I have always been curious as to why creativity and fear are always associated with each other. The reality is that we are often too afraid that something that we put our creative effort into won’t be good enough; not for ourselves or for anyone around us. To simply put it: fear often stops creativity.
Creativity is defined as “The use of imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work” while fear, can be defined as “Anticipation of the possibility that something unpleasant will occur”. We as creators often catch ourselves in anticipation that our work will bring some attention that we don’t necessarily want. We are uncomfortable with the idea that our creative work might be terrible; I discovered this while reading a book that a friend of mine recommended to me. It is called “Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking” In the book, it explains that there are two types of fear that all creative projects fall into. There is the fear about yourself, and the fears about the reception you will get from others but, what we forget to realize is that fear of ourselves prevents us from doing our best work while the fears that stem from us thinking about how other people will receive our work prevents us from doing our own work.
There is something really powerful about us being afraid of our own creativity that, letting go of that fear and creating things that we want to create. You might create something that is amazing and awesome and is something you are extremely proud of. In the words of Troye Sivan, an Australian singer-songwriter, “don’t let people stifle you because you are doing the things that they have always been too scared to do... let yourself be the person that you secretly always wanted to be.”
So this week I’m going to challenge you to let go of the fear you have and work on that creative project you’ve wanted to do. Go write that blog post on that idea you’ve been sitting on but were too afraid to write, go color in a coloring book, write your life story and turn it into a movie, go make that video, just go and create something for yourself that you will be proud of.
