Why Is Creating So Hard?

It may seem that the outside world is preventing us from taking part in our creative art or hobbies. At times, it’s hard to find any time for our interests because of our many day-to-day responsibilities. But it also seems that when we find some time, it’s hard to even get started. We hope to find some time daily but often struggle with feelings of avoidance or resistance in our effort to pursue our interests. We might feel that if we get our chores out of the way or check a couple more things off the to-do list, then we’ll deserve to do something creative. But we seldom seem to get our break. We may have a stretch of a couple of free hours for ourselves one day, then have difficulty returning to continue or to finish our projects. We may be procrastinating, unable to begin or continue, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, yes, there are too many other things to do – we’ll never get them all done! Like many ‘responsible’ people, we may spend so much time taking care of everyone else that we don’t make time for ourselves. ‘Life happens’ and interferes, right? 

Well, actually, the difficulty might not be having so many things to do. Our struggles may be more INTERNAL, relating to our thoughts, our attitude, the way we look at the situation. WE are the ones who don’t decide to MAKE THE TIME, don’t make art a PRIORITY, and become discouraged, doubt ourselves, even self-sabotage our dreams. We all do it to some degree. We all deal with what author Steven Pressfield calls ‘resistance’, a tendency to sabotage ourselves when we attempt to improve our life (for example, through doing art, beginning a diet or an exercise program, writing a book, making New Year’s resolutions, etc.). Most people tend to pursue creative work only “ as a sideline”, when nothing else is pressing.

PROCRASTINATION may be the most common example of resistance to creative work. “I’ll begin that project tomorrow”, we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, when tomorrow arrives, there may be another obstacle, so we repeat, “I’ll get to it tomorrow.” Putting our creative dreams on hold can become a habit as we come up with one excuse after another! We become stuck, afraid to act on our creative passion. 

RATIONALIZATION and PERFECTIONISM may set in, making the situation worse. “My work probably won’t be good enough anyway. I don’t want to embarrass myself.” More excuses! So what if what you begin isn’t wonderful and perfect? What you’re attempting never even existed before you tried to bring it forth. You may have success, you may not.

What to do with this FEAR? How can we move beyond those fears and judgements enough to let ourselves create and to accept ourselves and our art? Give yourself a break! Be kind to yourself. Focus on the process of doing, not on the quality of the end product. We all doubt ourselves and fear that our work won’t be good enough. Accept your doubts and fears; don’t deny them, but take some ACTION in spite of your fears. 

Take action BEFORE you think you’re ready. (You may never feel ready!) DO it anyway. As Steven Pressfield suggests, “The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you – and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.”

So, make the decision to practice your creativity REGULARLY if you want to make progress. Begin. Start small, with what you have now (the space, time, money, equipment). Be determined to create the HABIT, build MOMENTUM. Some of your work may be terrific, some may be awful. So what! Sooner or later, with persistence, things start to happen. And you’ll feel all the better for doing it! It’s a practice, and it takes practice… Just don’t give up!

You might enjoy these other blog posts that relate to creativity: “Fostering Creativity.”, (9/24/2019), https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/09/24/fostering-creativity/, and “Creativity Can Be Learned!”, (1/8/2019), https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/01/08/creativity-can-be-learned/.

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