When the Creative Inside You Disappears and You’re Left Blank

You used to love this job. Now it just feels heavy.

Blank frames. Quiet days. The in-between.

Hey Everyone,

There’s a particular kind of silence that creeps in during a freelance career. It doesn’t start with burnout. It doesn’t even feel dramatic. It just unfolds quietly — project after project — until one day you realise you haven’t felt anything in weeks.

The work is fine. The team is lovely. The moodboard gets approved. But something in you has gone quiet.

It usually starts with jobs that look good on paper. A well-paying campaign. A lookbook that checks all the boxes. A shoot where everything runs smoothly. You leave the set, thank everyone, get the wrap email — but nothing lands.

You tell yourself not every project is meant to move you. But after a while, that reasoning starts to wear thin.

You still know how to do the job. But the creative inside you — the one that used to feel sharp and full of instinct — isn’t there anymore.

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I remember sitting behind a monitor on a job I’d wanted. One I would’ve called a win six months earlier. I was wearing my usual black blazer, hair pulled back, standing just off-set while the photographer adjusted lighting. The image on screen looked clean. The styling worked. But nothing inside me reacted.

There was no urge to adjust, no flicker of pride or spark. Just a slow realisation that I could’ve styled that shot in my sleep. I watched it happen — frame after frame — and felt like a spectator at my own job.

That’s when it hit me. I’d been doing too many jobs that didn’t ask anything of me. Nothing had required instinct. Nothing had required care.

And when you’re never asked to respond creatively, you forget how.

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What Happens When You Stay in That Place Too Long