Persons of Note - Crippling Myself?, Struggle

There seems to be a recurring situation that unfolds itself with every project that we have been set, this one being no different, and I'm not sure if this is a totally natural and inevitable situation or whether I need to change something about my approach and practice in order to alleviate it. 

It goes something like this;

• We have the briefing, and I am excited and inspired to make challenging and interesting new work. The actual briefs have mostly been really engaging to me and something which I anticipate I will really enjoy working on. 

• I may have a few ideas right away, but I feel ultimately at the start of every project I want to push my work a lot further and really explore image making more intently and imaginatively. I may start by making a few little pieces which I am happy with, but which are probably quite 'safe' and they need work.

• I then seem to get into a stage of stagnation and struggle, where ideas just aren't flowing, and the images I am making aren't exciting me or that successful. I am unable to push through this, unable to see how I can create what I want, unable to know whether what I am making is good enough or exciting enough or challenging enough. 

I don't know whether I am just trying too hard to push my work into new avenues, causing the directions I am going in to just not interest me enough to keep up the momentum with them. I don't know whether I am being lazy and self sabotaging my own process, for whatever reason. I don't know whether I am just thinking too much about it and should just 'do' more rather than 'think'. I don't know whether the directions I am going in actually are interesting and exciting and I am just being too critical.

Always though I feel like I am not doing enough work and not engaging enough with my practice, and I'm not sure why this is or how to change this sustainably for the better....