Creativity has its own ebb and flow. It’s not a constant outpouring. Sometimes it’s a waterfall; others, it’s barely a trickle. The waterfall time is awesome, when ideas come by the bucketful and the need to create is intense. It feels so important during this time to ride the wave as far as it will take me, to jump in with both feet and embrace whatever comes.
Because I know that it won’t always feel that way. The trickle is coming because it always comes. Call it burnout or exhaustion or the most terrible part of the creativity life cycle, but it comes. And it’s the worst.
I know because I’m feeling it right now. I’m feeling uninspired and dried up. My brain feels a little fried, and I find myself fantasizing about sitting beside a large body of water, staring into space, more often than I’d like to admit. I want to escape the monologue in my brain that chimes with the chorus of so what? why are you doing this? My insides feel jammed.
I know my own triggers, the biggest of which is when my husband is working a lot and the parenting duties fall primarily on me. It takes a lot of the energy I might otherwise be using for my writing, photography, or other creative pursuits. And, not only does solo parenting require a lot of energy, but it takes a long time to recover when it’s over.
I also know that feeling this way, a little burned out creatively, is just part of it. There are going to be highs and there are going to be lows, and that’s okay. I’m a big believer in showing up and doing the work no matter how I feel. The more often I sit down to work, the easier it gets to do the work (simple, right?). And even when I’m not feeling it, the muscle memory from all the times before can guide me to what I need to do.
Because I sit at my desk kitchen table every morning at 6 a.m. to write, when I sit at the kitchen table I write. Because I go through my days looking for pockets of light and beautiful moments, when I pull out my camera I get the photograph I want.
You can train yourself to be creative through your habits. And when you feel creatively dry, you can still do the work.
But you have to show up in the first place. You have to do the hard work that builds the muscle memory. You have to do it over and over again. Try, fail, try again. Practice, practice, practice.
And, also, rest.
The most restorative part of the work is in the not-working; it’s in the rest. As much as I believe in muscle memory, I also believe in rest – rest from work, rest from the to-do list, rest from social media. It’s that need to stare off into space in front of a large body of water. When I’m down to a creative trickle, I try to find a way to shut it all off so I can get refreshed.
When I think about creating space in my life for creativity, I think about space for work and space for rest. Both are necessary, but the balance is tricky, if there even is one. Without the rest, we don’t do our best work; without the work, we don’t need as much rest. But we need both to produce anything of value.
So, tell me: How do you deal with creative burnout?
Have you ever read The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp? It really is a great book and I found it so helpful in making me reshape my attitude, to create new routines that ensure I ‘show up’ everyday. More and more that showing up is practiced quietly on my own, without the pressure to share on social media. As you so rightly point out creative highs and lows are OK, but we must have safeguards from a deeper burnout. I suffered terribly in the past, it resulted in me stepping away from my work for 18 months, I don’t want to risk that again! Great post!
I so agree. I have spent the last 6 months paring down my life: relationships, commitments, hospitality. I am slowing down my social media consumption. Living unplugged Saturday dinner until Sunday dinner. In the gift of that white space, fresh creativity and words are coming back. We truly must work from our rest.