Key Summary (TLDR)
Topic: 11 practical ideas for finding creative inspiration when the well runs dry, and content creation feels impossible.
What you’ll learn: Every entrepreneur hits a creative dry spell at some point, whether it’s writer’s block, content burnout, or just a stretch where nothing feels fresh or interesting. This post offers eleven specific, actionable ways to break through the block and get re-inspired, from going easier on yourself and just getting started anyway, to taking walks, doing something boring on purpose, revisiting past content, changing your environment, consuming less, and giving yourself genuine permission to generate less for a season. Includes book and podcast recommendations for ongoing creative fuel.
Who this is for: Entrepreneurs, coaches, service providers, podcasters, and small business owners who create content regularly and are currently stuck, uninspired, or running on empty creatively, and want practical ways to get moving again.
Written by: Emily Aborn, Small Business Copywriter for home trade professionals, event planners, non-profits, podcasters, and small business owners. Host of the Small Business Casual Podcast, based in NH.
Ready to get re-inspired?
You know when you just feel a little “blah” when it comes to content creation? Generating creativity in your business feels impossible.
Blame it on the rain, but sometimes it’s just hard to find creative inspiration and get moving.
Maybe you can relate.
Maybe sometimes you sit down to write, create content, map out a content plan, send a single email, record a podcast episode, write a chapter for your book… but… the creative well has run dry, you’re parched as you trudge through the Creative Sahara, and NOTHING is coming to you.
This blog will help you unblock writer’s block and find your way back to the creative spark and inspiration within. I provide eleven ideas and resources for you to use in finding creative inspiration again.
11 Ideas for Finding Creative Inspiration
1) Go Easy on Yourself
The moment you start beating yourself up, using negative self-talk, and bemoaning the fact that you just can’t seem to get inspired is the moment the creative muse just shrinks further back into the shadows. It hears you getting mad at it and says, “Uh oh, I do NOT want to be around that person. They seem to be searching and searching and searching for me and I can only imagine it’s because I’m in trouble.” Be kind to yourself, go easier on yourself, and speak to your creativity like a friend. It’s there waiting to peek its head out again, often the very moment you ease up.
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
2) Get Started.
Oh my gosh, Emily… seriously, with the no-brainers?
Ok, stick with me here. You can’t force inspiration, but you can reinforce its appearance with habits and getting started. Most often, when I find myself sittin’ around waiting for inspiration, it doesn’t fall magically from the sky. It ends up looking a whole lot like procrastinating or just not doing the thing.
Sometimes, just putting a habit or routine in place where you sit down and get started, you will start to watch it unfold before your very eyes.
- Commit to writing X words per day, even if they’re crappy words.
- Commit to blocking out from 2-3pm per day to post, even if you don’t think you have any idea of what to say.
- Sit down to start working on recording your podcast episode. Even if you just start by getting out “Blah, blah, blah” for three days, you’ve started to create a habit and routine around creativity.
Especially when I feel unmotivated on a client or business-related project, this is my go-to. The moment I decide to start SOMEWHERE is when creativity starts to spark to life.
If I sit around and WAIT for inspiration or motivation before getting started, they don’t usually show up.
3) Take a Walk (or a Shower!)
We’re probably all well aware of “shower thoughts”. They also exist as walk thoughts. If the standard shower and walk trick isn’t doing it for you, take a walk in a different direction, on a new street, with a friend, without a friend, in the woods, with your dog, without your dog. Take a cold shower, take a hot shower, and take a hot and cold shower. Do something different than your norm and do hop in and rinse off!
4) Take a Break.
When I say “take a break”, I don’t mean go lie in a puddle on the floor. I mean, you can, but first, try this instead. Try working on something LESS creative. Something mundane. Downright boring. Do your business metrics for the month, enter your mileage, do your Quickbooks, or organize a closet. I recently was working on a kind of dry, logical, informational client project that wasn’t very “creative”. It was a little more art than science if you will. As I was working on it, my body was SCREAMING creative ideas at me!! I had to keep pausing to jot things down until I could act on them (I don’t like to get distracted when working for clients) and then as soon as I was done, I rewarded myself by putting that creative fire to work, FAST. The same thing often happens when I’m driving, cleaning my house, scrubbing my toilets, organizing a closet – basically anything that isn’t creative can actually be the KEY to unlocking a thunderstorm of creativity.
5) Go Down Memory Lane.
Your past content is a great source for finding creative inspiration. When you’re diving into your social media, blog, or podcast past, you can literally cut and paste directly or you can rework it into something entirely new! I love going through past content and giving it a fresh spin. Other great memory lane sources include:
- the photos on your phone
- perusing old journals
- diving into old emails you’ve sent
- flipping through yearbooks.
Even that bin in your basement with all those tests you’ve saved from college (just me??) can help you find inspiration, spark creativity, and a whole lot of fun stories!
6) Phone a Friend (or a Client!)
If you’re stuck and don’t know what to say, it can be super helpful to ask a client or a friend if they have a sense. I often ask friends, clients, and my community what they’re feeling and then go create a resource or content to help with that exact thing.
7) Tie Up a Loose End.
For some of you, this means closing ALL OF THOSE TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER. Yes, I see you. Yes, it hurts a part of me deep down inside. It could also look like cleaning out your inbox, replying to unread messages, wrapping up a project and sending off the deliverables, calling your vet or dentist, buying yourself the new bra you’ve been putting off for three years, putting something in the mail, returning a library book. Crossing something off your list (or multiple things) is a great avenue to finding creative inspiration and sparking ideas. I also find decluttering (physical or digital) has a similar effect, as well as moving around furniture, plants, cleaning off my desk, or purging just about anything!
8) Make Your Environment Cozy!
You can use smells, music, lighting, textures, candles, whatever feels good to you to make yourself a cozy little creativity nook. I personally love working with piano music (without lyrics), alpha waves, or binaural beats to help me during creative times. You might do your best work cranking Led Zeppelin’, Aerosmith, or Ed Sheeran. You do whatever works for you. Tapping into smells, sounds, lighting, and making your environment a place uniquely yours can be wildly beneficial for finding creative inspiration. One suggestion I have here is NOT to try to listen to a podcast or watch YouTube while actually working. AND…
9) You Might Need to Take a Break From Consuming Content.
Sometimes I find that ALLLLLL the stuff I consume – podcasts, conversations, written content, and social media group interactions can crush my creativity. As I fill myself up with what others are doing, I can sometimes find myself comparing, feeling behind, or just devoid of my own unique thoughts and ideas. I’ve been taking far more breaks and making my social media time few and far between these days and If I am consuming it’s podcasts and books I’ve intentionally chosen and conversations with friends, moreso than online content. Conversely, some of you reading this might need to actually start consuming MORE to be creative. It’s amazing how sometimes that can help trigger something too! Sometimes hearing something talk about something makes you realize your own unique spin and thoughts on it and off you go to creativity town!
10) Change it Up.
All the great creatives will tell you that when you’re feeling stuck – you need to mix it up! Sometimes we need more routine, sometimes we’re too structured and need less. Here are some other ideas: Try writing a paragraph of sheer and utter fiction. If you always write fiction, write memoir style, or a poem, or a short story, or an essay. Do the opposite of what you normally do – if you always start with your newsletter, start with social instead, if you always start with social, start with your newsletter. Go somewhere. Stay home all day. Write in your favorite notebook. Write in your least favorite notebook. Write with a different pen. Write standing up instead of sitting down. Go to a coffee shop to work. You get the idea.
“To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. Turn the sound off to watch a film, listen to the same song on repeat, read only the first word of each sentence in a short story, arrange stones by size or color, learn to lucid dream. Break habits.” – Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
11) Generate LESS.
My last idea for finding creative inspiration is to genuinely take a break from generating as much as you are. Create LESS and take something off your plate. I did this in the month of June in various ways. I didn’t write my usual ninety blogs a month and just gave myself permission to generate less until I felt otherwise. My natural M.O. is to keep on going, keep on pushing through and I found that giving myself a big ol’ break was just what I needed. I can see how if you’re always procrastinating or making excuses or always giving yourself a break, it might not work.
If you’re the type who continuously puts off creative projects and pushes them further and further down the list… I’d ask you to dig a little deeper:
- Why am I so committed to putting this off?
- Why am I struggling to sit down and do this thing?
- What’s behind the resistance? (fear, frustration, something else?)
What’s really going on for you, my friend?
Maybe you’re just not that into it anymore. Maybe you’ve lost curiosity around it. Maybe there’s too much pressure for it to sell, promote, get people to sign up, buy…
Only you can answer, but digging deeper is a good place to start.
Let me know if you try any of these and how it goes for you!
Resources:
BOOKS:
Rick Rubin’s Book: The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Book: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Anne Lamott’s Book: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
PODCASTS:
The Small Business Casual Podcast: A never-ending wellspring of creative ideas!
Erin Ollila’s Nothing You Write Will Ever Be Good Enough – episode of the Talk Copy to Me Podcast
OTHER:
Creative blocks can come from a lot of directions. Burnout from generating too much too fast. Consuming so much of other people’s content that your own voice gets crowded out. Negative self-talk that sends your creative instincts into hiding. An environment that doesn’t support focused work. Or simply a season of life that’s asking more of you than usual. Sometimes the block has a practical cause and sometimes it’s worth digging deeper to ask what’s really behind the resistance, whether that’s fear, pressure, or just having lost curiosity around what you’re creating.
Start anyway, even badly. Write the crappy first draft. Record the messy first take. Commit to showing up at your desk at the same time each day, even if nothing comes out for the first few days. Inspiration tends to follow action rather than precede it. Waiting until you feel inspired before starting is one of the most reliable ways to stay stuck. As Pablo Picasso put it, inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
When your brain is occupied with a low-effort, non-creative task like entering mileage, organizing a closet, or doing bookkeeping, the part of your mind that generates ideas gets a chance to wander freely. Many people find that their best creative ideas surface while driving, cleaning, or doing something completely mundane, precisely because they’ve stopped trying so hard to force something out. Boredom creates space, and space is where creativity lives.
It depends on what’s actually happening for you. If you’ve been heavily immersed in other people’s content and find yourself comparing, feeling behind, or unable to hear your own voice, a break from consuming is probably what you need. If you’ve been in a silo and feel like your ideas have gone stale, intentionally consuming more, specifically books, podcasts, and conversations you’ve chosen with purpose, can help trigger your own fresh perspective. Pay attention to how you feel after consuming. Energized and full of ideas, or drained and deflated?
