Mirco Oliveri Sofia

About Me

I work with creatives and creative teams whose work has stalled.

Creative work gets stuck when it matters most. You keep preparing instead of starting, circle the same project, or watch something that once felt alive become hard to touch. That is rarely a discipline problem. Usually something specific is in the way.

A Creative Block is built on an evidence-informed map of 7 domains where creative work gets stuck, plus 1 look-alike that is not a block at all. Naming the mechanism changes the response: avoidance doing a protective job needs something different from depletion, which needs something different again from a brief that is genuinely broken.

I work online, and in person in Lisbon.

Coaching with me

Results & Goals

You leave with a clear read on what is actually blocking the work, concrete next moves to test in the project, and a route you can keep walking on your own.

Most people leave the first session with a usable next move. Deeper patterns take a few sessions to shift, and I am honest about which is which.

What that looks like in practice depends on the domain. Someone stuck on starting needs a smaller first step and real evidence of what happens when they take it. Someone running on empty needs the conditions that drained them changed, not more discipline. Someone whose brief is broken needs the brief fixed.

How I like to coach

Both coaching and consulting are available. Coaching stays client-led: questions and reflection to help you find your own answers. With your agreement, consulting is more direct, thinking alongside you through ideas, feedback and practical suggestions.

Calm rather than motivational. I am not interested in telling you to push harder, and I do not think you are lazy. Avoidance is usually doing a protective job, and it is more useful to find out what it is protecting you from.

Two things I will say plainly rather than avoid. I do not claim specialist expertise in every creative discipline, so when the work needs that, I will tell you. And if what looks like a block turns out to be a missing skill, the honest answer is learning rather than coaching, and I would rather say so than keep you inside the service.

Coaching is not therapy. If something sits deeper than my remit, I will say so and help you find the right support.

Offerings

Coaching

Three ways in.

Block Check — one focused session to work out what is actually keeping the work stuck. We unpack the situation, name the most likely mechanism, and you leave with a working hypothesis, practical next steps and an honest recommendation for what kind of support, if any, would help. Often that is all someone needs.

Project Development — a pack of sessions for when you have a project you want to move but are not sure how to shape it. We think alongside you and turn ideas, questions and obstacles into a direction you can test.

Creative Identity — a pack of sessions for when you feel creatively lost or want to understand yourself more clearly. We look at vision, strengths, values and ways of working, then shape a direction that feels like yours.

For organisations I also run team workshops, multi-week creative resets, advisory and talks.

Professional and life experience

My working life has been in commercial creative work, as a freelance creative based in Lisbon and through a design agency. That is where the practical half of this comes from: I have been on the other side of a project that stalled, a brief that would not come right, and a deadline that arrives regardless.

A Creative Block grew out of that, combined with reading across psychology and creative practice. The 7+1 map is an evidence-informed synthesis rather than a clinical taxonomy, and I am careful to say so. It is a starting hypothesis, not a diagnosis.

Fee description

Fees are set in euros; the dollar range above is an approximate conversion.

A Block Check is 120 euros. Packs are 345 euros for 3 sessions, 550 for 5 and 840 for 8.

Packs stay valid for 12 months and can be paid in instalments on request. If you have already done a Block Check, its 120 euros comes off a pack booked within two weeks of it.

Reduced-fee places are available for people in financial difficulty and for people underrepresented in creative work. No paperwork or proof needed, just an honest conversation about what is possible.

Work with organisations is quoted per engagement.