Creative Fear: How to Get Started When You Are Not Sure
I want to do something creative, but I don’t know where to start.
I want to do something creative, but I don’t know where to start.
This was me some time ago. I was passionate about so many things. I write. I paint. But I didn’t make the time to explore my creativity, though it was always there in the back of my mind. It was only when my therapist told me, ”Get creative," that I had a spark. I realized how much I love to create things and have lost touch with them. I wanted to restart my creative journey.
But I kept procrastinating because I didn’t know where to start.
With so many creators blooming in the online space, I decided to seek inspiration. Get ideas. Start my own journey. But most social media portrays well-established creators on the top pages. You will mostly find them in their 200th post. To know how they started, you need to scroll down through the past 199 posts.
This was a huge waste of time. And so I dropped it.
I went back to my therapist to get some clarity. After my usual rant, she said, “The problem is not that you don’t know where to start. The problem is that you are so afraid and obsessed with how it will turn out. Start wherever you are.”
That was my epiphany. My fears clouded the essence of creativity: to make something new from what you have.
I realised I had to start with me. I must examine what I have in my store and what is blocking it.
How I started my creative journey
Beware of the templates. Screw the rules
We are programmed not to think outside the box.
We have been raised to follow the rules. Do what we are told to do. The price we pay for it is our individuality. Our ability to think big. Many of us don’t realise that the flashes of our dreams and fantasies are actually possible. And the first step to making them possible is to screw up these rules. The next one is to deviate from the set templates.
Some rules and templates hamper our creative nature. The common ones that block us from taking the first step are a few:
- Everything you do should pay you back, either with money or power.
- Anything other than the traditional route is a path to failure or waste of resources.
- Creative or imitative work should always be perfect, even from day one.
Let me explain what is happening over here.
The facts are that we have certain valuable resources, like money and our time. Wasting them is a significant loss. We might end up feeling like failures and getting hurt. Our ego, which is very self-protective, doesn’t want us to be hurt. It protects us by making excuses like there is no time, you can’t start now, you need more information, etc. We put off our art until we die with it inside us.
So, what can we do?
When I started writing, I journaled a lot about getting started. The three things I kept saying to myself to combat my fears were:
- Challenge your ego. Do the opposite of what it is telling you to do.
- Most of the time, this means getting into the mud. It means jumping into the discomfort of something new and unknown.
- Give yourself permission to be terrible at your art. You either succeed or else learn. Thus, nothing is getting wasted here.
These mental notes hugely helped me write my first blog post, which sucked. But I am here now. Still.
Listen to the voice. Follow your curiosity.
There are so many things I want to talk about.
Where should I start? What should I share?
These questions are another way our ego tries to keep us from making the dive.
You have to start by finding that inner voice. Start listening to it. The voice that keeps telling you to do “something”. Get curious about that something. Learn about what you are curious about. It could be something you have learned and love to dig deeper into. It could be something you are curious to know for the first time. It could be anything.
Learn it. Devour it. Make it even more valuable. Share it.
This is my principle of leaning into my curiosity and directing it to creativity.
David Kadavy, in his book The Heart to Start, beautifully talks about the purpose of curiosity. We are taught to exploit everything that we learn to make money. Here, you don’t learn anything new. You need to explore to learn new things. Also, you have to find the right balance between exploitation and exploration.
This is where your curiosity helps. It lets you narrow it down. One idea at a time.
Discover your creative DNA.
Twyla Tharp, in her book The Creative Habit, talks about each one of us having a creative DNA.
We all have our creative nature coded in the strands of our DNA, just like our features and preferences. Self-knowledge about our creative nature goes a long way. It can help us prevent false starts. It can help us know patterns of why we are doing what we are doing. Also, it can help us find ways appropriate for us to clear the roadblocks that stop us from starting.
To learn about our creative blocks, Twyla has created a set of questions to reflect honestly. She calls this our creative autobiography. I wrote my own answers to these questions, and I understood my creative side better. You can write your own creative autobiography too.
These are the questions adapted from Twyla Tharp’s questionnaire.
If you want a downloadable PDF, you can get it here. It is free.
Start to build the momentum
If you start to succeed, there is an increased chance of either abruptly stopping or going off track.
But if you start to build the momentum to get you to keep pursuing your art, it feels lighter, doable and will eventually lead you to achieve “something”
We get inspired by the experts in our niche or creative area when we start.
It doesn’t stop there. We want to adopt the same process as the expert’s current journey. This often leads us frustrated because it feels hard. It is indeed hard because we forget that we are beginners. We expect our process and outcomes to be just like the master’s. We fall into the unfair comparison game.
During those times, I ask myself, “How can you compare your 1st step with their 100th step?” Isn’t it unfair?
What can we aim for instead?
We can have these four mental rules to abide by to start any creative process at any time.
- Start with what comes easy to you and that which makes you feel something. Build your portfolio from there one by one.
- Start with what is achievable for you. It makes you feel successful. And consistently practicing will build the momentum to pursue the next tougher ones.
- Expect it to be a messy unorderly process. No, it won’t be as a perfect step-by-step process as you perceive it from the experts. For example, sometimes I write an outline and then the first draft. Other times I find writing the draft first and then drawing an outline a little easier. It is never a strict this-next-to-this order
- Apply the Goldilocks principle in the force you put on your commitments. When you start, it is important to commit to following your creative journey. And that commitment should be just the right amount for you.
For example, As a mom of a toddler with an 8-hour clinic practice, when I started writing online I made up my mind to publish one post every day. Within two weeks, I got burned out. Not because I posted every day (obviously I couldn’t) but because I was frustrated by my “failure”. Then I decided to write for 2 hours every day. This time I did achieve my goal. But at the end of 3 weeks, I was tired and stopped writing altogether because I was cutting short on my sleep. I needed rest.
Then I paid close attention to my days. I noted the structure, schedules and unforeseen events in my usual days. I realized I could give my craft 15 minutes of attention every day at the very least. This is just the right amount for me.
But the good part is this: when no one needs me to either feed them or treat them, I always work past that 15-minute mark. This makes me feel like I have done something productive.
This 15-minute every day is my fuel to kickstart my creative journey.
Find yours.
The Big Dream paradox
Big dreams bring big results.
This is true. Right?
But I won’t say this to someone who has not started their creative process yet.
Because dreaming big beyond our abilities at the start can intimidate us into not starting. Even if you start, the steps you take are going to be big and lead you to burnout.
David Kadavy calls this the Fortress fallacy. It is like aiming to build a giant fortress when you have never laid a single brick.
I call this the Big Dream paradox. Because this concept was so contradictory yet rang true with all the experience I had with the “dream big” advice.
I had a big dream of becoming a published author when I had not written a single blog post. It took me three years from having this thought to publish my first blog post. My excuse was that I didn’t know where to start. The truth was that fantasizing about my dream felt so good and safer than diving into it to know what it really was.
I procrastinated. Then I started. I got burned out. Again, I repeated the cycle. This went on for some time. My dream was too big for me to believe at that time. I couldn’t find a way to justify to myself that I can become an author as someone who has not written for years. I was in a rut.
I eventually realized my desire, which is to write for an audience. For me, the biggest possible goal in the range was becoming an author. I thought, What could be the smallest? Blogposts. I have read many. Inspired by many. I started small, with 200 to 300 words. From there, I am consistent with my writing journey. Many times, I don’t get the results I want. But that doesn’t stop me from starting again and again.
To break out of this Big Dream paradox:
- Note your big dream as your guide when you start.
- Accept that it is beyond your current abilities.
- Believe that it is possible when you start small.
- Ask yourself what is the smallest goal that you can set to build closer and closer to that dream.
- Start with that as your focus.
“Dream big. Start small. But most of all, start.”
Simon Sinek
Wrap up
If you are waiting to start your craft without knowing how to start, remember these things:
Be aware of the templates that stifle your creativity and permit yourself to suck.
If you want to know where to start, start by listening to that curious voice inside you.
Find out about your creative nature.
Start to build momentum that makes you consistent in your work.
Let your big dreams be your guide, not the starting point.
This story is part of the Face Your Creative Fears series. Follow to stay updated.
Hi, I am Shanjitha. I write about creativity, personal growth, self-management, books, and motherhood. If you like my stories, don’t want to miss them in the maze, and feel like supporting me, subscribe to my Substack newsletter for free. I write exclusive topics on healing and self-discovery. Also, I believe in growing together and am open to sharing your thoughts with me.
