It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, burnt out, or just stressed to the max these days. There are so many external expectations placed on us, and we’re living in a world where our lives are more visible to others than ever before. Between social media updates and every life announcement or accomplishment getting announced online these days, it’s so easy to feel like we don’t measure up to others. Add keeping up with politics, local news, international news, fitness and fashion trends, new music, pop culture, etc, etc…. and we barely have time to take care of ourselves. Of course the logical thought is to take a break, go on vacation, and disengage for a while. Maybe we want to sleep and hermit and just generally find a way to lessen our load. And yes, this can be important when we truly are experiencing burn out or heavy stress. We do need time to regulate our bodies and minds. But then what about the recovery process? How do you refill your energy for the world after a break? Likewise, how can you tell the difference between truly needing to take a rest versus needing to refill your cup?
I’m sure some of you assume that taking the rest is the thing that refills your cup, but does it really? And what does all this have to do with creativity, anyway? Well, I find that many creatives use being too busy or too stressed as excuses for not creating. How many of you have heard or used the excuses of being uninspired, having writer’s block, not having enough time, too frazzled to focus, or just don’t have any new ideas? So many people say they’d finish that novel or complete that painting if they just had more time. And yet these are the same people who will spend what free time they have scrolling Twitter or watching Netflix. There’s this need to completely zone out in order to unwind from a day that has drained us rather than offered us anything in return. I get it. I do this, too. However, I realized that I still craved these zone-out distractions — and preferred them to creativity — even when I had all the time and freedom in the world to work on my creative projects.
Why, even after all my daily stressors had been removed, did I still feel burnt out and uninspired? The truth was I didn’t need rest at all. Looking back, during my most creative times I’d been run off my feet with barely enough time to eat or shower, and I’d been happier than ever while managing to produce some pretty big artistic projects. So if I knew it wasn’t the workload or time constraints, when what was going on? The reason I felt burnt out wasn’t because I needed rest, but because I needed to stop running on empty and to consciously take the time to refill my cup.
A car can drive across the country if you keep refuelling it. It doesn’t need need to stop and sit in a parking lot for a while in order to keep going. Now of course you could just idle the car in the lot, running out the fuel. But you could also press down the pedal and take it through route 66, or into Mexico, or across every national park. Okay, sure, humans aren’t cars, but you can understand the analogy I’m making. You can easily run out your energy without refuelling it with meaningful, inspiring things to move forward. Likewise, you can refuel with enough to keep you going, but never really get anywhere. You’re still idling the parking lot, wondering why you never seem to have energy to get to where you want to go.
I think part of the problem is the scattering of energy. We’re so unfocused these days, in part, by tech-driven changes to social norms. Instead of settling into a great book or favourite show or meaningful conversation or something else we derive positive feelings from, we scroll social media, we check our ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ count, we get angry about the same scandalous news again, or watch something because everyone else online is watching that thing — even if we don’t really like it. We’re so scattered and driven by outside approval that we’ve lost touch with those things that truly offer us fuel and inspiration. And worse, we lose touch with our own opinions and potential creative offerings. The firehose of advertising, brands, image, news, outrage, anger, war, social approval, etc, etc, etc, is scattering our energy so badly that we’re either idling in the parking lot or turned the engine off completely. There’s nothing left in the tank and we’ve lost sight of how to refuel.
So, the question is, if you’ve been feeling burnt out or creatively blocked and rest isn’t restoring you to your best self, then how do you refocus your energy? We so often think in terms of expending energy outward, but so rarely do we think about how we bring energy back into ourselves. We may eat, sleep, and exercise to keep our bodies functional, but what about our minds and spirits? What do we need to take in for us to have creative and meaningful output? And what energy do we put out that also brings energy back to us? (I think creatives understand this — artistic output often refuels us, when we’re able to do it.) What returns feelings of accomplishment, joy, love, pride, fullness, excitement, as opposed to feelings of being drained, angry, tired, apathetic, frustrated, unfulfilled?
It may be time to shut out the distractions and make a conscious effort to uncover what can refill out cups so we can have energy to use as we choose again. Go back to something that brought inspiration in the past. Was there a tv show, album, book, that just made you go ‘WOW’? Did you love to play an instrument in the past, or really enjoyed a subject in school you no longer use? Maybe cooking or baking brought you joy? Whatever the thing is, go back to it now. It’s your starting place. Think of it like a spark and try to imagine the feelings you got the first time you experienced it. The trick is to grow that feeling. So say it was an old film that you just loved and first gave you an appreciation for all things filmmaking. Rewatch the film and think about that first time. Stay with the feeling. Are there more films to watch by the same director? Or does that film remind you of others that gave you the same feeling? Did it lead you to creativity? What was your life like when you felt inspired? Now, what can you do today to maintain that feeling? What else right now makes you feel that way? Can you explore to find it? Perhaps it means spending more time watching inspiring films instead of scrolling Twitter — and yes it may fell like a task at first — but keep going. You’re out of practice, that’s all, and it will take a bit of time to refill your cup to the point where engaging with your most inspirational role models/activities/things will feel easy and desired.
Our mindless habits are just that — habits. It takes time and effort to move away from them and toward more mindful — and meaningful — ones. Filling our cup, or restoring our energy, is a choice. It’s unfortunate that for so many of us, we have forgotten that it is just a choice. With a conscious refocusing of our energy, we can refuel ourselves with necessary inspiration, motivation, joy, optimism, hope, and alignment from which to offer authentic creativity and innovation. So next time you’re feeling blocked, burnt out, or like you’re running on empty, make the effort to fill your cup. After all, there is an endless well from which to draw from.