3 best techniques for entrepreneurs to remove creative blocks

The work of being an entrepreneur is demanding, challenging, and invigorating. An important part of entrepreneurship is being creative and finding unique solutions to problems. However, many entrepreneurs feel creatively blocked from time to time. It’s helpful to have some techniques to remove these blocks and to come up with great ideas when you need them. Here are my best techniques for removing creative blocks that you can practically apply.

Freewriting

Many prolific writers including Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg, and Mark Levy recommend freewriting as a way to get to work and overcome resistance.

According to Steven Pressfield and Seth Godin, resistance is our survival brains rejecting any kind of change or growth because staying in the same place is safe, and change necessarily comes with uncertainty.

For entrepreneurs, freewriting can be an effective strategy to dismiss procrastination and bring truly creative ideas to the surface.

This work as follows: set a timer for twenty minutes. Write without editing or pausing throughout this time. As you force yourself to write anything that comes to mind, you’ll exorcise thoughts that are unhelpful. When you’ve run out of things to write about, your brain will be compelled to create something new - and this is when things get interesting.

You should see ideas, solutions, and great content appear. At the very least, you’ll work past your mental blocks and have some real material to show for your efforts at writing.

Walking

One of Julia Cameron’s suggestions for better creativity is to go for a brisk 20-minute walk every day. The idea is that you feed your mind with external stimuli that act as sources of new ideas.

Interestingly, science supports this too. There was a Standford study that compared the performance of three groups of people in doing creativity tests.

One group walked outdoors, another group walked on a treadmill facing a blank wall, while another group sat down and faced a blank wall. The last group sat down but was pushed around outside in a wheelchair.

The groups that walked and the one that was pushed around outside showed considerable improvement in their creativity tests. But it’s the group that walked outdoors that showed the best results of all.

So, make it a daily practice to walk outdoors, especially when you’re stuck. When you come back from your walk, you may find your blocks melted away and that you’re ready with a possible idea.

Do something different

We intuitively think that focusing on a problem continuously will eventually lead to a breakthrough. But there comes a point where further effort and work only leads to stress. Instead of forcing yourself to work, take a break, and do something different.

You can do the following:

• Go for a long walk
• Sleep
• Take a break for a few days
• Do a physical activity like running, skating, or dancing
• Learn a challenging language that forces you to concentrate

The main goal here is to make sure that your mind is completely taken up with a mental or physical activity that has nothing to do with the problem you’re working on.

One way this helps is that it gives you a break and you’ll feel refreshed and energized to start working again. Another way this helps is that gives your subconscious mind the chance to mull over the problem without interference from your rational and conscious mind.

Taking breaks and doing other activities is an essential part of overcoming mental and creative blocks.

When you engage with different activities and sources of information, you’re creating ‘dots’ of knowledge. Creativity is all about connecting dots from different sources in a new way and creating a combination that hasn’t been done before.

With this single, helpful step, you’re actually accomplishing many things at once, and hopefully, you’re enjoying the process too.

Conclusion

Being creative consists of taking action and using techniques that support a creative mindset. We’ve looked at a few unlikely techniques that will help you overcome creative blocks including one that’s about taking no action at all.

Practice these suggestions on a daily basis and make tweaks that suit you. Remember to mix up these tips a way to avoid creating a new routine that could eventually lead to more mental blocks.

As you work with these techniques, you’ll find that you have interesting ideas and solutions and will also love what you’re doing too. As a result, you'll see happier employees and your business grow too.