Healthy environment for creativity

Ideas for addressing creative struggles and overcoming blockings. Lessons learned in 20 years of music producing, writing and creating games.

I initially wrote this article at the end of 2020 when I realized how wonderfully clear I felt in my head while creating, after overcoming my life crisis in 2018. I decided to make a small list, elaborating the changes which finally got things rolling for me. Of course we're all different. Your struggles are different than mine for sure, but maybe this article can give you an idea or two which you can try if they speak to you in some way.

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Listen to your own energy curves.

To me, it very much differs from day to day when I get my energy. In contrary to common belief, setting alarms and making schedules does not lead to productivity, but to bad focus and headache. Not adding external pressure allows me to catch the energy peaks during my days and to enjoy throwing myself into whatever project I'm on. Taking naps during energy drops works wonders. When focus fades and brain gets foggy it is time best used by taking a longer change of context (screen break), doing something physical (f.e. cooking, house keeping tasks). On some days (bad sleep days), nothing really works and this must be okay.

Take the time to cook you own food.

…even if you need to start to learn it right now. Buying and using (learning to use) fresh vegetables might feel like a waste of time to someone educated to enjoy 40h work weeks, but in my experience, reconnecting with the basics of life turns out to be refreshing. It challenges different senses than office work and gets your brain into an active mode of experimenting and having little successes. Not going into detail about the long term benefits of eating food which is healthy without needing a logo on the package. Or the benefits of impressing your date... :]

(Try organic vegetables for best results).

Limit your screen time. Make sure you move.

Your chair or your table or your keyboard is not the problem. Or maybe it is, but not the only one. The problem is that an 8 hour office day is very impressive on a paper, but very unhealthy in respect to our body and mind - and muscle tension pain can be a terrible drain of energy without even really being aware of it. I know it is difficult to accept, but maybe the people running on a band behind a window are actually on to something. I hesitate to mention something starting with s, but I still think that even we nerds can find a way to get some more regular movement into our chair-farting butts. Going for ski or bouldering could even be an occasion to pretend being social.

It is important to catch a bit of daylight during the dark season for Vitamin D (lack thereof turns you tired and depressed). Otherwise, YouTube has many ideas for lockdown home gymnastics. During hermit phases, I found that what I'm most motivated to is putting on some of my favourite music for 15 minutes every other day and do a random mix of gymnastics, stretching and dancing.

Challenge your brain.

Try to pick up one learning project, if there's anything that you're interested in. See it as finding a book which unlocks a new skill progression in your skill tree. Once past the initial obstacle, you have lots of occasion to experience small successes and see yourself progress. I would not have thought how rewarding it was to practice French and Norwegian, and it is rewarding in a similar way to pick up musical instruments, or to dabble in electronics. It is also a good occasion to connect with others.

Take care for others.

We creators tend to get lost in our own bubble - torn in our own creative struggles or happily exploring our inner world on our personal flying manta ray. Try to dedicate some of your energy to reaching out and taking interest in the life / struggles of others. You may end up with a fresh mind of good (sometimes bad) energy, a new perspective to your own struggles or the warm feeling to have been there for someone who is very glad that you were. Which could be way more important than that book you're writing.

Don't demand perfection from yourself.

With any activity you are on a path of learning and evolving. Aiming for perfection on this path might get you exhausted while staying stagnant, or keep you from finishing stuff and moving forward. It is nice to remember how the music which is most inspiring to me has imperfections. Some of it has been made by teenagers in their bedroom, and I'm so glad that it is what it is and that it has been put out into the world. Perfection depends much on your perspective at the time, and your perspective may change, just because you keep evolving. There is the point in a project at which it gets heavy. Accept that your energy is limited. Make sure that you don't exhaust that energy on what you think should be done, but on what you actually enjoy about the project. Then polish the edges and let it go - so you can move on and keep enjoying your activity.

The muse is a cat. If you try to force it, it will run off.

Want to write a number of words every day? Produce an album in a month? How about Pomodoro work routine? Everyone knows that pressure is what keeps humans going. If you strive to be one of a million blessed professionals, setting an early alarm to stare at the blinking cursor on the screen with your coffee - and after one hour, with a headache, writing the most pointless page you've ever written on your project - then welcome to performance culture. I think you found a reliable way to kill the creative spirit you're trying to activate. The mentality makes me feel deeply hopeless inside. Guys... why do we create? Why have we chosen this tricky, frustrating, exhausting and incredibly beautiful path to do what we do? What was it that was driving us to take a lined paper as a teenager and just to write down a scene...?

Again, people are different. For someone, a certain level of stress or pressure may be a way to keep up their energy. To me, my energy is rooted in inspiration. Which of course is frustrating for someone educated to performance, because it can't be controlled, right? It needs a cat door in your mind, so it can come and go as it wishes. So how about introducing legitimate down time in your life? Down time can mean coming back to simple things. Focussing on things which you have neglected. Working on bad habits. Distracting yourself while feeling shitty. Or making space for something new. To me, once I get busy with other things it rarely takes long until I hear the cat door clanging and someone meows loudly for attention :)

Do something which seems boring.

The brain seems to have a tendency to get used to a certain level of drive or pleasure, and to demand more. To me, this results in feeling drained / tired of an activity sooner or later, or feeling restless while nothing seems to be really enjoyable anymore. So sometimes I feel that I need to reset and come back to basic life for a few days. Walks in nature often turn out to be rewarding in themselves, but sometimes they aren't. Then it is a good reminder that not everything what we do needs to be exciting or fun, but may be healthy nevertheless - just like not everything that we eat needs to be cake. I elaborated on this in my article about happiness, needs and movies.

Go out to meet people.

I know how hard it can be for some of us. It is important nevertheless, even if you don't manage to connect with anyone. Be it just to get out of your smelly cloud of thoughts for a moment and give life a chance to surprise you. In a city, chances are good to find open meetups for all kinds of activities which allow you to just show up spontaneously - hikes, historic walks, introvert park picnics, board games and role playing one-shots, writing circles, meditation groups, music jams, language practice or courses. Platforms to find these meetups are facebook groups, discord groups and the meetup app. In France, people used a dedicated website called OnVaSortir. Otherwise it could be worth checking your area for clubs and associations. An introvert strategy to get out of the "not feeling it" trap is to tell yourself to go, but for just one hour.

Creative activities are more than their result.

You and me learned that an activity has value when you have a certain output and when it "pays off", right? But how could life look like when we question this capitalist doctrine?

If you choose the creative path, then probably because it does something good for you. It feels like purpose. It is fun, it is a beautiful balance for your mental health in a world where people get depressed and burnt out in globalisation and competition. Having a creative outlet is worth more than the money you earn with it.

Do what you want to, not what you think you should.

As someone who claims their own life time for their own projects we are, more than others, left with the problem of coming up for our rent and living cost. But Michael Flatley's approach of "making your passion your profession and you don't work, but live" might not be a universal answer, as little as the American dream is the answer to poverty. Earning your living with music is not doing what you love. It is a lot of self presentation, playing a role, pleasing the fans, pleasing the algorithm, pushing yourself to come up with new things. Which often means recycling something which worked in the past. Many get lost in drugs or depression. This is not a luxury problem and not a sign of a weak mind. These are serious issues for wonderful people.

The difference is to do something that you think you should be doing, or to do something because you really want to do that in that moment. But isn't it this wonderful energy of the wants which made us learn frequencies and wave forms instead of doing reasonable stuff? Why we were sitting in school, longing to get home and continue with the music we were working on while the whole world seemed busy with irrelevant stuff? Wasn't the whole thing of making music a kind of refuge from daily obligations...?

It's this innocent amazement I wish to keep with these activities. Which I wish to share with you :)

Don't nail yourself down on one activity.

The brain is designed to do all kinds of stuff during the day, and to keep learning and adapting. That's why you feel like doing something else at a moment, to start a new project, to meet new people. A day or a year in a human life, in theory, has lots of time to discover new things, to take care for your living, maintain a social circle and still to make space for your creative projects. What keeps us from pursuing all these things - and learning new things - is a culture telling us that we need to focus our energy on one activity to meet professional standards, because we're afraid to get left behind. Isn't that ridiculous? In general, fear is a bad advisor.

Don't compare with others.

The internet is full of people who are better than you in one way or another. Does it feel painful to accept that? You can learn from your heroes and stay humble. It should not stop you from doing and publishing things - most probably your heroes felt just like that themselves. Follow your own pace on your personal path. There's space for everyone and you're fine and unique with your doings, just in your own way :)

Jump out of your comfort zone to get new impressions.

It can be difficult to find the energy to plan a travel when you feel that you should be working on something, but sometimes it's fresh air which is missing to realize what is keeping you blocked / slowing down your wheels. Don't wait for the stars to align. Jump on a bus and find another place to stay for a while. I followed an intuition to visit Sweden in summer 2020 and 2021 (from France back then) and I am so grateful for the complete change of scenery and mindset, and for the inspiration I found for life and my projects.

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I hope you can find something which is helpful for you in this article! Happy creating :)

Sophie

[Flying manta ray (skimmer) in Guild Wars 2]