Author Diary Entries

184: Creative cross training as a tool to navigate creative blocks

• Sagan Morrow • Episode 185

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What is creative cross training, and how can it help you navigate (and overcome) creative blocks? In this episode, Sagan shares examples of creative cross training and the importance of creative cross training (and how it’s prevented her from having any major creative blocks as a business owner, indie author, and multi-passionate creative)...

...Plus why focusing on one thing can get boring and lead to creative stagnation, and 5 important tips for effective creative cross training.

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You’re listening to the Author Diary Entries podcast — formerly known as Indie Author Weekly. I’m your host, Sagan Morrow, and this is episode #184.


One of my main hobbies is burlesque dancing. And in one of our recent Solo Development classes, we were talking about navigating creative blocks.


One of the things that came up was the concept of “creative cross training” — basically, when you work on your creative muscles by flexing them in different ways. For example, since this is the Author Diary Entries podcast, we can think of the main form of creativity as being the writing process itself.


Examples of “creative cross training” could include: 

  • Putting together a playlist of songs that matches the vibes of the novel (which, by the way, is something that’s included in all of my books!)
  • Choreographing dances (especially since the main character of my current work-in-progress novel is a burlesque dancer, herself)
  • Drawing, painting, cooking, sewing, playing music, crafting, etc.


Any ways in which your creativity gets an opportunity to strengthen itself in fresh new ways, that gets to be a form of creative cross training. 


“Creative cross training” is something I’ve always done, my whole life — but I hadn’t heard it used in that particular phrasing before. I like it! 


And we can look at this in a few other ways — for example, with my business, I do a form of “cross training” in terms of the type of work that I do and the different mediums that I explore: my Solopreneur Diary Entries weekly newsletter is typically around 1,200 words long. The “Premium Edition” of the Solopreneur Diary Entries is a monthly video training, usually around an hour long. I do this Author Diary Entries podcast, which is often a 10-minute audio recording. I get to play with photos and short-form content on Instagram and Threads, and much longer-form content on my blog. I teach presentations to groups, as well as do 1:1 coaching. And of course, I write novels!


So you can see how there are many different opportunities to express myself and engage in different ways of exploring the concepts that I work on in my business. 


I was reflecting on this whole concept of creative cross training, specifically in the context of navigating creative blocks, because the thing is, I don’t typically EXPERIENCE much in the way of creative blocks. 


Again, this topic is what we were discussing in one of my burlesque classes, and I haven’t had any major stumbling blocks with my solos thus far. Usually I have the reverse problem: Too many ideas! 


And in my own business, too, I don’t get bored with the work that I’m doing; I don’t get “blocked” in coming up with new content to teach or concepts to coach or stories to tell or newsletters to write…


…which really makes me wonder, IS that because I naturally do so much creative cross-training?


Four or five years ago, I was seriously considering shifting into public speaking as the “main event” of my business. I spoke with an expert who trains professional speakers, and her advice was to create one presentation that I could teach again and again for many different groups; a talk that I could bring to conferences and that kind of thing.


So I did that. I created a really strong presentation, I began contacting companies, and I taught it quite a few times to several different groups. It received excellent feedback; members of these organizations raved about it and the organizers themselves told me how impressed they were by the calibre of it.


The problem was, I got bored of it. 


I got bored, teaching the exact same thing again and again.


At first, it was fun to really nail down the timing of my presentation, making different moments land, adding a little improv here and there, fine-tuning the presentation… but then it started to feel stale.


It’s not as though there was anything wrong with the presentation itself — it was still as awesome as it had ever been. Rather, I didn’t have as much creative opportunity within it.


And I couldn’t imagine continuing to do that for years to come. I’d only been doing it for probably 4 - 6 months before I hit this slump; I’d barely started this whole concept of public speaking as my main offer. 


I was mulling this over after that Solo Development dance class, because one of the things we were talking about is how some burlesque dancers take a single dance “on tour.” They’ll perform the same dance at a bunch of different festivals. 


So far, I’ve created and performed 6 different burlesque solos. I’ve had the opportunity to perform two of them at two different events. I would love to do any of my solos again, at least one more time each (but ideally a few more times each)... 


…but also, I think I’d get bored if I took just one of them on tour and made it my signature dance.


There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a signature dance! It’s just not the right fit for me.


It’s the same with writing books: I love writing my books, but frankly, there’s only so much that I can talk about a single book before I get restless. I want to get to the next story. This is also why I struggle with doing marketing for my books — because once I’m finished writing a story, I’m ready to move onto writing the next one. It’s the act of storytelling, the act of writing, that’s really fun for me. I’m guessing that’s true for many authors! 


Getting back to our focus of creative cross-training and navigating creative blocks: I suspect that a lot of people experience creative blocks because they get into a rut with their creative exploration. They pigeon-hole themselves into one form of creativity, or they get stuck going in circles and doing the same thing.


And as with physical training, the repetitive motion of only exercising one muscle group is only going to get you so far. At a certain point, your body will have a negative reaction — one muscle group will get overtrained, and the rest of your body will be trying to compensate. You’ll injure yourself or lack balance; you might focus so much on one muscle group that it's to the detriment of another muscle group.


This happens with creativity, too. 


When you constrain yourself too much and force yourself into a box with your creativity, it shrinks to a smaller size. You dim your own light. You limit the expansion of your creativity.


Now, are there some people who will thrive with a single area of focus? Absolutely! But even then — even if you decide to write one book and make that the sole focus of what you talk about, or if you decide to take a single dance on tour and perform it everywhere, or you decide to create one presentation and give it again and again to different groups for years — you will be in a better position to improve that one thing when you allow the space for creative cross-training.


Even if you are the type of person who likes to get hyper-focused on one thing and has no interest in being multi-passionate, engaging in creative cross training will help you to make that one thing better and better.


And for those of us who DO tend to get bored with the same thing over and over again, creative cross training is a fantastic outlet for giving yourself that opportunity to let your creativity run a little wild.


A few more notes I want to mention here, when it comes to creative cross training: 


#1 The most important factor with creative cross training is that you are choosing additional creative outlets that light a spark for you. Do you enjoy them? Do they inspire you? Do they feel like a fun, creative outlet for you? Do they stretch you? These are the key questions to ask yourself. If your creative cross training of choice doesn’t do those things, then it’s probably not the right fit. You aren’t doing this for accolades or appearances; you’re doing it for your own creative flow and creative enjoyment. 


#2 You don’t need to be “good” at your craft when you’re doing creative cross-training. You can produce “ugly” art. You can sing offkey. You can create whatever you want, at any level of skill you want. The outcome or end result is not what necessarily matters here; your own experience of it IS the goal.


#3 No one else needs to experience your creative cross training (unless you want them to experience it). You are doing this for YOU. Hopefully that takes some of the pressure off of your experience!


#4 Creative cross training can be applied in a lot of different ways. Like I shared earlier, my business itself is designed to give me a lot of outlets for the ways in which I like to express myself and share ideas and do teaching and coaching etc. So in that case, yes, I do absolutely need to have some level of skill in terms of writing and speaking and so on, because it’s for my business and people are paying me for these different things. In the sense of using creative cross training as kind of another way to explore being multipassionate, it can be a very useful approach to ensuring you never get bored in your business, and it’s always fun for you.


#5 What makes something a “creative outlet” is highly subjective and a personal perspective. You get to choose what your creative outlets get to be. Creativity can be found anywhere, in just about everything we do: the way you stack dishes in the drying rack can be a skill. The way you walk down the street can shift dramatically depending on the pacing and your posture and foot placement and hip swaying. If you want to choose traditional creative outlets, like writing or painting  etc, that’s fantastic! And if you want to make an everyday chore into a creative experience, that’s pretty cool too! You get to decide what is creative and how you want to engage with it. As long as it sparks some inspiration — and you’re enjoying the artform of it — it can count as creative cross training.


For our purposes today, we were looking at navigating creative blocks through this idea that the REASON why it’s happening is because you may be limiting your own creativity and stagnating with it. There are, of course, MANY other reasons why you might experience creative blocks, so we can explore some of those other reasons — plus what to do about them — in future podcast episodes.


That’s a wrap on today’s episode! Find me on Instagram & Threads to share your thoughts on this episode — my handle is @Saganlives. As always, you can access the show notes and transcript of this episode at SaganMorrow.com/podcast. And if you are enjoying the Author Diary Entries podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review it on your favourite podcast platform. 


Thanks so much — I appreciate you!


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Sagan Morrow

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