The Block Industry

You'll come here someday.

What do you do when you experience a writer's block? Write about it.

— Abiola Okun

What do you do when, for the longest period, you can't seem to excel in what you have always been the best at?

Have you experienced it before? When it seems like the very thing you have always been complimented for being so good at is now the exact thing you struggle to do and if the feeling gets prolonged you start questioning your purpose in life altogether. Ever felt it before?

Writers call it "Writer's Block", designers call it "Designer's Block or Creatives' Block," researchers call it "Researcher's block", Software Developers call it "Coder's block or Techies Block", and on, but at the end of the day, in every profession, it's a block, and it looks like everyone experiences the block. Even the best surgeons have times when they are in the rut. The prayer is that we don't be on their operation table on one of those days.

Which brings me to my first question. What do you do when you are in your block industry? How did you even get there in the first place?

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There are a few reasons why you might have been shipped into Block Industry, and let's pick at them briefly.

The Insider

It could mostly be psychological. You could have just experienced a huge setback from the last work you did, perhaps you failed at an application to continue doing the thing you know best how to do, and so you lose inspiration, or you just aren't sure of yourself and your abilities anymore.

Perhaps you are now overcompensating with trying to be perfect, not touching or starting or even finishing anything because you think it is yet to be perfect. Well, we all agree now that perfectionism is a self-sabotaging behavior, right? Right.

The best way to get out of the block industry when you have recognized that this is the reason why you found yourself there in the first place then, is to unpack. Unpack your feelings as much as you can by thinking over them, thinking over what happened that made you feel the way you do now.

Address the feelings through mindful practice. You could meditate, start writing a journal, try therapy, speak to a friend you trust. Whatever helps you unpack the feeling needs to be considered of utmost importance to you at this time.

The Outsider

Perhaps you just need to go out and touch grass. You need to change your environment, change the people in your space, change the space you're in, just go for a walk, or go for a swim. You probably need to meet new people, or change cities.

Sometimes the reason you're in block industry is because you have stayed in one place for too long and it's eating away at your soul. You have touched the same place for too long, spoken to the same people for too long, slept on the same bed and woken up to the same ceiling for far too long and all you just need is a change of environment as well as the people in that environment.

When you wake up to see the same things, do the same things, hear and speak to the same people for many years, life becomes monotonous and there is nothing new to try, nothing to create.

Perhaps your Block industry is preaching the gospel of a change in neighbourhood, workplace, people, etc. It helps if you listen to the change.

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Many times, block industry is just the place where you find yourself when you need a change in your life. It doesn't necessarily mean you have lost purpose or you need to take a completely different direction or course in life. It just means that there's something that needs to change. Your job then, is not to forcefully haggle up and create mediocre work, but to sit still and find out what needs to change.

Whether it is an internal factor or an external factor that has dumped you in your block industry, change starts from the inside out.

And it starts now.

To your growth,

Your Coach,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired. ✨