There are moments in a creative practice when everything seems to stop.
Not just a lack of ideas, but a deeper kind of pause. You step away from your work, sometimes for weeks or months, without really knowing how to come back to it.
I went through this recently. And what surprised me the most wasn’t the fact that I had stopped creating — it was realizing that I didn’t want to go back to the way I used to work.
When it’s not really a creative block
We often call it a creative block. But in my experience, that’s not always what it is. Sometimes, nothing is “wrong.” Sometimes, something has simply shifted. And the discomfort comes from trying to return to a way of working that no longer fits.
For a while, I tried to find my way back. I tried to recover the desire, the gestures, the familiar sensations. But it didn’t work — because I wasn’t meant to go back.
I needed to move.
A small shift that changes everything
One of the simplest changes I made was this: I stopped trying to make a good drawing. Instead, I started looking for a sensation. Something more direct. More alive. Even if it felt unclear, unfinished, or imperfect.
It’s a subtle shift, but it opens a completely different space. You can start again without knowing exactly where you’re going. And that changes everything.
A simple exercise to restart your creativity
If you’re feeling stuck, here is something very simple you can try: take an old drawing — not necessarily one you like — and redo it with a small constraint:
- use a different medium
- or choose one you’re not familiar with
- change the scale
- or work much faster than usual
The goal is not to improve the drawing. The goal is to create a shift. To see what happens when you move, even slightly, away from your usual way of working.
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You don’t need to go back
With time, I’ve come to see that the block itself is not always the real problem. What often keeps things stuck is our attachment to a way of working that doesn’t quite fit anymore.
And sometimes, it only takes a small shift for something to start moving again. Not by going back. But by going somewhere else.
If you’re currently experiencing a creative block, you might not need to push harder or find better ideas. You might just need to approach your practice differently.