How I escape any sort of mental or creative block that might work for you.

One of the most frustrating aspects of our human experience is when we’re trying to find a solution to a problem or starting a creative project and we have a good old fashioned “block”. Am I right?

Society conditions us to believe that there is one way to be productive and do things and the only way THROUGH a block is to SIT and keep chipping away at it until we get through it. Which, in my experience, lands me in an abyss of shame where I lose my self confidence and can guarantee I don’t produce anything I feel good about or proud of.

Once, while working at a digital marketing agency as a developer, I had a manager who refused to let me execute my own process when it came to how I got my work done and/or solved problems. I remember one specific situation where I was trying to figure out some CSS problem and had spent HOURS with him glaring over my back, with a look that could only be interpreted as, “I’m a miserable human being and comply with these horrible processes so you will too so you’re just as miserable as I am”. I’m sure you know the type.

This societal norm is probably the reason I was HORRIBLE in school yet taught myself web & graphic design at thirteen. I failed junior english because I had to be there every day and turn in homework assignments. Yet I…