Snuffing Out the Most Debilitating Creative Impediment: Fear

Your lip twitches, your palms are cold and balmy. Your stomach muscles are wrenching themselves into a knot. Your voice seizes up and begins to shake almost as bad as your hands.

Your mind and body are gripped by fear and anxiety, and the reason could be as mundane as a mouse click. Perhaps you’re about to publish a bold bit of writing, or it could be a message you’re sending to your boss. Maybe you’re using new software for the first time, or jumping into a project using tools you’re unfamiliar with.

Image from Freddie Peña , licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic

None of us are immune, and it can take a great deal of personal focus and self-control to overcome fear. Let’s address some common sentiments and attempt to recognize what sparks our fear – all the better to snuff it out.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Is somebody going to criticize your thoughts? There’s an opportunity for constructive debate. Will your peers poke fun at you? Embrace the shenanigans and give it back to them in clever retorts. Afraid you’ll lose your job? Well that’s a little more serious, but when has change ever been a bad thing?

At one point I was reluctant to talk about aspects of my personal life and deeper opinions in my writing, driven by an uncomfortable fear to stand out. But once I forced myself to put some of my potentially useful habits to paper, a confident wave of relief passed overhead.

We need to remind ourselves that these sorts of fears aren’t real. Nothing truly bad can happen to you for being outspoken. Your well-being is not in danger; the only things that can get hurt are your feelings.

Don’t take it all so seriously

Creativity and grave attitudes don’t mesh well, and a significant element of creative ability manifests itself in play.

Image from Andrew Seaman, licensed under CC Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

When the opportunity presents itself, find a way to channel your anxieties into a productive game. Need ten new design concepts by the end of the day? Turn the ten closest objects on your desk upside-down and take some inspiration from them.

Turning dull or daunting activities into enjoyable games is an important part of what is best known as flow. This term is used to describe the optimal, seemingly effortless “flow” of consciousness we experience when we’re engaged in worthwhile activities. When I’m into a can’t-stop kick of writing a post I’m passionate about, I get that flow going. For others it’s assembling a machine, scaling a rock face, cooking a flawless dish, knitting a blanket… and the list goes on.

Flow and meaningful gamification can be achieved with just about any activity, and it’s also one of the best ways to stop fear in its tracks. In accounts from political prisoners and those subjected to long periods of solitary confinement, victims often describe playful tasks they invented for themselves to enter flow states and maintain sanity.

Image from dryhead , licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic

An architect long imprisoned by the Nazis overcame his bleak situation by mapping the world on the floor of his cell, reenacting past travels in his head each day one mile at a time. An Air Force pilot who survived many years in a Vietnam POW camp refined his golf swing in the endless free time, allowing him to play a surprisingly exceptional game upon his eventual rescue.

And I’m willing to bet you’re not facing such dire circumstances. So what’s your excuse?

When all else fails, laugh and breeze it off. Crack a joke out of whatever’s scaring you so bad, and turn your light-hearted wordplay into an intuitive new direction for your efforts.

If you don’t do it, someone else will

You have an amazing idea, but it’s a little ballsy. It’s something that deviates from the norm, and something that drives you outside of your comfort zone. Whenever you consider pursuing it, your own unfounded worries pull back and halt any progress.

But guess what? If you don’t bring that awesome idea to life, then someone else will.

Don’t live in the regret knowing that you thought of it first. Don’t procrastinate and makes excuses for tomorrow. Don’t allow your own fear and self-doubt to stifle what could be something remarkable.

Here’s a challenge we can all embrace: make a list of your perpetual work-related fears, and proceed to trounce them with creative solutions one at a time. Stick your list to the computer monitor, above the door handle, or another place where you’ll be forced to stare it down every day. Make a point to put those fears on the chopping block every day, and take note of how your creative attitude evolves.

Live and work fearlessly, my friends. There are no regrets once you suffocate self-doubt.

Snuffing Out the Most Debilitating Creative Impediment: Fear