Photo by Jakob Owens on UnsplashYou know the fog — the one where no matter what you do, you can’t get yourself inspired. Your screens, canvases, and papers stay blank. You raise your camera to take a picture, and nothing makes it look right. Your head fills with excuses why the image won’t work.
You think it’ll go away on its own, but it doesn’t. Weeks fly by, and you still haven’t done a thing. It doesn’t mean you lost interest. It’s natural to find yourself in a rut. Sometimes, you don’t recognize it until it’s unavoidable.
Is it a lack of motivation, or is it me?
But there is a way to conquer it. Often, if the fog gets so bad, we need to step back and do something else. If we don’t, it could turn into burnout, which could leave you with a new mess.
Before that happens, why don’t you try one of these tips to get you out of your fog? It might be what keeps you from going insane with burnout and disappointment.
It’s time to confront your phone addiction
Lately, my phone distracts me. Whenever I try to sit down to write, my phone lights up to tell me something happened in one of my apps. I log on and look at every app. I’ll check my email too. Hours later, I haven’t written a thing. Instead, I wasted a day scrolling through my phone. It’s happened so many times I’m getting concerned. Is it a lack of motivation, or is it me?
You don’t need to be an expert to know that spending hours scrolling through your phone isn’t healthy. You’re procrastinating on something. Is it burnout, anxiety, or depression?
We know going on our phone can be a dangerous waste of time. But not all of us know how long we spend on our phones. According to Psychology Today, an average person checks their phone every eighteen minutes. We know it’s hurting our productivity, but we can’t help ourselves.
Our phones are often the first things we pick up and the last things we look at during the day. Most of us are addicted to our phones, but we don’t know how bad it is. Hiding your phone is a way to fight your phone addiction. You don’t have to give your phone to someone and beg them to tell you where it is. As long as your phone stays out of sight, you’ll notice your productivity coming back.
You’re not going to free yourself from phone addiction instantly. It’s going to take time, but you can do it.
Step away from your computer and read a book
In the twenty-first century, we’re reading all the time. We’re looking for articles, texts, and social media. When we’re not reading, we’re binging on Netflix and YouTube.
Yet, with all these opportunities to read and watch things to inspire us, we struggle. We still find ourselves distracted and more rooted in our mind-fogs.
Why not read a book?
Reading, in general, is excellent for your brain. Reading a book, however, is like your mind getting a workout from the gym. You’re forced to get rid of all distractions to focus on the pages.
Lesly Yarbrough wrote about the strengths of reading a book. Reading a book for thirty minutes a day can get you to think, use your imagination, and fantasize. You sleep better, gain more confidence, and grow your vocabulary.
For thirty minutes a day, you can do all the stuff I mentioned above and give your creativity an energy boost. Why wouldn’t you want to add reading books to your daily routine?
Yarbough called reading books a superpower, and she’s not wrong. Some of the most successful people in the world add reading to their daily routines. Bill Gates will read fifty books a year! Elon Musk read ten hours a day before he became the CEO of Tesla.
Reading a book can be the key to being more creative and having more success.
The takeaway
These two steps sound overly simple, but they’re not going to be as easy as you think. It takes time before things we do turn into habits. But once they’re a part of your routine, you’ll find more inspiration and creativity.
A fog is easy to get into and hard to break free. Especially when we’re living in crazy times like these, we don’t know what the next insane thing we’ll hear about is.
Everything around us is going crazy, and it makes us feel deflated. But once we put down our phones and pick up a book, we can take our minds elsewhere. Then, we can get our creativity back and bring back our art.
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