I spent a year trying to brute force my way through writer's block.
Daily word counts on a spreadsheet. Timers. Butt in chair from 7:30 to noon.
It didn't work. And it made things worse.
The writing advice we're often given assumes creativity works like a muscle—push harder and it responds.
But your unconscious doesn't work that way.
Your unconscious is the muse, the source of your creativity.
Like the divine muse, the unconscious doesn't answer to you. It calls the shots. It won't be scheduled. It's not interested in the deadlines you set. It can't be roused through whatever David Goggins-style productivity routine you throw at it.
In fact, in my experience, it does just the opposite.
Like a Chinese finger trap, the harder you pull, the stronger it resists.
The harder you force it, the more resentment you build toward the work.
Eventually you're not even blocked. You're just done. You've trained yourself to hate the thing you're supposed to love.
Or at least that's what happened to me.
After implementing all the writing productivity routines, I'd had it. I packed up my papers and stuffed them away at the bottom of my closet.
Two nights later, everything changed. What I discovered is this:
To break through writer's block, you don't need more discipline. You just need to listen to what the block is telling you, and get out of the way.
So in this video I'll cover:
- What is writer's block?
- Why discipline makes it worse
- A writing strategy to get through it