How To Overcome Writer’s Block in 3 Steps

The power of your beliefs. Put simply, if you believe you're going to suffer from writer's block, then you will. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What would your writing life be like if it was actually impossible for you to believe that writer's block existed? What if those doubts couldn't enter your head? What would you do? My guess is you'd just sit down and get on with writing.

You can choose what you want to believe. And once you've chosen, you will then naturally seek evidence to justify or prove that belief, so you can continue to hold on to it. If you believe you will get blocked, then what happens? Yep, you tune into every little piece of evidence that supports that belief, and as a result you feel more blocked. Believe that writer's block doesn't exist, even if you just act as if you believe this at first, and you'll find yourself gathering evidence to prove that belief instead.

Forming daily habits. Too often we don't write for days, maybe weeks on end, then expect to turn up to the page and be able to outpour great literary masterpieces. We think if we were a "real" writer, we "should" be able to write anything at a moment's notice, right? And because we can't, we claim we're afflicted yet again by some terrible case of writer's block. No! Give yourself a break.

Creativity needs nurturing and exercising, like a muscle. The more you use it, the more developed it becomes, and the fitter it becomes. The best way to do this is simply write every day. It doesn't have to be for hours on end, you can start with just 15 minutes. Do it every day though and that habit you build will put an end to any concept of writer's block.

Acknowledging your progress. If you never give yourself credit for what you have been writing, then it can feel like you've not been writing at all. For example, say you want to be working on one particular novel of yours, but the ideas aren't coming, so you spend a few days writing a collection of poems.

Don't focus on the words you haven't written for your novel! That is an endless negative spiral. There are an infinite number of things all of us HAVEN'T written! Instead, recognise that despite feeling slightly stuck in one area, you simply redirected your writing energy elsewhere and as result have some wonderful new poems to show for it. You'll ALWAYS be able to write something. Give yourself credit for that rather than thinking only of what you've NOT written.