Understand what happens when you lose steam on a newer creative project
Has this ever happened to you?
Recently I had a stroke of insight – a wonderful idea for my business involving a new project. The idea came in like a cork pop of intuition, then settled like flecks of confetti. I could feel a whole-body response of yes. When I set aside time to work on it, it felt effortless, easy. I easily lost track of time advancing the first few creative steps.
I saw the path forward with startling clarity.
And then, a day or two passed by, and everything slowed down.
I felt suddenly unsure. I sent an email to a couple of colleagues, asking their opinion about something tangential to the project. What did they think about this? I wonder. I typed, erased, typed again, and erased again an email to a colleague asking if she’d beta test, before finally dumping the draft.
Nothing felt quite right. It sat on my list ‘to-do’ for days.
Maybe you’ve experienced this too – being so excited about a project or creative idea or way of sharing your work in the world online or in your business – only to have it fizzle out or slow to a crawl.
Where had the energy gone?
It was clear something had shifted. What had happened?
In this type of situation, typically one of two things is going on.
I could, but do I really want to?
It could be that the idea I had initially wasn’t something I really, really wanted to do. It was, perhaps, something I could do. I might even be pretty good at doing it. Even excellent at it. But, if I looked at it closely, the energy might not be telling me I want to bring it into form.
This sometimes happens with creative ideas. The zingy, thrilling little pings you feel can be easy to mistake. Creative people get creative ideas, like, always. And there’s a certain feeling that comes from having ideas appear and being able to intuitively sense their possibility.
It feels like magic sometimes.
And, when you get one of those ideas, you need to settle in with it, and take a second step, asking yourself if that idea, out of the maybe dozen you’ve had in the last day and a half, is one you really want to focus on to express yourself.
As one of my teachers told me: It’s a practice.
But, in this case though, that wasn’t it. I’d already checked in with myself, and this was very much something I want to bring into existence.
So, what else could be going on?
Unconscious energy patterns at work
Each one of us has her own natural creative process. It’s unique to us, and it may or may not look anything like what the wider culture, the famous authors or workshop leaders say our creative process should be.
This process is one we naturally and comfortably take on whenever we start a new project, including anything from producing a book of our photographs or writing a novel to planning a niece’s birthday party or applying for a writing residency.
And, when fear or doubt or vagueness – basically any type of uncertainty - enter the picture, especially without our awareness, that creative process shifts. Sometimes the order we do things in gets subverted or the timing gets wonky. Sometimes the whole process gets turned upside down.
For me, I recognized that the extreme slowing down and starting to ask other people’s opinions at this early stage of a project is something that I’ve done before. In fact, it matches what happens to my natural creative process in the presence of doubt, fear, or uncertainty.
MAKING A SHIFT
Once I was aware of the unconscious energy, I was able to do something about it. Well, I didn’t do anything else, not right away anyway. I took a different approach and found some time to do an intuitive energy self-reading.
Fortunately, I was able to identify the specific fear and limiting belief that were underlying my hesitation on this project: a fear of speaking out/been seen plus the belief that I can’t have what I want. From there, I was able to use energy healing techniques to create a shift.
The project is underway once again, and I’m back to working within my own natural creative process.
What a relief!
If you’ve received a creative idea, started in full speed ahead to implement, only to discover everything draining away, it’s worth looking more deeply at what might be going on. Questioning whether this idea is something that you really, really want to move forward with is the first step. Then, if it is, pausing to find out what might be happening underneath will help you uncover clarity.
Either way, before long you’ll be back happily in creative flow, working to bring your idea to life.