Our tips for those harder writing days should your confidence in your ability fail and writer’s block subsequently kick in…
We all get them.
We would like to suggest that at the root of this negative spiral might lie the perception that failure is the consequence and more specifically… humiliation!
But there are never ever any guaranteed outcomes with any kind of creativity whatever the level we’re at, so let’s unpack this and investigate what can we all do to help ameliorate those bad days, (especially if we’re on a deadline!) and look at just how we can readjust our exaggerated perception of negative consequences:
1. Return immediately to remembering the passion that lead you down the musical path in the first place. The mind functions best with pictures and emotions, so recall some good memories of happier creative times, may be when you were ‘in the flow,’ and revisit them, but more importantly, ‘feel’ the feelings of that particular occasion again, as in actually dwell on them to ‘shift’ your emotional state out of your current fug. Note - it could be a happy occasion that is entirely unrelated to writing music.
2. Don’t focus on the negatives of that unproductive day - they will only self-perpetuate. Feeding limiting beliefs like… ‘I’m useless’ is dysfunctional and excessive to the exclusion of pieces of factual information… like that you are actually really passionate about music, are naturally talented, and/or may even have written some wonderful music already. Words are powerful and can create further resistance on a bad day, so choose them wisely in your self chat.
3. None of us can control everything - a lack of ideas, a bad review, the weather of course, but we CAN control the quality of our thoughts. However, the best willpower and desire to write good music will never be able to counteract the distraction of limiting beliefs if you give them oxygen, so don’t! Walk away do something different for a while and then revert to point number 1. Not giving limiting beliefs oxygen is the difference between success and failure, in the attempting or the not.
And always remember, there will be days like this. For all of us at all levels, so you are never alone. But just like the weather, they do pass.