a constant flow of traffic in the “focused” direction without even realizing it. (Remember it comes down to brain chemicals?) So even when they try to separate creativity from focus, they get stuck, because the “creativity” cars can’t pass through due to constant traffic in the other direction.

A quick biochemistry of creative blocks (and why a walk in the park boosts your creativity)

Consciously focusing isn’t the only thing that gets your brain going in the “focused” direction. There’s one other major cause that’s often at the heart of a creative block.

When you focus, your brain releases dopamine, nor-epinephrine, and even epinephrine (adrenaline). These are the same chemicals your ancestors released when hunting animals or fighting for their life. They narrow down your focus, filter out most other things (including your peripheral vision), and get you working single-mindedly at a goal.

Not surprisingly, that’s not very useful for your creativity.

Creativity, on the other hand, is caused by chemicals that widen your awareness, and diffuse your focus, like acetylcholine.

When you try to be both focused and creative at once, you keep switching from telling your brain to send focusing chemicals, to telling it to send relaxing chemicals. They keep conflicting, so you get neither focused nor relaxed! Just like the narrow-street traffic jam!

Because the focus chemicals are linked directly to stressful situations for our ancestors, stress gets your brain chemicals flowing in the “focused” direction. It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing competitive sports, or worrying about your essay deadline. The effect is the same – stress – which releases the focus-related brain chemicals.

To release the opposite brain chemicals, do something that relaxes you. That’s why a walk in the park boosts your creativity, and why so many famous inventions were conceived while sleeping. You’re very relaxed indeed when you sleep!

Quick summary

• Separate your creative and focused work. Trying to do both at once is like sending cars through a narrow street in both directions at once.
• Stress directly releases the brain chemicals that focus your thinking (and kill creativity).
• If separating creativity from focus doesn’t help with your block, that probably means stress is stopping you from being creative. Forget about your work, and do something that relaxes you!