How to escape the black hole of creative languishing

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It's coming to me any minute now...

Also, not forgetting the usual dose of weird, wonderful and what I hope is helpful content from the rest of planet earth in my curated roundup.

The Big Thought

Did the title draw you in, or perhaps even confuse you?The art of languishing often feels like that. It’s a word I first became familiar with during the pandemic. It's used to describe the strange sense of just existing that many of us were experiencing.Oxford Dictionary defines languishing as:

Languishing

👉 adjective: failing to make progress or be successful.

I prefer the definition of “a pervasive feeling of blah-ness that dulls your motivation” coined by the team at Betterup. I love the use of the word “blah-ness’. I feel a ton of this when I hit what I call my creative languishing zone. Let me break my Frankenstein term of creative languishing down for you:

Creative (the process of using one's imagination to create) + Languishing (a state of non-progressive blah-ness).

Perhaps I should have said creative blahness?

Anyway, this is the language I use to describe the feeling of staring at a page (or however you create) and the sparks just aren’t flying.

I’m hoping you experience this too (please say yes…). It's incredibly frustrating as someone whose career is centred around creating.

I feel the King himself, Elvis, knew of the great pain of languishing when he sang “We're caught in a trap, I can't walk out” from the 1969 hit, Suspicious Minds. I empathise with this sense of despair. But, fear not, we have hope, folks.

Instead of wasting both of our precious minutes on this earth moaning about it, I want to explore tools and tactics to escape the black hole of creative languishing!

Inputs = outputs

I believe we have to look to the inputs in our environment and state of mind today to understand why we’re getting a specific output. This works well for both the good and bad times. A state of creative languishing is usually a combination of external factors, so I ask myself:

1. What are my energy levels right now?

2. Am I doing too many things at once? A particular downfall I create for myself

3. Do I care about the task I’m doing? If not, why am I doing it?

And then recalibrate.

• Energy levels are low? Take a break, reset and refocus

• Doing too many tasks? Review, prioritise and refocus

• Don’t care about the task? Delve deeper into why, reflect and refocus

The main output here is to (you guessed it)...refocus.

Shake up your routine

Humans are creatures of habit, which means parts of our day are exactly the same every day.

I like structure, so this works for me. Yet, I appreciate when stuck in that black hole of creative languishing, you gotta mix up. I’m not talking about doing a 360 here and becoming a monk. Start small and keep it simple.

• Change your working location (I move from my office to my kitchen 😉)

• Take a different walk in your area.

• Ditch coffee for tea (did I actually just type that 🤯)

• Do stuff you would never normally do (in reason, folks!)

Look for inspo elsewhere

When I’m languishing, the last thing I wanna do is talk about the thing I’m languishing about.

Often, this is my work in the adult education arena, aka corporate L&D. The last thing I want to do is read, hear or talk about another bloody thing to do with L&D. I will actively run out of any scenario which has me face this.

I don’t see this as an issue. I mean, you can’t be in love with your work 24/7 - 365. And I am certainly not.

Instead, I seek inspiration from other areas, industries and creatives. This can be anything you want. Just get away from the thing you’re doing day in and day out. Trust me, engaging deeper into the thing which got you into the black hole is rarely the answer.

My personal recipe has been playing random zombie games. No idea why this works, but it just does for me. You do you though, friend.

Escape the black hole

Ok friend, I’ve run out of tea, and I’ve got my own creative languishing to deal with. Hope this helps - till next time ✌️

🤘 From LinkedIn

I post so much on LI, even I lose track of all the stuff. Here’s a quick roundup of drops to keep me and you in the loop:

1️⃣ Why self-led corporate learning strategies don't work!

2️⃣ The superpower of silence

3️⃣ How to use ChatGPT as an L&D thought partner

4️⃣ Why there's a disconnect between L&D teams and their users

5️⃣ What driving test prep teaches us about data-informed L&D design

If you're curious, here's three ways I can help you 👇

1/ My L&D toolkit stack with 20 free tools.

2/ Grab a copy of my book with strategies and tools to thrive in a 9-5 career.

3/ Work with me on your projects and L&D challenges.

--Please do share your thoughts with me on these pieces or anything I share on LinkedIn or hit 'reply'. Chat to you soon.

Content that has caught my attention and might interest you too.

In this conversation with Russell Sweep, we talk about adopting new learning tech, getting people to care about what you do and figuring out what you actually enjoy doing for work. Let me know what you think?

Yes, you read that correctly - education is booming, as it should be.

I found this research incredibly enlightening. I also had no idea the global higher education market is worth $2.2 trillion 🤑. Despite the specific focus on data from America, it still leaves a lot to reflect on with the global state of education and how this transitions over to corporate L&D.

My DM's have not stopped popping since this episode with Kevin Alster at Synthesia dropped - and that's a great thing!

In a far-ranging conversation (a part 2 and 3 is in the works, no doubt), Kevin and I get into the weeds of why L&D teams can't always reach their full potential, and newsflash, it's not our fault. We cover corporate constraints, old views of L&D, lack of engagement and the simple framework for value-add feedback.Steal everything on Spotify and see our faces with aligned hoody attire on YouTube. Get a preview of the convo on my LI feed too.