Getting Over Writer’s Block: How To Find Inspiration For Your Songwriting
Just like with anything in life, songwriting is a mental game… If our mind is not on board we experience things like lack of inspiration, lack of action and just overall writer’s block. Most creative people have experienced some sort of block in their work. And that’s totally normal and ok! But let’s have a look at what you can do to get over your writer’s block so that you can feel inspired and take action again.
Why Writer’s Block Happens
While there are many reasons why you can experience writer’s block, it boils down to two major aspects:
Lack of Action:
Songwriting is a skill that needs to be practiced just like any other skill in life. Taking long breaks from writing makes it much harder to get back into it. It’s like a train that keeps stopping - it’s much harder and takes more effort for the train to start moving again than to just keep moving and not stopping in the first place.
Lack of System:
Many writer’s keep getting stuck in the same place of their songwriting process… That place is usually either at the very beginning (so they don’t even really get started, just collect ideas), the second verse or when it comes to editing the songs to make them more polished. When you have a system that you can follow to go step by step from initial idea to finished song, it is a lot easier to not get stuck anywhere - even if you don’t feel super inspired!
I always say that “flow follows the system” - just like “motivation follows discipline”.
If you don’t have a system that works for you - take mine! Download my Songwriting Framework here
Get Inspired
If you’re struggling with knowing what to write about or just to get inspired in general because nothing much is happening in your life right now, here are two things you can do:
Go Outside:
Go to a local coffeeshop, put down your phone and just observe what’s happening around you. Maybe you overhear a conversation between two friends that you want to make a song out of or maybe you just observe people and make up stories about them on your own. Maybe you hear birds chirping a beautiful melody that you can turn into a song… The world is full of inspiration, you just need to see it.
Consume Media:
Coach Juliana from our team told me the story of this one time where she wrote a song about a book that she read. She shared it online and tagged the author - the author saw it and sent Juliana a message saying how much she loved the song! How cool is that? You can find inspiration in books, movies, news articles, on social media… Turn their stories into songs.
Our brain is like an Instagram algorithm that we can train. The more time you spend watching a certain video, the more Instagram will feed similar kind of content to you. Your brain does the same thing. The more you tell it that you like songwriting the more it’ll feed inspiration to you - not because now it’s all of a sudden there - it was always there! - but because now you can actually see it!
Start Now, Edit Later
Don’t expect your first couple of songs to be absolutely amazing… The more you write, the better you’ll get at it!
Also, all songs that you’ve ever heard have gone through multiple stages of editing… Just get the song done and then make edits to it later. You can always make changes to your lyrics, melodies or even chord progressions after you’ve completed the first draft. Just don’t let imperfection stop you from starting.
Just Get Started
“Getting around to it” is a myth we keep telling ourselves to feel better… But turns out, we never actually get around to it. You have to make the conscious choice to carve out some time to sit down and write a song.
And remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect for you to get started! The more you do it. The better you’ll get at it.
🎧 Check out the whole conversation around writer’s block and inspiration I had with coach Juliana here:
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