When you sit down to write a newsletter, social media post, or some other form of content for your audience, do you get stuck feeling like you “don’t know what to say”?
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an entrepreneur struggling with writer’s block.
After several years of creating content on and off, she was determined to make a habit of it. She knew that creating social media content was a key piece of her marketing strategy—a way to serve her audience, connect with potential clients, and make a bigger impact in the world. But whenever she sat down to write, she came up empty, blocked by what she believed was a lack of ideas.
If you’re wrestling with writer’s block right now, let me give it to you straight.
There are lots of strategies, brainstorming techniques, and writing prompts I could give you.
Those might kickstart your creativity and get the words flowing. But it’s equally likely they won’t work at all.
Here’s why:
When we feel stuck or blocked in our communication, lack of creativity is never the problem. You simply CANNOT run out of ideas.
I once read a story about an improv teacher who led her students in a remarkably enlightening exercise.
She asked each student to come to the front of the room, reach into a box she was holding, and describe the object they found inside. One student found a hot pink teddy bear; another found a tiny bowl full of goldfish. A third found the macaroni necklace she made at summer camp one year.
Spoiler alert: The box was empty. The students had to invent an item and describe it on the spot. But the lesson, the teacher said, was even simpler: No matter what the students found, it was never nothing.
No matter what, our brains have the ability to invent new and creative ideas. So the voice that whispers “you’re out of ideas” doesn’t know what it’s talking about.
In fact, I think “writer’s block” is a myth. (At minimum, we mislabel it.)
If you’ve been able to write in the past, and you haven’t had an injury or illness that affects your cognitive functioning, then you have not been cursed with an invisible, impenetrable barrier to idea generation. It’s not as if some mental transit authority has set up a road block in your brain.
What people call a “block” is actually an emotion or thought pattern that’s triggering you into inaction. Your impulse to fight, flight or freeze is running the show.
On some subtle level, you prefer to be stuck. You’d rather do nothing than make progress and write.
Which is why I’m not going to give you a whole bunch of writing prompts or suggest topics for you to write about.
If your low-key preference is doing nothing, no clever idea is going to change that.
Instead, you need to unhook from the pattern and get out of your own way.
Over the next several days, I’m going to share three common issues that masquerade as writer’s block—and what you can do about them.
In the meantime, I’m curious: Do YOU wrestle with “writer’s block”?
What holds you back from creating the work you most want to share with the world?
Let me know in the comments.
