Creative Anxiety + How I Finally Overcame Myself (10 tips)
We all know it, we all feel it – it’s creative anxiety, and it’s the pits. Luck for us, it doesn’t need to be some lifelong malady. So this is how I finally overcame myself (and my creativity woes).
Of course, I still have moments of occasional apprehension or creative worry, but I can now handle these moments with ease.
For me, the path to less anxiety in my art is being more relaxed and reprioritizing fun and personal fulfillment.
So I hope these ideas help you like they’ve helped me.
But let’s wrap up this small talk.
Let’s get it.
Anxiety and Creativity (what it is + why we have it…)
I suppose we all know about anxiety.
But what is creativity anxiety? Here’s my take.
Creative anxiety is the feeling of fear, worry or uneasiness about your creative pursuits. It can be mild and temporary, or ongoing and creatively disrupting.
I think most of us have had this feeling at some point, to some extent.
In fact, according to research out of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, artists and creative thinkers tend to experience anxiety and stress more often.
Bummer…BUT, there’s a silver lining.
Creative people are also more likely to have hope, ego resilience and psychological well-being.
(Phew…)
So Anxiety…Why?
I am not an expert on anxiety (obviously).
I just have my own experiences and interpretations on it as a creative – which I can share my insights on. But let’s bring in some more qualified resources on the topic (*sources listed at the end of the article).
So here are a few potential reasons for why we experience anxiety:
A fear of failure
Ideas and ambition, but no action
A fear of the unknown
A fear of judgment
Performances and public sharing
Being creatively and personally vulnerable
Diet and/or lifestyle
Negative thinking
Conflict
Medications
Health issues
How I Overcame Creative Anxiety (10 things I did do)
These are the things I did to overcome my creative anxiety. And these are the things I continue to do.
Because overcoming myself requires continuously overcoming myself. But don’t worry, it gets easier and easier with time.
So I hope these tips can help you like they help me.
1. Mindset Development
We’re kicking things off with my biggest shield: mindset.
This whole blog centers around mindset as one of its core themes. It’s had a tremendous impact on my life as a musician and traveler.
But what is mindset and why is developing it so clutch?
Mindset is the way we see and experience the world and hinges on a set of perceived beliefs and perspectives. And it’s malleable.
I like to do things everyday that build up my growth mindset (so original, I know). But having a growth mindset is crucial for, well, growing as a creative.
Of course, creating for the simple sake of creating is amazing. But growing your skills and believing that you can get better at literally anything can’t be ignored.
This reality that we can learn anything and get better at anything has been instrumental in better handling and lessening the effects of my own creative anxiety.
I hope it can for you too.
So here are some ways to foster a healthier mindset on creativity (and things in general):
Start a meditation routine
Zoom out for perspective and clarity (are you taking things too serious?)
Focus on fun and more intuitive creativity
Become more process-focused
Identify old habits and thinking patterns
Know exactly what you want and take small actions towards it everyday
Practice visualization and attach your visions with strong emotions
2. Addressing the Elephant…
Let’s address the elephant in the room.
Let’s talk about imposter syndrome. Because it’s a pretty common thing (especially in creative pursuits).
It’s essentially the feeling like your skills or knowledge aren’t quite good enough or that you’re not deserving of any praise that you may receive.
It’s the fear that you’ll be found out or exposed as being a fraud – an imposter.
And it’s total bs.
That’s not to say the feelings and effects aren’t real – it’s been something that’s paused my own creative growth for over a decade.
But it usually is all in our heads – a cheap product of our imagination haphazardly running worst case scenarios.
So, as with so many things, I believe the first step to solving any mess is to first identify the problem and become more and more aware of it.
Because often, these issues are sitting in the subconscious, manufacturing negative self-talk announcements that ultimately create our perspective, beliefs and experiences.
So a pattern interrupt is a reasonable first step. From there, we can then start to write a new program.
And slowly, with enough practice, patience and intention, a new story can emerge. One where we’re not the imposter, but the hero in our own story.
So I try to remind myself everyday of one simple fact: I am not an imposter. I belong here.
3. Taking More Action Towards My Goals
I’m still shocked at how much of my creative anxiety came from me simply not pursuing my creative dreams.
My lack of action-taking was probably a mix of the fear of failure, my imposter syndrome and a lack of discipline.
I had the vision, the ideas and the foundational creative skills. But I had to learn the tools and the implementation.
I knew how to write songs, create ideas for videos and art projects and blend them all together for unique and inspiring concepts – but I couldn’t meaningfully implement any of it.
I had technical skill bottlenecks.
I didn’t know how to produce music digitally. I couldn’t find or film interesting shots.
I struggled with editing everything down into an engaging, nicely-color-graded video with perfectly timed sound design and original music.
I needed to learn a lot of technical, digital skills. But this process was always boring, frustrating and made me feel like a complete beginner (despite writing music and doing art for over 20 years).
For me, the transition from analog to digital dexterity was my achilles heel.
But once I developed a workflow, set goals and broke them down into manageable steps and focused on them intently through a gamified action plan, things started turning around for me.
And my creative anxiety (due to not taking enough action on my dreams) started to subside.
So for me, taking consistent daily action (and watching yourself get consistently better each week) can reduce a lot of anxiety around unrealized creativity.
4. Focusing On the Micro
Big goals are amazing. But big goals can be overwhelming…
So let’s break things down to reduce that anxiety. It’s a simple trick that’s not only effective for reducing creative stress, but is just a smart growth strategy.
It’s the art of focusing on the micro (rather than the macro) and it makes our creative pursuits much less intimidating.
One step at a time, as they say.
So the first step is to take your big goals and think backwards, reverse engineering them into their smaller component parts.
Here’s the basic structure:
Identify your big, longer-term goals
Break them down into the required micro goals
Break each micro goal down further into nano goals or tasks to complete
When it comes to managing my creative anxiety, this simple strategy works like a charm.
So try not focusing too much of your attention on the top of the mountain – just the next step or two in front of you.
5. Gamification
Gamification has worked wonders for me.
It’s created a level of accountability and fun while helping me focus more on the process and the journey rather than the result.
It’s helped me develop my creativity and my discipline. It’s reduced my artistic anxiety.
So what is gamification?
Gamification is the process of turning your tasks, goals or creative pursuits into a game or challenge.
For me, I’m using this tactic to sharpen my songwriting, singing, music production and travel filmmaking skills (you can read more about my song-a-day journey here).
It’s helping me to have more fun and to enjoy the ride.
Gamifying my artistic process with a daily songwriting challenge has forced me to take more action, learn new skills, sharpen existing strengths and improve day-by-day.
If I have a “bad” day, I know it’s temporary and that I’m still improving (even if doesn’t feel like it).
Gamification, simply put, has shifted my focus away from creative anxiety and placed it on process and incremental improvements.
So try turning your creative pursuits into a challenge or a game – you may just get rid of some of that anxiety in the process.
6. Making Better Comparisons
Self care as a creative is crucial – especially mental health.
So no list on anxiety would be complete without mentioning comparison culture and its negative impact on us.
In my experience, comparison (to at least some extent) is unavoidable. But we can make our comparisons more motivating and helpful.
Turning comparison into a healthy tool for inspiration requires having and developing a solid growth mindset.
But in the meantime, it can be helpful to simply be more exclusive with who we’re choosing to stand next to (metaphorically speaking).
Specifically, I try to only compare myself to two people:
My past self
Successful people *before they were successful
It’s way too easy to feel discouraged in this creator economy full of incredibly talented people.
I mean, I usually strive to be inspired by these creators.
But things can quickly turn into a negative comparison loop of curated feeds, which perpetuate some false narrative idea that I’m just not up to snuff.
So, in these moments, I remember to reset myself to a sort of baseline.
I go back to healthier comparisons: myself and my own growth and the stories of struggles and becoming great from successful people.
7. Detaching My Creative Success From Any Metric
Here’s the goal: to not care if I’m at 0 subscribers or at 1 million.
I’m reminded of a quote here: “...if you can’t be happy with a cup of coffee, you won’t be happy with a yacht.”
We can pick apart the rightness or wrongness of this idea all day, but my takeaway is this:
Don’t attach your happiness or creative success to any vanity metrics or material accolades.
This strategy has been a huge help for me.
One way I do this is by separating at least a portion of my monetary goals from my creative pursuits.
It’s like diversifying my income streams and revenue potential portfolio.
For example, I started this blog as a way to help other creatives by sharing my experiences in growing a brand, developing discipline and strengthening my mindset.
But a secondary goal and potential is revenue-related.
The simple fact is this: blogging is a business, and you can make a full-time income from it.
There are various ways to monetize a website when you have enough traffic.
So I’m leveraging my skills and experience in content marketing and SEO (search engine marketing) to build an income channel that’s related to (but separate) from my music and filmmaking projects.
This reduces my creative anxiety since my core creative goals aren’t attached to any monetary gains.
I’m not perfect, and there are plenty of days when I feel a bit bad about my videos or songs not getting any “love”.
But I maintain my perspective by detaching my success from these things.
I’m just having fun and sharing my ideas. I want to grow and inspire people through music and travel and content – but it’s not my only path to success.
8. (continuous) Skill Building
I recently came across the term Kaizen, which refers to the Japanese art of continuous improvement.
I suppose this makes sense – as I currently write this post sitting in my room outside of Tokyo…
But the concept is also perfect for this discussion: continuous skill building.
I mentioned my past skill deficits earlier in #3 (and how they inhibited my action-taking, causing more creative anxiety).
It’s worth doubling down on this point. Because here’s the truth:
Addressing my technical and skill-based bottlenecks has drastically reduced my creative anxiety.
Deep down knowing that you’re not quite up to snuff and that you’re not living up to your fullest potential can create a lot of friction.
Especially when you know a lot of that friction comes from a lack of certain skills.
It’s hard to be honest with yourself. It requires a deep understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.
It requires clarity on your goals and preferences.
It requires patience, action and self belief.
But you got this.
So here are a few tips for skill building as a way to reduce creative anxiety:
Identify your zone of proximal development and focus your skill-building energy here
Know your strengths and weaknesses (and work on your weak points)
Practice daily
Know your goals and break things down into manageable daily actions
Stack the deck in your favor (so your environment motivates you)
Study, research and learn more from multiple sources
9. “Arigatou, Anxiety” (embracing my anxieties)
This tip sort of flips the script on anxiety.
Usually, we try to avoid and suppress the thing that causes us distress. Ironically, this attempt to ignore and suppress the thing we’re trying to avoid gives it more energy and attention.
So let’s embrace and love it. Here’s what I mean.
Rejecting and stressing about my anxieties gives me more anxiety.
Getting upset and worried about them makes me more worried and upset.
It’s a negative feedback loop of doom.
So I “simply” shift my language and the emotions I have about my creative anxieties. Here’s how:
Recognize the anxious moment and feeling
Zoom out and view the feeling as an outsider, objectively
Search for clues and opportunities for growth in the anxiety
Consider the causes and stressors
Embrace the negative feelings it gives you (don’t feel bad about feeling bad)
Accept them and love them
I reframe anxieties as a positive and I literally thank them for showing up
For example, I like to view my anxious moments, failures or bad days as roots to a tree – because more roots eventually create a stronger, more beautiful tree
10. Reframing My Language
This last tip has been a serious game changer for me. So here’s the basic idea (using me as an example).
When I first discovered travel filmmaking on YouTube, I was instantly hooked. I wanted to become an adventure b-roll aficionado.
So, I consumed hundreds of hours of tutorials and tips.
My (naive) expectations were to jump straight to becoming a pro-level filmmaker extraordinaire, sharing the ranks with my idols.
But how did things actually pan out?
Lots of amateur-looking videos, lots of disappointment and lots of frustration. I understood the theory and the tutorials – so why were my videos not up to snuff?
In part, due to unhelpful comparisons, an obvious lack of experience and skill and unrealistic expectations.
So I wasn't having any fun, I was stressed out and I had a lot of creative anxiety.
But a subtle reframing of things changed everything for me.
First, I changed the language I was using to describe my creative projects and film goals.
I was no longer trying to become a “travel filmmaker” (which carries a lot of nuanced weight and tendencies for comparisons).
I simply (sometimes) document my travels with my original music. I make casual video journals for fun.
I simply create for the sake of creating. I prioritize fun and I’ve become intensely process-oriented.
These subtle shifts have been incredibly helpful in reducing my creative anxiety around filmmaking.
So if all else fails, just try rephrasing things and adjusting your language.
It’s powerful.
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