How I got unstuck by creating

Author

Mark Bowley
February 04, 2026

Six months ago, I felt completely stuck.

Not busy-stuck. Creatively and mentally stuck. I'd stopped building ideas altogether. Stopped sharing progress (or the lack of it) on socials.

Part of it was a mental dip, the kind where everything feels harder than it should.

But honestly, what made it worse was intimidation. AI was everywhere, no-code people now ‘vibe coding’ all of a sudden. Everything made you feel you were behind. The tools had leapfrogged anyone taking a moment out.

Now, I’m a designer who dabbles in code, not a developer who designs. I’ve always used code as a tool to bring ideas to life.

Yet suddenly, the landscape felt totally different. Out of reach.

So I gave myself more reasons not to start again.

Then something shifted. I decided I’d had enough. I reached out to some friends and as it turns out, everyone felt the same. They were ’trying everything anyway’.

I can't even remember what the first project was. Something small. Probably something I thought was vaguely useful. I just built it in an afternoon.

For a while, I used ChatGPT's free plan (omg how did I stick to that?) to help with the parts I didn't want to think through. Not to write everything for me, just to get past my knowledge gaps.

What happened was, I finished it.

Then I started another one. And another.

Momentum is weird. It doesn't feel like progress at first. It feels like fumbling. Like building toy projects that don't matter. But each one you finish makes the next one easier to start. Ideas start appearing. You start seeing patterns. You start trusting yourself again, slowly.

In the last six months, I've shipped over 30 prototypes. Some I’ve believed in much more than others, so I bought proper domains for them:

  • Winnny.com – a personal wins tracker that builds evidence-based confidence instead of relying on motivational thinking

  • Hndmark.com – a screenshot markup tool that uses intentionally rough, hand-drawn annotations because authentic beats polished

  • Userrstory.com – a visual framework for explaining product ideas without overcomplicating the story

These are all hand-coded, starting small. Most of them began with me thinking, "I wonder if I can build this…."

I moved from ChatGPT to Claude, then to Claude Code (sooo much better). It's best for the code-based, iterative building style I like to work in. I want to tinker as well as ask for help.

But the AI isn't the point. The point is you don't overcome dips and blocks with more thinking. You overcome them by creating, taking action. Not with a perfect idea. Not with the perfect tool. Just with one small thing you can finish today, or this week.

Action creates momentum. Momentum creates ideas. Ideas create more action.

Are you stuck? Paralysed by how much has changed, or how far behind you feel? I beg you, just build one small thing. And you probably can, with today’s tools.

Ship it, even if it's rough. Even if it's just for you. The rest will come.

Thanks for reading,

Mark