What kept me away from medium for a while and how I got back to the drawing board
It was so fascinating to start writing on medium at first. I wrote a couple of articles and received a lot of feedback, and I was motivated to write. But, alas, the last time I published an article on creativity was almost eight months ago.
Seeing the last published date was a slap on my face. I promised you I would share tips and tricks to keep ourselves creatively liberated, but I am also stuck again. So I reflected on why I could not keep my momentum in generating my ideas and doing creative writing. I felt the same as last time I did this. it is not a single block type, but a combination. But this time, I wanted to dig deeper and see how those blocks affected me. So I tried to categorize each and see what type of block had more weight.
The biggest block I have been encountering was the environmental block! Ups, how did it happen? Apart from the pandemic and getting used to the remote working, I thought I had no issue. But actually, this result said that I had more external matters. So, I kept thinking about why, and then I realized that this happened because of many external reasons; I was expecting to get accepted to a grad school. Still, unfortunately, I lost my chance because of a financial issue. Therefore I had to keep on working a bit longer. Then I got excited about my wedding, and I got busy with the preparations. The first instance I mentioned made me feel upset and, at the same time, worthless. The second reason made me thrilled and distracted. Thereby, I lost my focus on writing and expressing my ideas aloud. These are a few significant reasons, and there were so many reasons on the list.
So what I feel is the environmental blocks, and emotional blocks have a powerful correlation. Which I think I need to explore further. And what is fascinating is that it can be both positive or negative. Also, I felt, I should figure out a way to continuously assess the track of our work and the way I keep our creative energy flow. Which I will work on and share with you all.
I had to wait for eight months till things get settled, and for the creative block, resistance to fade away. Yet it did not happen; I felt sad for myself, cried, repent, and almost gave up. But I was fortunate enough not to lose, as I came across few activities to set myself in the mood. And also with the interesting MOOC on Coursera called Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects, By Prof. Barbara Oakley and Prof. Terrence Sejnowski, was kick-off after a while. I felt it had no direct connection with the creative blocks I am talking about but then I realized it does. This course explains powerful mental tools to master tough subjects.
After taking this MOOC, I was on cloud nine. It had many insights to trick your brain and pull yourself together to work better and efficiently.
Long story short, This course reminded me of some powerful tools under the dust in my memory.
- The Pomodoro technique to keep yourself motivated to beat procrastination.
- The convergent and divergent thinking — How Salvador Dali used to drop his keys and Thomas Edison used to drop his ball bearings.
- The chunking method.
I believe these are a few tools amongst many. Thanks to Prof. Barbara Oakley and Prof. Terrence Sejnowski and the learning how to learn course, with few days of practice I feel I am slowly gaining momentum to get myself back on track again. If you like me elaborating on these techniques do let me know. I will write about them.
So I invite you all to go through the course and these techniques on your own. If you already practise these things, share your thoughts and comments with me. Looking forward to hearing from you all.
Until next time!
