Seeing this, inspires me to continue to motivate, encourage and help those who wish to aspire further, or even those already seeing the results they are chasing.
Regardless, I want to bring it back the very essence in which our ideas and passions are rooted by.
Creativity.
All these ideas, these skills and talents we have and even the passions we follow, they are all derived from creativity.
Creativity is based on our personal perspectives, influence, inspiration and basically through what and how we have interrupted the skills we have.
We all have these skills – even if we don’t like them or hate to admit it.
Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love
“Fear and creativity are conjoined twins. What holds people back from being creative is that in order to murder the fear, they end up killing off the creativity as well.”
Below I have collated four of the most common fears associated with creativity, I have also provided a point or two on how you can tackle them:
Fear that you are not Creative
If you think you’re not a creative person, I think you need to widen your definition of creativity.
Anyone that can fix a computer glitch, that can use a substitute when you don’t have an ingredient for a recipe.
If you can work an excel sheet or build one from the ground up. Maybe you’re a musician?
These are all examples of being creative – creativity doesn’t just apply to a visual artist.
Fear of Failure
It’s no wonder we fear failure, we are told over and over again, that the best way to learn is by doing and then when we get it wrong, people criticize us.
But the best thing you can do is:
“Fail, fail again, fail better.” said Samuel Beckett.
The best way to do this is find new ways of trying things, without having to reap the consequences of failure that are overwhelming.
Fear of the Unknown
It can be hard to be creative when we can’t even see the end design in you mind.
But you also need to realize, usually the most amazing and successful creations are those which differ from the original idea in the first place.
To defeat this is to take a day, a moment or some spare time and use it as unplanned time.
This time should be all about doing things that you haven’t planned for.
Like exploring the city, trying a new recipe, or simply doing something you wouldn’t normally do.
Fear of being Judged
It hurts being judged.
Being embarrassed can cut us deep at the core.
Even if the judgement isn’t intended to hurt us, it will.
But because we do feel hurt, we avoid taking the risk of being creative, as this will only bring us embarrassment.
“Your biggest critic is the voice inside your head” – Chris Furlong
The best way to overcome this is to set yourself a challenge.
For 30 days force yourself to create (whatever it is you do) and do it for 30 days, keeping each created material for the whole time.
If you want to challenge yourself that little more, do this publicly.
Set the framework/context behind it, detailing that you are doing this to stretch yourself.
At the end of it just see how AMAZING you are and the progress you have made, being both creative and confident.
So are you going to make some changes to how you view your creativity? Will you decide to take a challenge?
Remember you only need to beat yourself, not others.
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” – Ayn Rand
If you haven’t seen it already, we just released its book list that every dreamer on a journey to greatness should be reading. Click below to see more details!
