How to overcome the creative block

The restrictions due to the pandemic had prompted many changes in the way we live. We had to find new ways of rejuvenating and refreshing ourselves. Painting was one of the options for me, as I did paint during my school days. The painting experience was very enriching and I realized a few things about creativity. These points could have helped me perform better at tasks which had required critical thinking or out-of-the-box ideas in my first two years of corporate experience.

I have summarized these learnings. If you follow these, it will help you face challenging tasks in an efficient manner and maybe also in becoming a painter!

1. Just start. Don’t wait for the right time: Oftentimes, we put off things which need our creativity, because of our internal inertia or we are scared of not being perfect. It’s normal to take some time to start. Don’t pressure yourself to be the best in the beginning itself.
2. No roadmap or clue -just focus on the first task: Once you start, you might go blank or be overwhelmed, because you don’t have the end result in mind. I have observed in such situations that you need to only focus on the first small task at hand. Start working on it passionately without worrying about the whole picture right away. Quite often, while working on the first task, you would intuitively get what could be the next task or at least a rough idea about it, and so on.
3. ‘Copying’ creates pressure and stress: The more I tried to copy painting ideas from others, the more I got pressured to exactly match their skillset. I observed that there was no intuitive flow of ideas while I was painting, because I only focused on imitation. I was barely satisfied with my own work. So I would say, creativity is when you trust ideas which come to your mind and you work on it. Once you start creating on your own, that's when the fun begins. 
4. Mistakes or unexpected roadblocks lead to creativity and newness: In the process you're bound to make mistakes or sometimes undesirable/unforeseen things might happen. Don’t stop! Try thinking of ways to overcome such situations. Once you do that you find new ways or ideas which might have not existed before. Always face your mistakes or challenges head-on.
5. Detailing at each step: The more effort you put into each present task the better your final picture will be. 

Even though I am not a great painter, such learnings from one thing can help us figure out our approach towards other things. After all, painting is a metaphor of life !

Stay Safe | Stay Creative

PS : One of my favorite painting of Covid19 Lockdown: