It can be going for a holiday,changing an environment, or even reading a book to get a different perspective.

This problem is so common at the workplace (especially creative fileds) that someone even published a book titled UNSTUCK.

PS I bought the book (when i was in the doldrums) and it’s pretty good

That is an very difficult question to answer. There is no one right answer. I experienced this going into my 4th year of design and I hated it so much that I wanted to quit and be a stock broker! I was getting more satisfication from making/losing money on the stock market than i was in my design work.

Here are some factors that can actually help:
1) Your design manager or boss in any profession is a very important person, he can help you love your job or hate it depending on his abilities.

2) Consider a change in environment or job, sometimes its the environment that is a factor. However sometimes its the individual. Put it this way if the environment cannot be changed, its up to the individual to realise that he has a better change of changing his/her point of view than trying to change the environment. The people who bitch and moan often are their own worst enermy.

3) Be happy with what you have. If you continue to compare with the haves and have not, you will never be satisified. If its about money or how crap you are being paid, consider how much you really need to survive and think of other ways, like designing t-shirts to sell, to achieve it. If the issue it not so much money, be happy you have your family, life, health, friends etc etc. Truly this is important, and you must really belief it. I always felt I was happy with what i had, but in reality I always thought I deserved more shamefully.

4) On a smaller level, get a hobby, enter design competitions, design your own work, start a blog, all these takes your mind off work and refreshes it.

5) Have long term goals, and understand a designer in career pain and surving it, is a far more useful and powerful designer in time to come. Use your long term goals to re-access your current situation to see if you are truly where you need to be. If not its time to make a change.

All this put together is not easy to pull off. I had to spend the following 2-3 years finding myself and find out what it meant to me to be a designer. Sucessful design is really all about love and passion. Its not so much of how good you are, cos if you lose the love you lose the ability to do it well. I hope this helps and please let me know how things turn out for you?

PS: I had to thank my very good friend, and my wife (then girlfriend) for bitch slapping me almost every day to wake up! Be truly happy with what you have!

how does one conduct design career CPR?