5 Ways to Destroy Your Artistic Creativity

There are times when your level of creativity will go into turbulent ups and downs, seemingly without any reason at all. More often than not, the culprit is you yourself.

You could have unintentionally done something that shut down the creativity centre of your brain. Go through this list and see if it rings any bell…

1. Work All the Time

It does not matter how great of an artist you are, in the end, you are just another human being. And being a human, you need to satisfy not only your creative urges, but your brain also needs to be stimulated by intellectual conversations, a good night sleep, and a regular intake of oxygen, among others.

If you only ever work and neglect your health, pretty soon your brain is going to rebel and refuse to work anymore. Pace yourself and take a stroll at the park with a friend every now and then.

2. Work Only When You Feel Like It

This is almost the complete opposite from #1, but no less dangerous. It is important to work when you are full of ideas, but do not ever use that as an excuse not to work at other times. If you think you can complete your work by relying only on random bursts of creativity, think again. Sometimes you need to work to earn that creativity, instead of just waiting for ideas to come knocking around your head.

3. Continue to Work on Boring Projects

This is another brain killer. If the project does not stimulate your mind to think out of the box, if there is no risk or joy in experimenting with new ideas, if it is not fun, then it is boring. Your brain knows this, which is why the creativity centre stops working. You can either modify the project to include fun elements that you will enjoy working on, or drop it altogether and find something else to work on.

4. Compare Yourself with Other People

Artistic level between people is not comparable on a continuum scale. You might be the best artist in using chiaroscuro technique for oil paintings, but there might be someone else out there who are better than you at painting with a palette knife.

In short, you can be better than someone else in certain areas, but you will also be worse than other person in other areas. You can never be the best in everything, so why bother comparing yourself to other people?

5. Drowning in Self-Pity

This point is highly related to #4. Almost inevitably, an artist will develop a sort of inferiority complex after realizing how many great, talented artists are out there. When you always think of yourself as a second-class artist, how can your brain produce first-class ideas? When your mind is forever thinking that you can never compete with all the other supposedly better artists out there, your creativity reservoir will dry up just like that.

Self-pity and doubt is very dangerous to all artists, so be careful not to fall into this trap. When you see other artists, avoid any art skill comparison. They have their own set of skills, just as you have yours, so be grateful with that you have and move on.