The Creative Needs Rest, Too

At the top of the year (yes, it's been that long since I’ve been here), my good friend Tiff asked me to be a part of her Instagram series on Black men healing. The series is dedicated to her yearly self-love campaign for Black men, bringing together perspectives and advice for men to apply to their lives. As someone who truly advocates for the growth and well-being of Black men, offering my insight was a no-brainer.

The question that was posed: As a man that’s healing, what’s some advice that you would offer to another man that’s doing the same? 

I confidently recorded my advice, offering my blueprint, and sent what I landed on to Tiff. She published what she compiled out into the algorithm, and some guys were privy to those gems. 

But then August came, and I found myself needing to implement some of the same techniques I put out there in February. I was working, teaching, traveling, performing, building, living and showing up for everybody else. All things I’m extremely blessed to be doing, and I don’t take for granted. I thank God for all I have and all I’m doing. But I was burnt out, and more than anything, my creative flow took a hit. I was functional, but was I fine? And that feels crazy even saying it as I'm writing this because I don’t like the term burnout. Burnout to me feels like an excuse, a cop-out, and a whiny plea. 

I needed a hard reset and detox from my day to day routine. So that's what I did—took 30 days to realign and center myself. 

The other day, I made an IG post, recapping my creativity from September 2025 to September 2026. A year of making art, making moves and stepping into new creative spaces and ventures with my friends. Looking back, it was fulfilling because it was a reminder of how much I have accomplished in the last year. But it also reminded me of something else: creativity is not produced on a linear path.

August became my reset month for me and my creativity. Nothing grandiose, no secret formulas and definitely not the popular/dramatic “I’m deleting my Instagram” announcement to introduce my motives. Just quietly locking in with my body, my diet, my spiritual well-being and reading books. Sometimes writers need to put the pen down and just read. Sitchoassdown and read a book!

But something else interesting happened during the reset. I learned that burnout is not necessarily a bad thing for creatives. Burnout for the creative is a call to deepen your strategy.  As artists, the art we produce requires us to be present, push narratives, paint realities, and sometimes go against the grain. Sometimes that work requires organization, strategy and planning just as much as it requires creating. Somewhere along the line, my routine had consumed me, and instead of it working for me, I was working for it. 

As a creative, our best work comes from the abundance of our living, not always from survival mode. Both can produce powerful work, but knowing when to push, pause, and proceed is just as important as doing the work. For those of us balancing our 9-to-5 occupations with our creative pursuit, that situational awareness matters and is just as important as the pen in our hand. As someone who loves my job and art, I’m learning that the same energy I use to create within my craft must also be used to strategize how I create. Creating content isn’t just about putting out new work; it’s also about building and living a life that allows you to create. And so, in my month of resetting and detoxing, I arrived at a question: Am I chasing perfection, or am I perfecting what’s mine already? 

I read a Thread the other day that stood out to me; it said: Toni Morrison built her writing life around the reality she had. She wrote early in the morning before work, and the world needed her attention. Writers do not always find perfect conditions. We work with what we have. 

Toni Morrison, or, like many other Black writers affectionately call her, Mama Morrison, was once an editor. She perfected the writing of authors, which I imagined she was more skilled creatively than, until she received her first book deal around the age of 40. The same Toni Morrison who wrote The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved and so many other classics was the same Morrison who created in imperfect seasons and creative unrest. 

Until, that is, she understood her personal convictions as a writer. And I think that is the foundation of one of her most famous quotes, one I live by as a writer: “If there is a book you want to read and it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Mama Morrison understood it, and I believe every poet, writer and creative must understand it also: We don’t need perfect conditions to create; we need awareness of who we are, where we are and what we need to create. This led me to respond with my own thread to that claim. See below:  

Perhaps you're on a creative high. Maybe you are on fire, lighting the stages up again. Maybe you're in a season of creating where you feel stuck. Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve lost your love for creating. Wherever you are, the goal isn't to just keep producing aimlessly; the goal is to protect the person behind the creativity as well. 

Creative,

Rest and reset. Reset to work. Then work to rest and reset.

As many times as you need!