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10 Biggest Fears For Creatives And Ways To Overcome Them
As artists, we sometimes live in fear. And here’s how to counter it.
A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk in the middle of the afternoon during another creative brainstorm — I had a potential big client wanting new ideas for an ongoing project that I had been working on for the last 4 months. As some may say, this sounded like a great opportunity: a big brand, wanting new ideas, for something that I was already familiar with (meaning, I already had trust from the client) and a fair amount of time (about two weeks or so) until the end of that deadline.
However, at that very moment, sitting at my desk, my hands were sweaty, I felt anxious, and nothing that I was coming up with sounded good, or new, or even decent for that client. I was drowning in fear of failing at my own profession.
Let’s be honest — unless you are an extremelly self-assured fearless creative, you’ve probably encountered some of the fears covered in this article.
These things can be quite real, and in the 15+ years of me working with many areas of design & animation, I have learned a few ways on how to evade these moments, and how to go back into a more productive principle. So although I can’t really offer an actual solution for never having these again (trust me, they tend to come back from time to time), I can offer some ways on how to counter them.
1. We are afraid of failure
The biggest fear that we find ourselves at many stages of our professional career, is the fear of failure. It can make us lose our precious sleep, it can create some lack of focus on what’s around us, and on more critical levels, it can even get us into a personal vortex of despair: I know the last one sounds quite dramatic, but if you have been there, you know. It’s a real thing.
But this also is one of the most common fears in any sort of expression or activity that we set ourselves into: it can be failing as an artist, failing as a teacher or mentor, failing as a bike courrier trying to deliver a package during 5:00pm rush-hour traffic, or even failing as a coffee barista, trying to make leaf-shaped designs on top of oatmilk cappuccinos.
For beginners, this fear is quite common — it has a direct connection to our mind, thinking that we are trying to do something or be someone without the necessary experience, knowledge and recognition.
For creatives with many years of experience, this fear can also be quite present, followed by sentences such as: ‘Am I going to succeed on my next job?’, or ‘I am fine now, but will I be fine tomorrow?’, and the many similar questions that designers, illustrators, writers, musicians and all other creatives share from their repeatedly demanding level of excelence expected from their clients.
So, here are some of the ways we can counter it:
A. At the beginning, don’t go public—if you are just starting something new for what you think will be your next possible career, test-drive your art, test-drive your biking skills, or even make your own oatmilk cappuccinos at home and share them with only the people you know who can give you support, love and a good amount of constructive criticism.
B. Only take small bites at first — if you are again just starting in your field, make sure you start small, with smaller ideas, then slowly build up the level of difficulty (or what you can bite off from a said job) gradually as you feel more and more confortable in your own environment. This means a different timeframe for everyone, as we all have our own learning curve. Mine for example is super slow, but I am thankful that when I practise something at first, I do it under my private time and slowly build up my confidence before I post a new illustration technique or art style online.
C. Failure is inevitable — accepting that failure is inevitable, is a hard pill to swallow. We tend to think that failure will set us back, lose precious time in a precious world with no time to spare. But failure doesn’t make us less of what we currently are: we fail only to succeed next time, and if we fail, we have to take note of what went wrong and study ways to improve ourselves for the next assignment. If we miss this chance, this opportunity for learning and growing, then we do fail, and we fail blindly. So take this time to learn, and you will probably learn more then when you were on a roll of success.
D. Failure is for the old dogs too — If you have some or extended work experience in your field, and you still think about failure from time to time, you probably need a time-out. Go outside, walk around, maybe get a tea of coffee and think about the project you’re in it for a little bit. It might just be the project itself that is giving you this fear of failure. I usually have the best ideas in the morning, while I’m just getting ready for work. Ideas may come with new avenues and things that you may not have tested just yet (for a certain design problem, for example), or directions and solutions on what you were doing wrong and why. You need to walk away from it, you need to disconnect yourself for a little while, and sometimes even for a longer periods of time so you can heal your creative brain.
2. We are afraid of our own success
This one does sound funny, but it’s also more common then you may think: how many rock bands have been known by one single major hit which propelled them into the stratosphere, to then only removing that song completely from their live shows, acoustic sessions, and any fan requests. It becomes that hit song that only plays on the radio. In other words, there is something to be said for once you make it big with a specific idea: your creation may turn into something that doesn’t represent you anymore in the future. Plus, there will probably be more requests on your agenda, more quotes to be full-filled, more opportunities, which means less free time (with more worrying about your next move). The bigger the spotlight shines on you, the bigger the stakes are. Will your next move be a positive one? Will your audience turn back on you, because you have chosen to support a certain idea, or go with a certain new creative decision that you haven’t done before?
Here’s a few ways we can turn that around:
A. First, setup a schedule — if your career has moved miles with an overnight success somehow as a creative, you probably get a pass for not being yet organized. If you have a decent amount of clients (around 12+ per year), followers (anything above 1k in any social media platform) and something like 2 or 3 years of experience, then this is really not your first rodeo. You should make a proper schedule with all the necessary timeslots for you to work hard, and for you to have some fun. Being organized gives you the freedom from worrying about little things, in the long run.
B. Then, find your medium — fear of public speaking? make a blog post and present your ideas. Don’t fancy writing so much? Setup a cheap DYI studio at home (my Youtube channel was built with DIY gear) and make video content so you can engage with your audience. Find your favourite way of communicating that doesn’t seem like a struggle to you, and remember to be active and kind to your followers — some may support you, and some may even be future potential clients, looking you up online at first.
C. Keep doing what you know, and slowly bring in the new — without trying, there’s no success, even if that tryout turns into failure multiple times. Remember that if you do have a successful following, that means your audience is there expecting something you can make it multiple times. Wether is a certain art style, written or visual, they are there waiting for you to deliver more of that thing, and while that’s happening, try a few of those new ideas: for a movie director (for example), this could be a scene, an episode, or even a short film with a style that is different from what he/she is known for. For a writer, it may be a new script in the opposite style what they do like to write. For an illustrator, it may be drawing with real ink and paper instead of going straight to the computer. Whatever it may be, be ready for opinions, don’t evaluate things too soon (as you may only have a few of these new pieces versus 100 or more of the same old ones to compare), and consider making a new account for sharing and trying all these new ideas, in order to keep things consistent with your current image.
3. We are afraid of change
In Steven Pressfield’s book called ‘The War of Art’, the idea of being afraid of change is deeply connected to some innate feeling of resistance, one that lives inside all of us. This may go back to how even the most ancient nomadic tribes travelled through continents, only to eventually settle grounds at a place that offered all of their basic needs (water, food and shelter) and never move again for generations. There is something that just makes our brain second guess something new, a change in our current process or pattern, and we tend to think of it as a defensive mechanism. Maybe it could be some sort of a double-check ‘Is this going to work?’, or just the good old resistance bringing us back into bed, and into another episode of our favourite show on Netflix. ‘I’ll try that later on’, and ‘Maybe next week’ are common phrases at this moment.
Here’s a couple new things we can do (yes, let’s bring in the new!):
A. Learn to combine — change doesn’t have to be something completely new. It doesn’t have to be about erasing the old, and bringing in another direction, as your career has been built on your past work experience. If you are a creative known for a certain recipe, you can use some of your favourite elements combined with the new idea. Whenever we combine things, we tend to transform that idea into something fresh that still has roots in your art style. And the results can be amazing. One director that combines things really well, in my opinion, is Michel Gondry — known for mixing Lego blocks and stop motion (two completely different things), into an amazing rock n’ roll music video.
B. Fight your resistance — I am again encouraging you to take a look at Steven Pressfield’s book, whenever you have a moment. It actually changed my life and has put me into a way more productive lifestyle, now that I am able to track and detect resistance. Also, there is the famous quote ‘don’t change a winning team’, but let’s not forget that the team eventually gets old and needs retirement in Florida. You need to slowly add in new players to the roster of your ideas, so you don’t sound like an old broken record.
4. We are afraid of self-expression
Take a minute now to reflect at the many profile pages you have seen from your friends and family on Facebook (if you ever had an account). Now take another minute to reflect at any profile pages you have also seen from online dating apps as well — remember all those smiling faces, everyone is having the greatest time of their lives, and they all love to travel, they love to eat good food, and occasionally mention their unconditional love for dogs. Of course, there are also those brave souls who share their good & sad/bad moments, but those are still fewer in between than the ones who are living forever in paradise. In modern times and social media, it’s way easier to show the good and the convinient, then to show your true colours and be vulnerable, and that also goes for your art, your books or any kind of self-expression. Yes, it is important to ‘read the room’ and understand when and how to expresss, but not showing who you truly are is definitely a missed opportunity for something new in this world.
A. Start with an alias — want to test the waters first? Don’t go in with your real name. Make up a nickname you are confortable with (if you can say that name loud, and it sounds good to you, keep it) and start your new creative road under that name. It’s also a good way of separating your personal life from your line of creative work. Protect yourself, and you should probably feel less pressure.
B. If it feels like too much, don’t pressure it — sometimes it’s not the thing you are trying to create that’s giving you a hard time; it is you who may be answering to the wrong calling. This takes time, it takes self-discovery, and we have all been there, so take it slow and really evaluate if this is for you, or if you should be doing something else that doesn’t seem as hard to self-express. Just make sure to give it a good try, and let yourself decide what sort of timeline you would like to spend doing this activity. I have seen fashion designers getting recognition after 7 years of hard work and unpaid bills, as well as a friend who quit a certain job after 6 months and couldn’t be happier at the new one. Again, the timeline can vary for all of us. Learn how to separate having an admiration for something, from the things you really love and would love to give it a try as a career.
5. We are afraid of not being validated
In Gal Shir’s E-book ‘View Insights’, there’s a whole section dedicated for audience. On its first paragraph, it talks about how our parents have taugh us not to care about what other people think. It’s a lesson of protection and confidence, and altough this is true, there is something a bit different for us, as creatives: we need the audience. Without them, no one will look at our art, and no one will read our stories. So the fear here is to constantly create something that doesn’t get attention.
A. Think about your audience as you create — even if your audience is very small, you should always try to engage with them: ask them questions, read their comments, and try to think about what they feeling when they see one of your creations. Try to detect what kind of feelings you transfer with your art, then spread these values onto the new content. Your audience will notice you have been listening to them, and they will validate that effort.
B. Stalk your competition —another way of seeking higher validation in your work is to stalk your competition, looking for their audience’s comments: try to detect what they are positively responding to, and bring in those values into your own craft. You can use some of the other tools here in this article (such as learning to combine, self-expression) to add-in the necessary ingredients in order to make something original, and not a direct copy from your competidor.
6. We are afraid of collaboration
Somewhere around 2014, I had started to experiment with making electronic music. I remember being quite excited to explore this uncharted territory and I put on countless hours on trying to make a few decent tracks. After about an year or so improving my musical senses and my craft, I had my first EP released on Bandcamp, and a close group of fans tunning in on my Soundcloud page. I even got to play a few small gigs around town. A couple months after those gigs, I received an email asking for a possible collaboration with another artist: I remember freezing at the thought of collaborating on music with anyone, mainly because I have never seen myself as a musician — it was all still just a hobby for me. The opportunity ended up not panning out, and eventually I realized that I am quite confortable in just being a visual artist (tying it back to item 4, self-expression), but I also realized that a lot of people are actually on the same boat as we are in terms of experience, and it’s just about finding equally balanced parterships with artists that are more or less on the same level, and can be humble and supportive about each other.
A. Try to find balanced collaborations — if it feels more like a mentorship then a collaboration, try to make sure it goes both ways: if you are getting more than sharing (and your music knowledge is still at the beginning), try to share other things rather than ‘Ableton’s Top 5 Tips & Tricks’ to your partner (musical references, tips about stage presence, some of the gear that you’re into), and you can still make this collaboration valuable for both sides. If it’s the other way around and you are playing the teacher role, it might be time to give something back to the universe.
B. Level up slowly — collaborations can be super fun but they can also take a good chunk from your free time, so make sure to plan ahead something you’re confortable collaborating with another creative, even if you start with just a poster design, a written introduction for a book, or the 4/4 beat of a song. It’s better to have finished and published collaborations than all those personal projects with great people that never saw the light of day.
7. We are afraid of assignments
Whenever we engage with a contract or assignment, this means a verbal or writen (or even both) commitment between us and the contractor. They are then expecting us to deliver something in ‘x’ amount of time — these timeframes can be very short and hectic, as well as long and full of multi-stage deliveries along the way. In both of this cases, it’s perfectly normal to re-think and study the proposition and see if it’s a good fit for us — and if we also have the bandwith to do them. The fear here that we need to talk about, is not wanting to commit because of previous experiences (the really bad ones), and projecting expectations that things are eventually going to go bad for this new commitment and you will be left stressed out and depleted.
A. Honesty is freedom —don’t like the budget? Try to negotiate something better. Feels a little too tight on the deadline? Ask for more time and use other examples from previous experience, if necessary. The worst thing you can do for yourself, is to say yes to something you already know it won’t work. Instead, do yourself a favour and make sure to be honest and upfront with your client, and he/she will appreciate it.
B. Don’t answer right-away— before saying yes or no to anything at first glance, make sure to ask for at least a day to think about the possible opportunity. This way, you’ll also have time to think about things such as time and budget that we were just talking over point A. The bottom line is — you don’t have to give-away answers on the spot, which is one of my favourite lines during client calls: ‘we’re going to regroup and come up with a decent solution, after this call’.
8. We are afraid of being out of ideas
There are a few different avenues for this type of fear. One is quite common, and can happen to a lot of creatives out there. It usually starts when we stumble upon a challenge at any point of the project — the beggining and middle sections being usually the toughest moments. The mere thought of not being able to come up with a solution at this point helps to drive our anxiety levels up. The other part of us wants to come up with a fast solution so we can go back to a lighter mindset. These two things mixed together can be quite a cocktail of limbo. The other avenue is when we’ve been doing something for too many times in repetition, and without a break. We feel depleted, mentally and physically exausted, and we feel as like we have done and tried everything that is to be done about that project. We feel like there is nothing else to be created, and we get into this state of being ‘out of ideas’.
A. Disconnect multiple times —disconnecting from your current project is equally important as connecting with it on a deeper level. It is important to take a break, step back, and go do something else for at least 15 minutes. As I’ve said before in this article, I usually have the best ideas in the morning — but that is because I don’t think about the project during the evening time. I actually focus on spending quality time with loved ones or working on my other side projects, which include this very own article that you are now reading, which is a product of many breaks from my bigger project.
B. Remember what is really at stake — we all know how real these projects can be, how we all have our duties to play, our bills to pay, and that we want to ultimately, look good — but we also tend to escalate the importance of things, whenever we are right in the trenches: and that’s what I call by ‘what is really at stake’. As creatives, I would like to think we are adding some much needed beauty into this world, by offering art as a visual, written or audible format. It’s important for everyone to try to connect with art. But we also need to remind ourselves that we are not doctors here. There is no life directly at stake in the case of a flat joke writen by a creative, on a sparkling water campaign. Unless that soda, in this case, has lost its fizziness in the final shot. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are working towards a design or creative problem, and that you are able to come up with solutions for that said problem. You just need a bit of time to think it through.
9. We are afraid of being left behind
This one can happen at any stage, age or moment in our career: it usually starts after a career burst (a few years working hard as an Art Director, for example, which can be very demanding with hands on tasks), that silently transitions us to a slower moment, where we find ourselves more ‘at ease’: a well-deserved promotion into a supervisor role, creating a formula that automates a certain part of your work process, staying at the same job for longer periods of time, or even becoming a manager for your own freelance projects, by having an off-site team that works on 90% of your tasks (you just show up for phone calls, feedback and client meetings). Once you’re finally coasting at your job, boom! There’s new software and hardware coming out that you have never heard before, new instagram accounts showing some of the most amazing pieces of work you have seen in a while, and Behance pages showing work from people that are half of our age, doing twice as better designs than us. It all goes by really, really fast.
A. There’s still that thing called experience — yes, the competition is only getting tougher. Deadlines are only getting shorter. Realtime GPU rendering with Redshift is a thing now that 16-year olds can get into. However, let’s not forget that we carry some experience that a lot of the younger crowds still doesn’t have. That speaks volumes in terms of dealing with clients, knowing their needs, communicating with partners and collaborators, working with teams, being on time, and keeping it to the schedule. You can always try to leverage your strongest suit, but it’s important to keep an eye out there (and free time) to study what is available to us today in our field of work.
B. Keep studying —it’s important to never stop learning. Try to allocate some time at least once a week where you can try something new, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It is better to have some idea of a new tool that just came into the market, then to be that person that has never even heard of this new shiny thing. It could be something that you can even add to your list of skills after some training.
B. Collaborate with the best — remember the tips about collaboration? You can also apply them here — go and hire some of that amazing talent you are seeing on Instagram and on Behance — they will be happy to get some work from you, and in return, you can learn something about their skills and their process. It’s a way to study by working with great people.
10. We are afraid of being vulnerable
Many of the items covered previously in this article have touched upon this idea: being afraid to self-express, being afraid of commitments & assignments, being afraid of collaboration, and many others.In fact, being vulnerable is the key umbrella of all the fears listed above. We’re not perfect, and we don’t like to fail. Those two ingredients are bound to collide and create those flopping experiences where we have a chance to learn the most. To quote Brené Brown, from her book Daring Greatly:
‘vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.’
Ultimately, being vulnerable will allow you to experiment, to take a bit more risks, to be concious of others around you, and it will also help keep the gears turning for new ideas and new avenues for yourself. Next time one of these thoughts or fears tries to grab a hold of you, think of a river flowing with small boats: they all pass by as we breathe, so new ideas can come in.