How to Fight Creative Anxiety
Sometimes I have no idea what to do next creatively.
I stare at the blank page and am wholly confounded by what I should write, do, say, create, or anything for that matter.
It’s not writer’s block. It’s anxiety.
At that moment, I become paralyzed by the potential ideas. I don’t know what to do next because I have too many options.
What if I choose the wrong one?
Is there even a wrong choice?
Creative Anxiety
I think that this paralysis is brought about by perfectionism. I love the craft. I love doing something well. So it tears me up inside when I can’t do something to the best of my ability.
I feel like a failure. I feel like I’ve somehow lost the game.
The question I rarely ask myself is, “Who am I playing the game against?”
I’m often far too hard on myself. Just a bit more time will make everything so much better. That’s what my brain tells me anyway.
And so, I take that anxious energy sometimes and get trapped in a never-ending cycle of “What ifs.”
What if I wrote about burnout today?
What if I sketched out a story idea about Batman?
What if I made a post for Instagram?
What if I built a model in SketchUp?
What if I created a new page for my website?
What if I posted a vlog?
Any one of these could be perfectly fine and (more than likely) even fantastic.
But I return to the state of anxious paralysis. I start to stress that I’m not going to make something worthwhile, that my work will be garbage, that it won’t matter to anyone, that it will be wasted effort.
It’s difficult for me to admit defeat or relax when there feels like so much I could be doing to push forward or help someone out there who needs it. I want to express myself, but I get so tied up in knots that I want to crawl up in a ball and do nothing. Then I feel guilty for doing nothing and start to spin and spin and spin—deeper into the vortex of paralysis.
Out of the Paralysis
To get myself out, I do one of two things:
Walk Away — I give myself a pass and walk away from trying to do something creative for the rest of the day. It’s not working, and I need to relax my brain and remember that I am only human. Tomorrow will be another chance to create my art and send it out into the world.
Just Do It — I sit down and write. Writing for me is a filter for my brain to express itself without judgment. So I don’t worry about what I write when I freestyle. Instead, I take a single topic and start writing.
As it turns out, I used the latter technique to write what you’re reading right now.
I have no way of knowing when the anxiety will set in. Even if I plan out my day or week with surgical timing and strategy, it may not matter. I may still show up to be creative and find the process overwhelming. There are only two paths forward—give up or give in.
Over time, I’ve been able to see that there’s no shame in relaxing. Rest allows me to come back to the drawing board refreshed the next day. However, I know that the anxiety won’t necessarily improve because I brute force myself through creative paralysis in the moment of fight or flight.
I’ve started to feel a kind of cadence when the anxiety sets in. When I take a moment to decide what to do, I can better choose which path is most likely to help me through the anxiety.
It’s a work in progress, but I’ve begun to feel a bit better about what I’m making every day. I’ve slowed down on how much I judge the work. There will be time to come back if I need to step away. I’m not only the work I create. Sometimes that break lets me feel normal again.
This Creative Life
Being a creative can be exciting. We’re working on amazing things that we form from the recesses of our imagination—but being a creative can kind of suck too.
Our creative muse isn’t always there to greet us. As a result, we can feel lost and alone. We can feel like frauds. We can feel less than.
If that sounds like a familiar story to you, try either completely walking away for a bit and coming back or just putting pen to paper, brush to canvas, fingers to keys, and start making something. It can be anything. It may not be perfect, and that’s ok.
No judgment. No anxiety. Just creative spirit.
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