Creative Blocks & How to Get Beyond Them

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Aliyah Marr Creative Empowerment, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

If you can dream you can create anything. But sometimes people need help when they are trying to make their dreams come true. My experience has shown me that people get stuck in several places:

1. THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG?
This person can’t focus or doesn’t know what to do first. They need to “talk out” their vision to find their direction.

2. ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
Are you stuck in the beginning phase of creation? I share a process with my one-on-one clients I call “envisioning.” This process is very intensive and personal. The physical result is a mind-map of ideas, connections and directions that you can take home with you to post and keep you on course for several months.

3. A DAM IN THE FLOW OF CREATIVITY
Emotional blocks can stop us from creating anything else but limitations. As I explain in my book, “Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity” emotions are the essential catalyst in the creative process; they are in fact our greatest ally and tool. If your emotions are going right when your intended direction is left, then we need to work on the emotional level. This problem is best seen energetically: misapplied emotions are just an eddy of vital energy in your creative flow. Some people are so disconnected from their emotions, that they don’t even know that they have blocked them. They can no longer feel. As our emotions serve as an intuitive guidance system, a life with no emotions is like trying to navigate blind. Unblocking your emotional flow restores your inner vision.

4. IDEAS ARE POPPING UP EVERYWHERE LIKE MUSHROOMS AFTER A DOWNPOUR
This is what happens to certain people after they have been opened up creatively. The flow won’t stop, keeps you up at night, and serves only to waste your time and energy. You wish you had one simple, stupid little idea that works instead of so many incredible, far-fetched and lofty ideas that are not practical. The coaching process for someone with this “problem” amounts to checking your idea garden and weeding it. You will be left with the strongest, most practical, viable concept and a strong direction. Your other ideas will be recorded, so you can do what you want with them. Compost anyone?

5. ONE STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND
You know where you are going, but simply can’t take the first step. A coach can get you past that invisible barrier. Together we find your comfort zone and help you divide the first step into smaller and smaller pieces until you find it not only easy but fun to go forward.

6. THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM
Often, a creative individual has a strong vision and all the confidence they need, but they have a hard time organizing the parts into a cohesive whole. This is where my experience as an art director and editor comes into play. Organization is what enables communication. You could have an incredible idea, but your delivery is so disorganized that your audience cannot tell what you are saying.

7. YOUR PERSONAL TRAINER WILL MEET YOU AT 6 AM
A lot of creative people are too A.D.D. to work on their own, so they need direction and defined work-goals. They often need on-going coaching, so they feel they have to do the “assignments” the coach gives them.

8. TRANSLATE RIGHT BRAIN INSPIRATION INTO LEFT BRAIN ACTION
You may have great ideas that you are having a problem translating into words and actions. My background in design and marketing is what gives me the outward tools for helping people materialize their creative dreams. However, there is so much more to coaching people. I like to say that I put a person’s higher creative self into communication with their ego-self or left-brain. The ego-self, if healthy, is what helps us manifest our dreams: I call it the “personal assistant” for our right-brains, because it likes steps and details.

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There is no dream too big and no dream that cannot happen.

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr