Getting Creatively Unstuck

My Personal Journey Through Writer's Block and How I Fixed it

This week I’m getting down into the personal stuff with a story of how I was stuck in writer’s block for five years (yes you read that right - 5 years) and how I fixed it with one technique.

You’ll be able to use this technique in any aspect of your life - it’s not just for writers, but more on that later.

Anyone who knows me well will know I don’t often share very much detail in the way of personal things, but I’m trying to change that as I’ve discovered so many of my struggles are similar to other creatives and business owners, so if my journey helps even one person then it’s worth it.

First I want to take you back five years to 2020

So, five years ago I was in a full time corporate job role. I was a marketer and copywriter, and was juggling working full time with a 17 year old daughter, a six year old daughter, two sons in their early 20s who lived away from home, a husband with a very demanding and stressful job, and trying to write too.

I was thoroughly miserable at that job, I had a boss who took pleasure in making me feel small, inadequate and unhappy in what I now know was an attempt to stop their own feelings of insecurity, but back then I felt like I was constantly doing something wrong. My confidence was at rock bottom.

I’d written two fiction books, but looked at them and hardly recognised them as mine at all - slowly convincing myself it was some kind of fluke. I regularly used to come home from that job in tears because of things that had been said, toxic behaviour and just wondering what I was doing so wrong.

I’d been in marketing at that point for 10 years, so I wasn’t new to my job but that particular one just sucked everything from me. You see, I’d got into such a state that I had lost every ounce of confidence, self-worth and creative energy. I’d actually achieved some big things for the company but didn’t really recognise that at all.

Then the world changed…

You’ll all remember that was also the year of Covid. And, also the year I suddenly lost a family member who’d been a big part of my childhood. At the start of 2020 I was just going through the motions each day.

You see, when lockdown happened, my six year old and I were suddenly at home together, like lots of people. Her school created a full-day schoolwork timetable and gave her lots and lots of work to do, with deadlines for hand-in, which was great because she didn’t then miss loads of education. However, she’s a dyslexic child and needed 1-1 support to do each task (plus she was only six).

My 17 year old was doing assessments and coursework to get into Uni, so she couldn’t help, and because my sons lived away they weren’t able to come home. My husband’s job was classed as essential, so he continued to go to work.

But, I was working full time and my job wanted work from me - understandably. So, like many people I was stuck trying to manage teaching a child full time, working full time and failing miserably at both.

I got myself so stressed, to the point where I was having panic attacks. I’ve been very unwell with panic attacks in the past, so I did not want to descend into that again and knew drastic action was needed.

I decided to change everything…

So, after months of deliberation and getting slowly more unwell, I quit my job and decided to go freelance.

In my head I could choose who I worked with, I could choose my schedule and make time for writing while also making sure my daughter still got a decent education. It seemed like the perfect solution.

So, I started doing freelance marketing work, but what it took me another four years to realise was that I’d had such a horrible trauma from that job I’d fallen out of love with doing people’s marketing.

This was a very hard lesson for me to learn.

I didn’t want to admit that I’d ploughed years and years of my life into a career that was not the path for me. I’d pushed so hard and fought so long to make it work that all I could think about was those gurus who tell you to just keep pushing forward. I hadn’t stopped to think about whether the direction I was pushing was the right direction for me.

I was so focused on the need to keep going that any kind of failure or roadblock I convinced myself was my own fault for not pushing hard enough and then pushed harder. Actually, what I was doing was the opposite of what I needed to do.

Because, I didn’t have any creative energy and the legacy of that job role stayed with me. I was burnt out, traumatised and not following my love or passion in life.

This all resulted in massive writer’s block and creative energy blocks. The only creative thing I could latch onto was crochet. I can knit and crochet but find crochet more enjoyable, so I spent five years making massive complicated blankets that now sit all over my house and relatives houses.

But even this was only because I could follow a pattern of instructions to do this creative task. So, despite this small glimmer of creativity, I still couldn’t be creatively spontaneous, write or do anything else. This was the only small creative practice I could manage and the one glimmer of hope that my creative personality hadn’t ditched me entirely.

And, when you consider that marketing itself is quite a creative job, this is a huge problem when you’re trying to bring that energy you know you have, but it’s just gone off on holiday - resulting in lots of failure.

So, you can probably guess what my solution to this was?

Yes, it was to double down and tell myself I need to step up more and I need to push more.

I convinced myself that I wasn’t trying hard enough and that I needed to push more.

(It didn’t work).It had the opposite effect and things got worse.

Last year everything came crashing down…

Last year, I decided enough was enough and I switched off for a month from everything and took a long hard look at myself and listened to what my inner self had been screaming at me for years and I’d been ignoring.

I didn’t want to do marketing for companies. I wanted to help people creatively, I wanted to be creative, and help others who have been in difficult places in life to use creative energy to help them in their businesses, life and creative practice.

And this was how I started training to be a creativity and NLP life coach. I finished the creativity coaching training programmes at the end of last year, and am now working on my final life and NLP coaching training certification.

A Technique that Helped me…

And, it was through this training I learned how to listen to myself and how to look honestly and answer the hard questions that I didn’t want to admit to. I started trying out the techniques I was learning on myself and guess what?

Everything became clearer, brighter and more in-tune in a way I don’t think I’ve felt before. There’s still a long way to go, but I am now in a way better place.

So if you’re as stuck as I was in any aspect of your life, try this technique. It really helped me when I was examining who and what I wanted to bring to the world.

It’s called the Dialogue Technique and it involves you having a conversation with your creative block on paper.

Start by asking it - “What are you trying to protect me from?”

Write the response from the creative block. Don’t overthink it just write what comes to mind.

Then write another question related to the response you get. Eventually you’ll have a really interesting conversation and hopefully some insights into the things that are stopping you moving forward.

For me, this technique helped me finally admit to myself that I didn’t want to do marketing in companies any longer.

It helped me realise that my path is so much different to this.

It allowed me to understand that I wanted to help people unblock creatively, find ways to be creative in their own marketing, and help them to see how creativity is in every aspect of life if we let it in.

One of the first things my creativity coaching tutor told me was that you are always your own first coaching client. It’s natural that you first try techniques on yourself and this has never been more true. I am in such a different place to this time last year and hardly recognise that person from five years ago that it’s like night and day.

So, if I can help you by showing these techniques here then I can go away happy.

Do let me know if you try any of these and they help you.

And, don’t forget if you’d like to get more techniques and support of this kind for your personal circumstances, I’m always around to chat about coaching support.

1. Read my blog articles on Creativity Coaching, or on the life of an author on my websites

2. Link with me on social media

3. Read my historical fiction mystery books

4. Find out about creativity coaching services