The Creativity Trap and Why Your Best Ideas Come When You Stop Chasing Them
- Feb 6, 2025
- 5 min read
Written by Megan Winkler, Business Coach for Creatives
Megan Winkler, MBA, is a business coach for creatives, merging Divine Masculine business strategies with Divine Feminine intuition and flow. She's the author of the upcoming book, Breaking Up With Burnout.
Do you ever notice how your best ideas strike when you're doing something completely unrelated, like washing dishes or taking a walk? Creativity is an interesting beast. It can feel elusive, especially for neurodivergent business owners who often overthink or pressure themselves to "be productive." Yet, the harder you push for creativity, the harder it is to find. If you layer on a thick icing of stress and burnout, it is a recipe for disaster. However, if you add rest, intuition, and flow into your schedule, yes, actually schedule it, you can live and work a far more creative life than you may realize.
The creativity trap
Let's dig into the Creativity Trap, a common struggle for folks, whether they identify as neurodivergent or not. It is that state of feeling scattered and overwhelmed by too many ideas. It is the pressure to stick to a schedule with your creativity. And ultimately, it is the paradox that the harder you chase inspiration, the more elusive it becomes. In fact, it can actually block it.
That is because when you pressure yourself to “be creative,” you are stressing yourself out. You are increasing cortisol in your body, activating the stress responses in your brain, and effectively shutting down the creative parts of your mind. When we are stressed, we are in a survival state, and from a biological standpoint, we do not need to be creative. We simply need to survive. So anything associated with thriving goes right out the window in favor of meeting our basic needs for shelter, food, and belonging. That is why you have to make sure to rest and take breaks if you want to keep the creativity flowing.
Rest is a part of work
Rest is not lazy. That is a Protestant work ethic myth we have been taught, bought into, and passed down through generations. Rest is essential for brain processing and coming up with new ideas. Whether it is taking a power nap or zoning out without guilt, these moments of rest are a must-have when you are engaged in a creative pursuit. Otherwise, that flow just shuts off.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned as a young violinist was that beats and measures of rest are a part of the music. These pauses impacted the notes more and caused the audience to pay closer attention to what they were hearing. I have long told my clients that rest is a part of work and that if they are not giving themselves breaks, they are working too hard for too little result. It is the same concept.
Trusting your gut
Call it trusting your gut or listening to your intuition, we all have those simple moments of knowing that we cannot rationalize with our logical brains. There are up to 600 million neurons in the gut. Neurons are brain cells, and they exist outside the brain too. They activate our gut when we are inspired, fearful, or impacted by an idea. So why, then, would we deny intelligence in the body just because we did not intentionally think of it?
Creativity is like intuition and that gut instinct. It is not something we can think our way out of. We have to feel it, especially if we are neurodivergent. Practical ways to tap into your intuition include journaling and quick grounding rituals where you tune into the messages your body is sending you. Pay attention to your initial feelings and ideas when brainstorming something new. That is your gut talking, and it knows things your brain does not, especially when it comes to creativity.
Embracing a flow state
Have you ever been in such a flow state that you lost track of time while working on something? That is ideal because it means the creative juices are flowing, and the steps feel easy and natural. Forcing is the opposite of this flow. When you try to force something, you stop the relaxed, present, mindful state that creativity requires. Instead, you push yourself into an unfocused, chaotic state where you are probably multitasking and worried about a deadline.
When you find yourself forcing creativity and trying to chase it, stop what you are doing. Get up from your desk, doodle in a notebook, pull weeds from your garden, or go for a short walk. We often have to disrupt the stress of forcing something to switch gears. Then, when you return to what you have been working on, listen to that inner voice and let it guide you to the answers you seek.
Letting go of perfectionism
I was recently at a business conference with several other women. Our host asked us to decide, as a group at each of our tables, what would keep us from failing. Of course, we also had to present this to the group afterward. My first thought, and the answer my table agreed on in the end, was nothing. Failure is a part of the process.
My background in software development taught me the invaluable lesson of "fail fast." Figure out if your idea works or not as quickly as possible. Follow the successes and release the failures. Of course, this requires a large amount of imperfection. We are taught from birth to be, act, and do things in specific ways that align with our particular cultures. Often, this leads us to strive for perfection.
But if you have ever looked at a Jackson Pollock or Rembrandt painting, you know perfection has no place in creative expression. Creativity is a continual process of making something different, new, and evolving along the way. A messy first draft is much better than no draft at all, so just get your ideas down on paper, whatever that looks like for you, and get going. Creativity is about experimentation and innovation, not rigidity. You will certainly never achieve a creative solution by doing the same thing over and over again.
As a final thought, possibility lies in the flow state of creativity. When you take care of yourself, include rest in the process, and trust yourself to be innovative, different, and imperfect, you will overcome the Creativity Trap. You will open yourself up to a wealth of possibilities. Who knows what you will create when you do!
Read more from Megan Winkler
Megan Winkler, Business Coach for Creatives
Megan Winkler, MBA, believes in doing business differently. With an MBA and 15+ years of business ownership experience plus extensive training in energy healing modalities, Megan helps her clients create business plans, marketing sprints, and sales strategies that honor their strengths, natural talents, and unique value offerings to create thriving businesses that help change the world for the better.
