In A Creative Rut? Try These 8 Moves to Get Out of It
It’s early November, just past 10 AM as I (digitally) pen this post in my Tokyo apartment. The coffee’s good, but I’m in a creative rut.
The truth is, I’ve been here before – haven’t we all? It’s a common state for the artist and creative. So I’m scripting this article to share my solutions.
These are the top things I do to solve (or at least lessen the blow of) my artistic droughts.
So let’s get to it.
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What Is A Creative Rut? (vs. a creative block)
You know the familiar feeling.
Your motivation is waning, your creativity is meh and your energy is a bit dismal. You’re in a creative rut. So what is it exactly?
A creative rut is when your routines, habits and/or patterns of creative work have become dull, uninteresting or uninspired – and it’s difficult to change.
In contrast, a creative block is a shorter-term thing that’s less intense and can be more easily remedied.
Being in a rut is something everyone experiences at some point. But this is simply the balance of life. I mean, everyday can’t be a W, right? All things follow an ebb-and-flow pattern.
So just remember, you’re not alone and you’re definitely not broke. You’ve just fallen into a proverbial hole (so let this post be your ladder).
But first, let’s look at a few more of the telltale signs you’re in a creative rut.
Some Signs You’re In An Actual Creative Rut
Serious, long-term artistic procrastination
Longing for a change (but experiencing fear or hesitation)
A lack of creative drive
Feeling like everyday is the same and it’s monotonous
Feeling unfulfilled or questioning your creative meaning or purpose
You struggle to get excited or inspired to do your creative work
No new ideas for an extended period of time (outside your personal average)
You reminisce about past work and creativity more than the present
You’re daydreaming a bit too much
Get Out of Your Creative Rut! 8 Moves
These are my go-to moves when I’m feeling artistically tapped.
Some work better than others depending on your mood and the context of the rut. So just find what works best for you.
1. Stop Trying to Be Creative
Ever notice when you try to force something, there’s more friction?
Chasing something makes it run away. But caring less and staying chill does the opposite.
It’s like when you lose your car keys and after searching frantically for hours, you conclude they must have fallen into a deep void, never to be found again.
But as soon as you give up and move on, you find them hiding in plain sight.
This must be some universal law at work here. So let's use it to fix our creative rut issue.
The idea is pretty straightforward: stop trying to be so damn creative.
Maybe this means creating something as a joke. Or maybe it means being intentionally “bad” with a project. By not aiming for creative value, you take away the pressure and nuance of trying to make something novel and creatively “good”.
This frees up space for authentic creativity to come back.
For example, I played in a pop punk band in high school and one day, we decided to make a short heavy metal song as a joke (out of boredom).
But to our surprise, the song sounded quite good…and creative. So we ended up using parts of it in our “serious” music.
Without the pressure of performance or quality, you find yourself reaching a flow state more easily and end up creating better.
It’s a nice little hack and definitely worth a try.
2. Identify Your Creative Rut Causes
Solutions work best when you know what’s causing a problem in the first place.
For example, let’s say I’m producing a new song, but the mix sounds completely muddy. The instruments are lost and competing with each and it sounds like chaos.
This is disheartening and totally destroys my motivation to keep going and stay creative. So to fix the issue (of a muddy mix), I should identify what’s causing it first.
This is where testing, skills and experience come into play.
Because turning down track volumes or deleting extra vocal takes won’t fix things if it’s a frequency or vertical space overload issue.
So what’s causing your creative rut? It can help to explore common barriers to creativity. Here are a few examples:
Motivation
Technical issues (like my music production example above)
Not enough time
Fear of failure
Missing tools or resources
Comparison culture
3. Work Outside Your Niche or Toolkit
A great way to tap into fresh creativity is to create a new context around it.
So try working outside of your niche, area of expertise or interests.
For example, let’s say you’re a painter and your specialty is abstract minimalism canvas paintings. That’s dope, but what would happen if you tried to replicate your style in a computer?
You’ll likely come up against some obstacles and skill gaps, but you’ll also have some fresh energy and creativity too.
So think about how you can subtly (or dramatically) change the context around your art. Play with this until you find your spark again.
4. Use Gamification
I’ll cut to the chase – gamification works.
This past year (2023), I’ve been doing a song-a-day challenge and one lesson I’ve learned is that adding gaming elements to the creative process can force you out of ruts and valleys.
I mean, there are definitely days when the last thing I want to do (or have time to do) is sit down in my DAW and put together a fresh track from scratch.
Motivation and inspiration to make something new isn’t always around. But I still force myself to show up and make something – anything.
And to my surprise, sometimes I end up making something really cool on those moody days.
I think being in a rut sometimes means just being in our head too much. By adding a gaming element to the mix, we can get out of our own way and let our creative intuition take over.
So try adding some urgency (with time limits for example) or do a monthly creative challenge.
It may be just what you need to get out of your creative funk.
Recommended: 10 Epic Songwriting Challenges to Try
5. Restack Your Deck
Our environment, the people in our lives and our context all matter. So let’s (re)stack our decks.
I like to stack my cards in three ways:
My inner circle
The people in my life
My outer circle
The content I consume
My environment
My creative (and living) spaces
You may not be able to control every card in your deck (we all have our own unique situations), but adjusting even just a few things can make a big difference.
For example, freshening up your creative workspace or connecting with more like-minded people who motivate you are incredibly helpful.
So take stock of your current deck. Look for ways to better optimize things for creative flow, happiness and motivation.
Rinse and repeat and remember to monitor things (and don’t be afraid to cut ties or let things go that aren’t serving you).
6. Focus On Skill Building (not creativity)
Creativity is a combination of a person’s ideas and their skills to make those ideas.
So if you’re stuck, shift focus away from the idea part and into the skill area. Because skill building is something that never ends. There’s always new methods, tools and trends to be learning.
A creative rut is the perfect time to focus on them.
This is also an awesome opportunity to sharpen your talents. Also, when learning new tools of strategies, new ideas and creativity is often sparked along the way.
So where are your skill gaps or weak areas? Work on those.
Recommended: Top Creative Skills to Know
7. Embrace the Creative Rut (take a break)
Stepping away is advice that’s almost too basic. We all know it’s important, but sometimes we forget that it works.
So if you’re in a creative rut (and nothing else is working), use this time for self care and take a guilt-free holiday.
Binge your Netflix, watch your YouTube and socialize.
Step away from the grind of hustle culture and the pressure to constantly create perfectly curated, homerun pieces of fresh content daily.
Take a break.
Recharge the batteries and come back with some fresh energy and a new perspective.
As an added bonus, stepping away is a great way to get some much-needed objectivity. You’ll naturally forget about your projects and their nuances.
This always helps me realize the actual quality of my work and gives me some newfound appreciation and energy to keep moving forward.
So let’s avoid creative burnout and accept that – as human people beings – we sometimes need to hit pause and take time for ourselves.
Let this be your permission slip.
8. Get Back to Fun
Being in a creative rut means you’re not having fun. So let’s fix that.
For me, getting to (and remaining in) a place of fun is the ultimate goal. Fun is why we started doing this stuff in the first place anyways (among other reasons).
So here are some tips to put play back into your creativity:
Remember your values
Revisit your why
Detach from metrics, money or social media benchmarks
Forget your goals
Work from intuition and mood
Act on spontaneity
Forget about quality and don’t stress about sharing
Later ✌️
Creative ruts are normal — even unavoidable. They happens to the best of us.
Luckily, there are some things we can do to fix it or at least lessen its impact.
Shifting focus to skill building, not trying to be creative or taking a break altogether are all solid moves. Otherwise, creating a new context can also spark fresh creativity.
But at the end of the day, this is the process. Creativity ebbs and flows, so just remember to have fun first and foremost.
Want More? Okay. Here’s More.
