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Why Your Creative Block Won’t Go Away (And Exactly How to Fix It)

Every artist gets here eventually.

You walk past your studio. You tell yourself you’ll get back to it tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes next week. Next week becomes next month. And before you know it, the thing you love most has started to feel like something you’re avoiding.

If that’s you right now, this episode is going to feel like a deep exhale.

Because here’s what most artists get wrong about creative block: they treat it like a single problem with a single solution. Push through it. Get inspired. Just start. But that approach fails more often than it works, because creative block is not one thing. It’s a symptom. And depending on what’s actually causing it, the remedy is completely different.

In Episode 155, Jodie King gets honest about the real reasons artists stop creating and gives you a tiered, practical plan for finding your way back, whether you’ve been away for two weeks, two months, or two years.

Why “Just Push Through It” Is the Wrong Advice

The art world loves to romanticize the grind. Show up every day. Paint through the block. Inspiration is for amateurs; professionals just do the work.

But here’s what that advice misses entirely: sometimes what looks like a creative block is actually your nervous system waving a white flag. And telling someone who is burned out, grieving, or running on empty to simply push through is not just unhelpful. It can make things significantly worse.

Jodie identifies six distinct reasons artists step away from their practice, each requiring a completely different response:

• 🔥 Burnout. You’re not uninspired. You’re at capacity. Your nervous system needs a reset, not a pep talk. Jodie describes the moment she realized she was burned out: sitting on a turbulent flight, feeling so flat and numb that she genuinely didn’t care if the plane went down. That’s not laziness. That’s a body and mind that have hit their limit.
• 💔 Grief. This one shows up sneakier than you think. Brain fog, emotional shutdown, disconnection from desire of any kind. It can come from heartbreak, divorce, empty nesting, aging, identity shifts. You may not even recognize it as grief until you start asking the right questions.
• 🌵 Creative starvation. You’ve been giving and giving without replenishing. Constantly outputting for clients, for social media, for everyone else. You’re not blocked. You’re underfed creatively. The fix isn’t to paint more. It’s to consume more: go to a gallery, visit a show, give yourself white space and silence.
• 😬 Fear and creative avoidance. Rearranging your brushes for the fifth time? Updating your Artwork Archive instead of painting? Doing anything except actually picking up a brush? That’s not procrastination. That’s fear wearing a productivity costume.
• 😤 Perfectionism. The paralysis that comes from impossibly high standards. You don’t start because you already know it won’t be perfect. Or you know you’re about to enter the “fugly phase” of a painting and you just don’t have the bandwidth for it today.
• 👀 Comparison. With other artists on Instagram, yes. But also with your past self. Both are equally capable of keeping you out of the studio. If you keep comparing today’s work to your best work from two years ago, you’ll never start.

Knowing which one you’re dealing with is the entire game. Because the cure for burnout is rest, not courage. And the cure for fear is courage, not rest. Get them backwards and you stay stuck.

The Questions That Take the Power Away

Before reaching for any strategy, Jodie recommends pausing and sitting honestly with these questions. Not to analyze yourself into paralysis, but because simply naming what’s happening takes its power away.

• Am I tired?
• What am I afraid of?
• What am I trying to protect myself from?
• Am I creatively blocked, or am I just overworked?
• What would happen if I made terrible work this week?
• Have I outgrown my style?
• Is this grief? Is this burnout?
• Am I making art for myself, or for approval?

That last question is one of the most important ones Jodie asks. Because making art for approval is an exhausting and unsustainable way to create. And it will keep you off the canvas faster than almost anything else.

If you’ve been struggling with comparison specifically, Episode 7 (“Why You Need to Stop Comparing Your Art to Others”) goes deep on exactly this: https://jodieking.com/episode-7-why-you-need-to-stop-comparing-your-art-to-others/

Your Return-to-Practice Plan (Based on How Long You’ve Been Away)

Once you know what you’re dealing with, Jodie gives you a specific plan based on how long you’ve been away. Not one generic prescription. Three different ones.

⏱️ If it’s been 2 weeks:

You’re close enough that a gentle re-entry is all you need. The goal here is momentum, not masterpieces.

• Set a 10-minute timer and sketch, watercolor, paint. Whatever. Just 10 minutes. That’s it.
• Commit to ugly art only. Explicitly give yourself permission to make something terrible. This is more freeing than it sounds.
• Try non-dominant hand drawing. It short-circuits your inner critic because you literally can’t do it “right.”
• No posting on social media. This time is for you, not your audience.

For more on building a consistent practice even when life gets in the way, Episode 8 (“The Power of a Consistent Art Practice”) is worth a listen: https://jodieking.com/episode-8-the-power-of-a-consistent-art-practice/

📅 If it’s been 2 months:

You’re going to need a little more to get the engine started again. External input helps here.

• Revisit unfinished work; if that feels too heavy, skip it entirely and start fresh.
• Take yourself to a museum or exhibition. Let someone else’s work wake yours up.
• Copy a master and put your own flair on it. Van Gogh’s sunflowers in watercolor? Yes. The point is to get back into the joy of the practice.
• Take a workshop. Jodie says this is her single top recommendation for reconnecting with your practice. The energy of a room full of artists does something nothing else can replicate.
• Paint with other people. Even informally. Dinner and a shared canvas. The community effect is real.

Episode 12 (“The Importance of an Artist Community”) speaks directly to why we were never meant to do this alone: https://jodieking.com/episode-12-the-importance-of-an-artist-community/

📅 If it’s been 2 years:

This one requires the most important mindset shift of all: letting go of who you were as an artist before you stepped away.

• Let go of expectations. You are not returning as the artist you were. You’re returning as the person you are now. That’s not a setback. That’s evolution.
• Begin with a beginner’s mindset: mix colors, try new materials, explore without agenda.
• Take yourself on an art date. An exhibition, a gallery, anything that reminds you why you fell in love with this in the first place.
• Make tiny commitments. One hour, not four to six. Just one. What almost always happens is you look up from that hour and think, just a little bit more.
• Come at it with curiosity, not mastery. Your job is not to prove anything. Your job is simply to return to the canvas.

If you’ve been away long enough that you’re questioning your entire identity as an artist, Episode 2 (“How to Know if You’re a Real Artist”) is the one to listen to next: https://jodieking.com/episode-2-how-to-know-if-youre-a-real-artist/

A Little Tough Love

Jodie closes with something worth sitting with.

If you’ve had time to rest. If you’ve moved through the grief. If fear is the only thing left standing between you and the canvas. The perfect time is not coming. It never does. You have to choose it.

Not because someone told you to. Because you are worth it. Because your creative practice is not a luxury or a reward you earn when everything else is handled. It is the thing that feeds you. And when you strip it from your life, you are denying yourself the thing you need most.

For more on designing a life and career around what actually sustains you, Episode 141 (“Design Your Art Career Around Your Energy (Not Hustle)”) is one of the most listened-to episodes of the season: https://jodieking.com/episode-141-design-your-art-career-around-your-energy-not-hustle/

And if you suspect that burnout or studio habits are what’s been quietly keeping you stuck, Episode 111 (“The Hidden Studio Habits That Sabotage Your Creativity”) is essential listening: https://jodieking.com/episode-111-the-hidden-studio-habits-that-sabotage-your-creativity/

Resources Mentioned

• Ready to push your work to Fine Art status? Join Jodie at an in-person Honest Art® Workshop: https://jodieking.com/workshop
• Curious about Studio Elite? Next cohort starts September 2026: https://www.jodiekingart.com/studioelite
•  Join the Honest Art® Society: coaching, critiques, and community: https://www.jodiekingart.com/has
• Grab my Honest Art® Journal here: https://shop.jodieking.com/collections/jodie-king-merch/products/the-honest-art-mixed-media-journal 
• Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1889 – I love to use this painting to spark my own creativity! https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0031v1962
• Episode 141: Design Your Art Career Around Your Energy (Not Hustle): https://jodieking.com/episode-141-design-your-art-career-around-your-energy-not-hustle/
• Episode 111: The Hidden Studio Habits That Sabotage Your Creativity: https://jodieking.com/episode-111-the-hidden-studio-habits-that-sabotage-your-creativity/
• Episode 10: How to Get Back in the Groove When You Feel Uninspired: https://jodieking.com/episode-10-how-to-get-back-in-the-groove-when-you-feel-uninspired/
• Have a question for Jodie? Ask it here: https://forms.gle/hxrVu4oL4PVCKwZm6
• Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform; it helps more artists find the show!
• Watch this full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMquJfuMsSg0fr46BRdia1cWd-81GThzF
• Full show notes and links: https://www.jodieking.com/podcast

Want More from Jodie?

🎨 The Color Course for Rebels: https://www.jodiekingart.com/ccfr

🎨 Honest Art® Society: https://www.jodiekingart.com/has

🎨 Studio Elite Mastermind: https://www.jodiekingart.com/studioelite

Jodie’s favorite resources:

✍🏻 Free guide: 5 things they don’t teach you in art school: https://jodieking.com/work-with-me#free-rescources.0

✍🏻 Get Jodie’s top 10 studio tools: https://www.jodiekingart.com/10-studio-tools-opt-in

✍🏻 Free guide: how to hang and wire a painting: https://www.jodiekingart.com/how-to-hang-a-painting

🤹🏼‍♀️ Guided Meditation for Creative Clarity: https://www.jodiekingart.com/guided-meditation

✍🏻 See Jodie’s favorite things: https://www.amazon.com/shop/jodie_king_

Follow Jodie on Instagram or subscribe on YouTube.

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