Feeling Uninspired? These 5 Practices Helped Me Move Through a Creative Rut

It’s okay to feel stuck—here’s what helped me break through.

PSA: You don’t have to be an artist, musician, or writer to benefit from this. Whether you’re in a “creative” field or not, these practices can help anyone feeling stuck or uninspired in their work or life.

Do you ever feel like you’re forcing your creativity? Like you’re trying too hard to be perfect? To say or do the most groundbreaking things? Sometimes when I’m in a creative rut, it’s not because I don’t have any ideas, it’s because I don’t think any of them are good enough. Not necessarily good enough for me, but good enough to share with others. I feel like it needs to be more interesting or crazy different for it to be worthy enough to put out into the world.

There’s always these periods of momentum in my career where I’m putting so much content out. I have all of these ideas I’m taking action on, and I just feel so inspired and motivated. And then l go into this “dry spell” also known as a creative rut. It’s like I do have different ideas to share, but I start to overthink them all. Sometimes I have such high expectations for myself and put all of this pressure on myself to be perfect when that’s just not possible. Even my “worst” work is still enough.

It’s not possible to be perfect all the time or to create viral, mind-blowing content or recipes all the time. That doesn’t mean the rest of what I create sucks. Sometimes the most “mediocre” ideas are what people need and want the most. And sometimes what I think is mediocre is not mediocre at all.

As long as you’re creating it from the heart, that’s more than enough.

I saw something online the other day that said kids are better at creating than us because they don’t create to serve a purpose or to get a specific response. They create just to create. Because it’s something so natural inside of us and it wants to be let out. They create for the sole purpose of creating.

So why don’t we do that more?

When we start to overthink and put pressure on our creativity and expression, it defeats the whole purpose. Creativity isn’t a job. We can make money from our creative expressions. But it’s not there for that purpose. Our creativity is in us, it’s in our being. It’s our way of purging our inner self. It’s messy and raw. It’s an external outlet for everything we have experienced and felt in our life.

This is why we can’t demand certain outcomes or ideas when trying to “let out” our creativity. It should pour out of us naturally, waiting and craving to be released. Our creativity is an extension of ourselves, and when we try to force it to be or look a certain way, we’re essentially rejecting ourselves. So expect to experience some pushback.

It’s similar to when we force ourselves to take a job that we know deep down isn’t meant for us, it just doesn’t feel right. You can be good at it, and it can be a “good career path” that’s deemed safe and acceptable by society. But if it doesn’t light you up inside, you won’t ever feel fulfilled or truly happy there.

But when we do things that we love, it just makes life so much easier. It feels so much more natural. There will be a little pushback depending on our resistance to it, in the sense that we don’t let our limiting beliefs and insecurities take over. Because they will. We will doubt ourselves. Others will doubt us. We will wonder if we’re on the right path or if we should have taken the safe route, even though we hated the safe route.

But we know deep down, that this feels right. That it’s what we’re here to do.

We (mostly me lol) need to start approaching our creativity like this. Let what feels good flow even if you don’t know how other people will react to it. Don’t worry about if it’s “valuable” or good enough or interesting enough or blah blah blah. Just let it out for the purpose of getting it out there. For expressing yourself.

Create from the heart and soul, not from a place to impress or give to others. It doesn’t even have to make sense to anyone else. Just you.

You expressing yourself is a gift to others. So many people suppress themselves and their emotions and feelings. So many people feel lost and confused and don’t know how to articulate what they’re going through.

But what if your messy, “not good enough” ideas were exactly what they needed?

What if you shared something that no one has ever seen or heard before that they finally felt understood and seen?

What if that was the push or inspiration they needed to make a change in their life?

Not everyone will understand you, but so many will.

So many people are out there searching exactly for your kind of creativity. You are so unique and special, and no one has the gifts that you possess.

And for the small possibility that no one will be interested in what you have to share, just know that it’s enough for you. It’s enough for your inner child. Even if your creative expressions are never shown to anyone else (and it’s not necessary to even share them), it’s still good enough and worthy enough to be let out.

If it’s just for yourself, then that’s perfect.

That’s more than enough.

Your creativity is for you, not for anyone else.

💭 If this resonated with you and you’re still needing a little extra support, here are 5 practices that have helped me reconnect to my creativity when I’ve felt blocked or uninspired: