If you’ve ever struggled to find motivation, you’ll know how draining it can feel to push through and finish your work.
Getting out of a rut can be difficult, but is far from impossible. Finding a way to boost your creativity and approach your work with fresh eyes can help you leap back into your projects with renewed energy.
Indeed, recent research from Stanford University has found that changing your location could help you escape a creative rut.
Read on to discover why it’s important to find your motivation again and simple tips on how you can boost your creativity.
What is a “creative rut”?
We’ve all fallen victim to a creative rut at some point or another. Suddenly, a project that you used to be excited about stops being so fun, you lose inspiration, and working on something you used to love feels like a chore.
This can look like:
- Long-term procrastination
- A feeling of monotony
- Struggling for inspiration or motivation
- A lack of new ideas.
Creative ruts can often go hand in hand with burnout, which occurs when you spend a prolonged amount of time working too hard without taking breaks.
Why is it important to break out of a creative rut?
Creativity offers lots of benefits to your mental health and productivity across all areas of your life.
For example, creativity can:
- Increase workplace success
- Help you maintain loving relationships
- Improve healthy psychological functioning.
It’s also important to remember that everything you create, no matter how big or small, has the potential to improve people’s lives, whether that’s by bringing a smile to their faces or inspiring others to create their own art.
Changing your location could help you escape a creative rut
During their research, the Stanford scientists aimed to discover whether a change of location and a walk could improve their participants’ creativity.
Across their studies, they found that the participants who walked – no matter the distance or location – had an average increase in creative output of around 60%.
Furthermore, walking exhibited a residual effect on creativity. Not only did the participants’ creative output increase during a walk but their subsequent seated creativity after a walk was much higher than the group who remained seated the whole time.
To see how the location change affected the participants’ creativity, they also had them sit and walk in various locations.
They found that all the participants – including the ones who didn’t walk at all – had a slight increase in productivity when moved from one location to another between tests.
5 practical ways to leave a creative rut behind
With this research in mind, there are a few tricks you can try if you need to escape a creative rut.
1. Go on walks
Adding a walk to your daily routine can help you boost your creativity and hopefully spark some much-needed inspiration.
One interesting thing the study concluded is that walking indoors on a treadmill was as effective as when the participants walked outdoors on a bustling university campus.
So, whether you take a stroll through your local park, walk to work, or invest in a treadmill, getting your body moving can help you regain your motivation.
2. Switch up your location
If you’re used to working in one location, you might be able to spark inspiration by moving your project somewhere else.
For example, if you usually work at your desk, then try taking your laptop to the kitchen table or meeting room, or even further afield, such as your local café.
3. Try something new
Trying something new can help you find a new perspective if you’re stuck on a specific aspect of your project.
For example, if you’re suffering from writer’s block, then why not try taking your current project in a completely unexpected direction?
Moving onto another aspect of your creative project and returning to the part you struggled with when you have more motivation and experience can help you power through the tough parts of your creative journey.
4. Look for inspiration
If inspiration isn’t coming naturally to you, sometimes you must hunt it down.
Speak to the people who motivate you, whether this be supportive friends and family members or a mentor who can help you with your creative project.
Enjoying other people’s art can also spark inspiration. Wander around a gallery, read a fantastic book, or watch a new movie to refresh your love for your project and generate some ideas.
5. Take a break
Working and thinking about a creative project non-stop can lead to burnout.
Instead of trying to force the motivation to come back to you by trying these other tips, sometimes you just need a break.
Spend a few days or even a few weeks if you can indulging in your other hobbies or completing other work projects. When inspiration inevitably hits you again, you can jump back into your project with renewed energy and enthusiasm.