How To Finally Make Something

…or how we put off our creative dreams for our entire lives

Growing up in the early 2000’s, I spent a lot of time participating in online creative communities. This experience planted a question in my head— a question that would come to define a big portion of my life:

“Why do 99% of people struggle to get past the first mile in their creative projects? How could I join the 1% that actually make things?”

After a decade of introspection, creative attempts and reading, I found an answer that worked for me. Overcoming the barrier to freeform creation has felt like one of the best things that’s happened in my life.

If you’re a creative yearner like I was, I hope this insight will help you overcome the barrier too.

The Problem: Fantasy Games

Creativity ultimately means stepping forward without knowing where we’re going. Unfortunately, unstructured and ambiguous tasks make us anxious.

To avoid this anxiety we constantly substitute playing the real game of creation with other activities that feel more structured — what I’ll call “fantasy games”.

Most of the time we do this subconsciously, without even recognizing it. Many of us have been doing this for almost our…