Creative burnout can feel like a wall between you and your writing goals. Whether it’s the result of stress, distractions, or feeling creatively drained, creative fatigue and even injury is something many modern writers experience. Because writers are generally a solution-forward bunch, we often think we can ten-step our way out of the problem. However, when creativity itself is the problem, the resources to heal can often be counter-intuitive. Creative burnout recovery isn’t about forcing your way back to the page; it’s about holistically creating space in the rest of your life for your creativity to breathe and rebuild.
Last fall when I asked you all what you’d like me to write about this year, quite a few of you brought up challenges you were having in accessing, restoring, or implementing your creativity:
So sorry I have not really had the time to read your blog these days. I have not even had the chance to write either which…for me…is a tragedy. And to be perfectly honest, it is difficult for me to use my inner creativity muscle anymore. But that does not mean I can’t. I would like you to write more about finding the joy of writing and ways to battle against writer’s “disinterest.” I will not call it a block.–MC Furgal
Having experienced deep creative burnout myself, these are topics about which I am extremely passionate. In my own experience and from what I hear from the writing community, creative burnout is becoming an increasingly common challenge for many modern writers. Although the pandemic crisis in 2020 launched many people’s creative aspirations, it was also a shatterpoint for many long-time creatives. There are many possible reasons for this, but to me this points to the reality that creative burnout is often the result of what may seem at first to be “supra-creative” causes. Although writer’s block may often appear to be specifically related to the act of writing (as in some cases of what I call “plot block”), it is more often a symptom of deeper obstacles blocking the flow and force of our deepest creative selves—which is to say, our very lives.
Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration (affiliate link)
To risk creative burnout is, truly, to risk the burnout of our deepest life force and vitality. Likewise, to heal any injuries or exhaustion in our relationship to creativity, we must be willing to look beyond the page to examine those things that may be blocking, not just our writing, but our lives.
That said, today I want to respond to MC’s question by looking at the practical steps I’ve learned over the years in my own creative burnout recovery and in daily building the kind of life that supports this vital energy.
What Creative Burnout Really Means
What is creative burnout? Put simply, it’s when you reach that point when there’s nothing left in the tank.
Although lack of creative desire is often the first symptom that something might be going awry, the resistance felt is different from the usual—and quite normal—pushback most writers feel when confronted with the empty page. In creative burnout, the will might still be present, but the passion is gone. The desire for desire might be present, but the old spark just isn’t there. The motivation has run dry. Writing, even at its best, requires a difficult and even painful stretching of oneself, but there is always a purpose, a reason, a motivation to keep going. With creative burnout, there just isn’t.
MC wrote that it is “difficult for me to use my inner creativity muscle anymore.” I like this metaphor of a “muscle,” since it extends to include the idea of an injury. Creative burnout is really creative injury. Understanding this helps resolve the shame, confusion, and self-recrimination that often complicates this experience. Treating burnout as an injury allows us to turn doctor and explore the root causes of what can otherwise seem a mysterious hex.
Although every experience of creative burnout will be as deeply unique as creative expression itself, most instances can be traced or at least related to one simple factor: stress.
The most important thing to understand about stress—and therefore about creative burnout—is that stress is a physiological experience. It happens to the body. This can have wide-ranging effects—from muscle tension and inflammation to nervous system dysregulation to rewired brain patterns (e.g., anxiety triggers, attention deficits)—and all the host of further snowballing conditions and illnesses (e.g., high blood pressure, etc.) It’s not something to be taken lightly. Although creative burnout by itself can seem comparatively minor (!), it is often an early caution against further lifestyle dangers.
Recognizing this is one thing. Dealing it with in a modern technological world that seems to become more complex and stressful by the day is another challenge altogether. Few of us live simple or streamlined lives. Between relationships, jobs, finances, home and auto maintenance, and a host of other calls upon our attention, we are busier than ever. On top of that, our sleep is increasingly dysregulated, thanks in part to our near-constant exposure to blue light. Even our downtime isn’t really downtime. Instead of creating space for routines that allow our systems to actually empty, reset, and refill, we’re usually either chasing dopamine highs (i.e,. checking off fun stuff like it’s a to-do list) or numbing out (probably with more screentime).
This is just the norm now. Speaking for myself, I can draw a direct correlation between the increasing busyness of my mind throughout my adult decades and the corresponding decrease in my ability to “dream” and therefore to access creation from the deepest well of myself rather than simply my overworked head center. Breaking away from these unhealthy and ultimately creativity-destroying lifestyles requires the conscious awareness and effort to create days that are filled with high-quality habits (but not too full, if you know what I mean).
Seeking Emptiness: The Problem of “Filling the Well’ in Creative Burnout Recovery
The first step in creative burnout recovery is creating space in your life where you can invite creativity back in.
In the past, discussions of writer’s block have often focused on the seemingly generative idea of “filling the well.” However, the very term writer’s block tells us the problem isn’t necessarily a lack but perhaps a superfluence. The longer I have experienced, researched, and responded to my own creative blocks, the clearer it has become to me that the real problem is not that my creative well is empty of ideas or information, but rather that my system in general is too full. When an overloaded brain and nervous system run too hot for too long the result is, of course, burnout.
Because burnout is physiological, it is not a state that can always be easily reversed. Just as with a car engine that has been run into the ground, some pieces may be beyond salvaging and may need to be replaced. In the case of a living organism, this replication is miraculously possible, but it takes time, patience, and the discipline to create the ease and space that creative energy craves.
Here are a few practical tips for creating space into which you can re-invite your creativity:
1. Do What’s in Front of You
This has become one of the mantras of my life. Basically, it means “clear the table” (or the desk, as the case may be). Clear the clutter by starting with what’s right in front of you. Although this might indicate actual clutter, more generally it recommends against procrastination. The more stuff that piles up (literally or metaphorically), the fuller our brains get. Even when we may not actively remember everything (like that unanswered email or the leftovers in the fridge), some part of your brain does remember. It puts a pin it, and when you never get back to it and a hundred others like it, the mental real estate it requires takes up more and more space that could otherwise be used for creativity.
2. Go Slow Enough to Process
In some respects, this is another variation of “do what’s in front of you”—except here what’s “in front of you” are the thousand little mental and emotional responses that arise throughout the day to one prompt after another. We interact with infinitely more bits of information and stimuli than have previous generations. Although our amazing brains quickly filter, sort, and process most of these occurrences, some take a little more time. When we are unable to pause in the moment to fully acknowledge or process our responses, they still get backed up in the body. In the constant flow of information, that particular catalyst may be mentally forgotten, but not physically.
Get into the practice of noticing your responses as they arise. When something feels triggering or like it requires an extra moment to process, take a break, step back, and fully digest it before moving on—all of which can take as little as a few seconds of awareness. Particularly in our scroll culture, in which we may encounter dozens, if not hundreds, of possible triggers within a short timespan, slowing down enough to learn this practice offers untold benefits.
3. Write Down or Look Up Questions ASAP
You know those random thoughts and curiosities that filter through your brain throughout the day? How tall is Elizabeth Debicki? How may Super Bowls did Tom Brady win? Which brand of crackers is cheaper? To the degree you intend to “look that up later,” do it now. This is yet another form of “doing what’s in front of you.” Don’t let trivia backlog in your brain. Use your phone to look it up right now. If you intend to text someone, do it now. If you need to add something to your grocery list, put in your online cart or write it down now. Not only does this reverse procrastination habits, it is also one of the simplest ways to remove unneeded complexity from your daily brain and your probably already overtaxed short-term memory. Wouldn’t you much rather think about your story rather than crackers? (Or not. I mean I love crackers.)
Minimizing Unnecessary (and Sometimes Necessary) Noise, So You Can Hear the Muse
One of the biggest brain clutterers is noise. And there is so. much. noise right now. If you spend any significant amount of your life online (and who doesn’t?), then you hear the noise. Some of that noise is from your own life. Some of it is literal noise. And some of it is just the general clutter and chatter of the Internet—emails, ads, news, to-do lists, even entertainment. We all know how easy it is for our hours and our good intentions to run down the drain after getting sucked into what started out seeming like an inconsequential browse through suggested YouTube shorts.
Here’s the thing: the Internet is not going to help you take control of your brain back. Our modern world is not going to help you. If you want your brain back—if you want your creativity back—you have to do it yourself. And I’ll be honest: this is a Sisyphean battle. Short of pulling the plug on the Internet and/or having superpower-level self-discipline, I envision this as one of Dwight Eisenhower’s battle plans—where basically you have to keep throwing it out and creating new ones on the go.
Here’s what I’m doing this year to take care of my brain.
1. Browse One Tab at a Time
The hyper-multitasking of the Internet has literally rewired our brains into shorter attention spans and memories. One of the only ways to combat this is to force yourself to go slower. (I know, I know, it feels like pulling teeth to me too.) In the past, my daily Internet routine was to open every single tab I would need for the day (email, blog comments, socials, financial institutions, etc.), then go through them as fast as I could. If one page was loading (I have slow Internet), I’d skip back and forth between tabs. I think I could literally feel my brain dying.
This year, I made the commitment to only open one working tab at a time. I am shocked by how much calmer my brain feels. I will never go back.
2. Use a Pomodoro Timer to Take Breaks
A Pomodoro timer is a time-management tool that breaks your work into focused intervals, typically 25 minutes long, followed by a short 5-minute break, helping boost productivity and prevent burnout. I also started using this tool more faithfully this year. I will work sitting for 25 minutes, use an eye massager during the 5-minute break, then raise my desk to standing for 15 minutes, before repeating. Not only does it help me reorient, give me time to process anything that’s come up during the 25 minutes, and slow my roll on any time-suckers, it also gives me the chance to address my body’s needs.
3. Limit Social Media
I know, I know. This one is almost a cliche at this point. But it’s the truth. Social media can be fun and useful, and for those of us who use it for marketing, it can even be obligatory. But there’s no question it is, at best, a necessary evil. Aside from always being a potential black hole for our time and attention, it is also designed to bombard us with a host of small stimuli that fill up our brains with empty calories and encourage low-quality wiring in our memories and nervous systems. I gotta be honest: the less time spent on short-form content, the better. If you love it or need it, set a timer—then give yourself at least a few minutes afterward to let everything you saw and heard process through.
4. Commit to No-Buy Months
This one might not seem immediately obvious, but aside from bringing less actual stuff into your life (and saving money), it can also free up more of your attention. One way or another, most of us spend a lot of time shopping—whether necessarily or recreationally. Especially if you shop predominately online, creating structure around not just how much you can buy but, in this instance, particularly how much time you spend looking can not only free up time and space, it can also help cut down on the unavoidable noisiness of everything that happens out here in Internet-land.
5. Set Realistic Schedules and Goals for Your Life
We have to manage so much complexity in our modern lives. The better we organize our lives, the more structures and resources we can utilize to help us quiet everything down enough to create an inviting space for our creativity. One important way of doing this is making sure the structures and tools we bring in to help are, in fact, realistic. Trying to cram in too much (guilty!) won’t help your creative burnout recovery, no matter how well-organized it is. Get real about what’s important and what you have time for. If creativity is important, then prioritize that—even just in making space so your brain can quiet down.
>>Click here to read Creativity vs. Distraction: 13 Tips for Writers in the Age of the Internet
Listening for Your Yes: The Path to Creative Burnout Recovery and Rediscovering Your Writing Flow
Once you’ve cleared space in your life and brought healing to your stress injuries, how can you proactively welcome creativity back into your life?
This will require new habits. After all, if the old ones hurt you, you know you have to stop. You can’t go back to doing the same things that led to creative burnout the first time around.
This can be a tough pill to swallow. Just recently (after many years of creative burnout recovery), I finally found myself consciously realizing that part of me was trying to heal just so I could return to the same level of productivity I managed before my burnout. That’s the definition of insanity.
You have to be willing to examine whether you might have to let go of some the ways things used to be. There can be an ego death and a grieving process involved with that.
You can also ask yourself whether you might, in fact, be able to return to some good things as well. One of the best ways to cultivate good creative habits is to think back to times when creativity overflowed. Think back to the perfect ease of daydreaming and play-acting when in childhood. Creativity seemed effortless then because it was allowed to arise, rather then being recruited as a soldier in the army of productivity.
Although creativity ultimately uses and requires all aspects of the self, including the intellect and the will, it begins as an inherently intuitive and even emotional process. When we talk about “making space” for creativity, what we are talking about is the space where the creativity begins. We are making space for creativity to arrive. Although we may often think of “the act of creation” as something we do, it is a deeply receptive act. True creativity is not so much when we think of something as when that thought thinks us. There’s no forcing that. There is only waiting, listening, and cultivating a physiology that is habituated to experience the creative act as pleasurable rather than stressful.
>>Click here to read How Meditation Can Inspire Your Next Story
Even before taking the steps mentioned above, you must have a willingness and ability to go through what is often a literal detox from “go mode.” If creative burnout results from our brains rewiring in unpleasant ways (albeit to protect and/or serve us), then creative burnout recovery is about rewiring our miraculously plastic brains and systems back into generativity. Go mode is highly addictive, which is, again, another physical experience. It’s not just in our heads; it’s not just a “habit”; after a while, it becomes part of our physical reality. Changing that reality requires changing certain fundamental things about the way we interact with all parts of our lives.
Not every writer is committed enough to their writing to make those changes. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with deciding to move on after burning out on one expression of creativity. But we cannot move on from creativity itself. It is our very life force. It is the best and truest part of our existence, no matter how it expresses. Although the modern world and its technologies offers a plethora of unthought-of tools and environments that can help creativity thrive, there are also many aspects absolutely antithetical to the maintenance of a healthy creative life. Without awareness and discipline, more and more writers are likely to suffer creative burnout—not because there is anything inherently wrong with their “creative muscle,” but because the potentially endless distractions and stresses we face every day are, in fact, creative death by a thousand cuts.
Although creative burnout is a challenge many writers face, it is also an unprecedented opportunity to reconnect with the essence of creativity itself. By stepping away from the constant demands of modern life and creating space for rest, reflection, and renewal, we can rediscover the joy and vitality that fuels our writing. The process of recovery requires patience and the willingness to let go of old habits, but it also offers the chance to build a more sustainable and fulfilling creative practice for the future. Remember, creativity thrives in moments of stillness and openness. By nurturing those moments, we not only heal our creative selves, but also open the door to the deep, rich stories that resonate with our true selves.
>>Click here to read How to Rediscover the Joy of Writing
In Summary:
Creative burnout isn’t just a temporary slump; it’s often a deep-seated physiological and emotional response to overwork and stress. It’s not about the absence of ideas but about a system that’s too full to allow creativity to flow. To recover, we need to create space in our lives to heal and rejuvenate, both mentally and physically. A critical first step is slowing down, clearing mental clutter, and consciously addressing stress that’s been building in our lives. Real recovery requires not only rest but also adjustments to our habits and schedules to maintain balance.
Key Takeaways:
- Creative Burnout Is a Physiological Injury: It’s not just a lack of motivation but a deeper, systemic issue rooted in stress and mental overload.
- Create Space for Recovery: To heal from burnout, it’s important to clear physical and mental clutter. Slow down, process emotions, and avoid procrastination.
- Minimize External Noise: Limit distractions, especially online, to allow your mind the space to reset.
- Practical Strategies: Implement tools like Pomodoro timers, limit social media, and commit to no-buy months to reduce external pressure and regain control over your time and attention.
- Set Realistic Expectations: Overloading your schedule exacerbates burnout. Set achievable goals and leave room for recovery.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What strategies have you found most helpful in your own creative burnout recovery journey? Tell me in the comments!
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