What I Learned About Creativity From a Man Painting on a Treadmill
Overcoming the fear of failure with ‘Let’s Paint TV’
For a long time, the fear of failure was my greatest enemy.
Looking back over my life, I can think of countless occasions when I chose not to do something, not because I didn’t want to, but because I worried about what could go wrong. I worried I might make a fool of myself or waste my time on a fruitless endeavor.
Thankfully, as I’ve gotten older, I’m increasingly less concerned with what others think and more willing to give things a go for their own sake. But that fear of failure hasn’t gone away. Not entirely. And nowhere does this fear make itself more known than in resistance to acts of creativity.
Sometimes, such fear is warranted — useful even. After all, what is it but self-doubt that pushes us to perform better or think more carefully? But the result can also be stifling. In some cases, even crippling. Anyone who has ever suffered writer’s block will know what I mean.
When these blocks occur, we are often told that it can be helpful to have inspiration at hand. But inspiration is a funny thing.
Often, I find that the things that are supposed to inspire me, such as award-winning works of literature, museum…
