How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Creative Blocks

Becoming an entrepreneur can be exhilarating. You’re making cash from your own novel ideas and are responsible for managing your own time and creative output. It can be lucrative, too, as the average entrepreneur earns $77,141 — around $16,000 more than the average American.

However, things can get stressful when your creative well starts to dry up. You may worry that you’re unable to support yourself if you don’t overcome your block soon, and could feel stressed if you’re unable to tap into your innovative streak.

Fortunately, you aren’t the first entrepreneur to hit a creative block. In fact, many of the world’s greatest innovators experience these difficult periods and learn to use them as a genesis for new ideas, rather than lamenting the loss of creativity. You can take a similar approach by learning how to create an environment of innovation that brings out the best in yourself.

Brainstorming Ideas

Finding ways to beat the creative block can feel insurmountable if your flow of ideas has suddenly come to a halt. However, all creative people experience periods where their skills wain and ideas are in short supply. Accepting this reality is crucial, is it can preserve your morale and help boost your ability to brainstorm new ideas. You can get the ball rolling by using dedicated brainstorming tools like Kanban boards and flow charts. The benefits of these types of brainstorms include:

• Collaboration: With shareable brainstorming boards, you can invite other stakeholders to easily share their own ideas and build on your existing contributions.
• Refresh: Brainstorming breaks up the daily routine and helps you see challenges from a new perspective.
• Teamwork: If you employ others in your entrepreneurial business, brainstorming boards can help you come together as a team and work on common problems.
• Save Your Progress: Digital brainstorming boards can help you combine and refine ideas faster. This enhances collaboration and helps you build on existing solutions.

Utilizing brainstorming boards in this way gives you a visual representation of the challenges you face. This can be deeply empowering if you can’t understand why you’re struggling to come up with new ideas. You can even print and pin your brainstorm somewhere in your office space to help foster a more creative work environment.

Fostering a Creative Environment

Working in a creative space can help you discover new ideas and draw inspiration from the world around you. This can be transformative if your current work setup stifles creativity or fails to serve your needs. Get the ball rolling by creating a mood board to reflect your creative goals. A good mood board includes:

• Create a foundation of “moods” that inspire your brand image and help you understand the direction of your business.
• Assemble some aesthetics based on the attributes and values that mean the most to your business.
• Make written notes on your mood board so a quick glance will remind you of the headspace you were in when you made your board.
• Consider collaborating with colleagues and other creatives.

Once you’ve pinned your mood board up somewhere you’re likely to see it, consider taking on the rest of your workspace. Depending on your needs, this may mean that you clear out lots of clutter from bookshelves and storage spaces. Alternatively, you may want to add more items (like prints and vinyl quotes) to build on your mood board and make your space feel more creative.

Either way, creating an environment of innovation should help you find inspiration and beat the block you face. If it doesn’t, consider packing a laptop or notepad and heading to a local library or coffee shop to change up the scenery.

Finding Inspiration

If you’re feeling low and cannot find your creative streak, consider investing some time in finding inspiration. This is a staple of the entrepreneurial life, as billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spend most of their days reading. Reading is an excellent way to find fresh inspiration, as it can bolster your cognitive powers, improve your communication skills, and reduce stress. This is almost certain to spark a creative period in your life and will help you overcome challenges associated with feelings of boredom or uninventive.

You can also listen to hours of interviews in the form of podcasts and YouTube videos. Popular self-help podcasts like Dan Harris’ Ten Percent Happier or Happier by Gretchen Rubin are great examples of podcasts that may help you break out of a funk. Similarly, you can easily find plenty of interviews with well-known high-performing entrepreneurs like Sir Richard Branson.

If drawing from the experience and insight of others isn’t working for you, consider making habitual changes that boost innovation. This may mean you need to bring in others who can help you focus on more creative tasks, or that you need to set better goals for your team. Making these kinds of habitual changes is sure to shake up your headspace and help you find ways to overcome creative blocks.

Conclusion

Failing to overcome creative blocks quickly can be a source of frustration if you’re a high-performing entrepreneur. However, every businessperson goes through a period of stagnation at some point. Rather than lamenting the loss of your creative streak, use the time to reconsider your habits and redesign the space that you work in.

By Indiana Lee, BOSS contributor