A creative block is a common experience.

The overwhelming emotion behind a creative block is frustration.

Cognitive and behavioral regulation strategies help break out of the block.

Start with self-compassion, take a break, and examine your problems from different angles

Staring at a blank screen or canvass? Ideas simply not coming out? Your mind seems as blank as the surface in front of you? You're likely dealing with a creative block. Psychologists define a creative block as a lack of progress that cannot be explained by a lack of capacity for creativity.

If lack of ability isn’t the issue, what is? A creative block is about the nature of the creative process. When our goal is creativity, we are attempting to do something that hasn’t been done before. Because of this, there is no blueprint to specify what we are doing at every step of the way. Chances are, some degree of trial and error will be necessary, and those errors end up being times of block or impasse.

Another reason for a creative block is failing to see the forest for the trees. This can happen when we get fixated in our thinking. Researchers have found that when we are presented with examples of potential solutions when starting to work on a project, it becomes difficult to detach from them. People end up coming back to examples they see, even if these examples are clearly not what they are looking for. In other words, we might get stuck because we are very deep into one way of thinking at a point that calls for something different.

Although there is no single fail-safe way to get unstuck from a creative block, a number of strategies can help and can be used in combination.

Practice........

© Psychology Today