If you are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame other. Blame no one but yourself.

If you have touched something, accept total responsibility for that piece of work. If you accept responsibility, you are in a position to do something about it.

Here are some common excuses for failures:

- It was a terrible brief.

- I need a better partner.

- There wasn’t enough money to do it properly.

- The director didn’t listen to me.

- I was too busy on other projects.

- I wasn’t given enough time.

- The client took out the best ideas.

Most of these grievances are everyday on every job. That won’t change.

The point is that, whatever other people are failings might be, you are the one to shoulder the responsibility.

We all get mental blocks. We need to get unblocked. The way to get unblocked is to lose our inhibitions and stop worrying about being right.

The comedian John Cleese puts it rather more eloquently, ‘High creativity is responding to situations without critical thought’.

If you are in deadlock here are a couple of tricks you might try.

- Do the opposite of what the solution requires.

Look out of the window and whatever catches your eye, a bird, a television aerial, an old man on crutches or whatever, make that the solution to your problem.