In Which I Rage-Write About Writer’s Block Being a Real Thing

Please stop saying it doesn’t exist!

Special note: This was written after hearing a well-known and successful public creative say writer’s block doesn’t exist. I had an angry reaction to that opinion, and this essay was what came out. It’s full of strong feeling, and I’m publishing it as I wrote it because I think it makes an important statement. It is not meant to be some kind of hot take, nor is it meant to impugn on a personal level that specific person or other people who say stuff like this (that’s why I don’t name them). Ultimately I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are simply trying to help people when they say writer’s block isn’t real. And I’m sure that does help some people. But not me, and in this essay I tell you why. For an extended and more benevolent version of this essay, listen to my podcast episode on dealing with writer’s block.

Over the years I’ve heard a number of writers and other creatives deny the existence of writer’s block. I think it’s wild people would do this. It’s demonstrably false, or put another way, there’s a preponderance of evidence that it does exist: most writers have at one time or another experienced a block, even if it’s for a short period of time. So why do we still have people going on record saying shit like this? Let’s break it down.

First, a definition of writer’s block, because it’s widely misunderstood. A mistake people make is that it means you can’t write a word. More likely it manifests as a feeling of having to force the writing, feeling uninspired and finding no joy in it, and dreading having to do it. Eventually this will lead to being unable to write. I’ve experienced this in both short and longer bursts. If you learn to identify it early, you can manage your block so that its duration is shorter. The causes are usually our own fears and insecurities about our writing, but sometimes other factors are involved: mental or physical illness, exhaustion or burnout, time-management challenges. And sometimes it’s a sign that writing just isn’t your thing, or that you’re writing novels when you should be doing screenplays.

I’ve heard people say writer’s block isn’t real because its origins are often psychological: “Writer’s block doesn’t exist, it’s just your fears and insecurities getting in the way.” This is akin to saying mental health challenges don’t actually exist because they’re psychological. Writer’s block is often a mental health challenge (mine is of this type). And this kind of statement is also offensive to people who struggle with brain chemistry-related depression who are blocked. To the people saying this kind of thing: stop right now. Your mental health privilege needs to be checked.

You’ll also hear people who deny writer’s block say stuff like, “I don’t allow myself to get writer’s block.” Okay, good for you. Again, check your mental health (or other) privilege. Choose your words more wisely, have some compassion for those who struggle. Your personal reality doesn’t elide the truth of other people’s lived experiences.

I get it that many people who say writer’s block is a myth are trying to help. And it may help a minority. But mostly it sounds shockingly misguided and patronizing. And I think many people who say this kind of thing are actually getting a dopamine hit from it: it reminds them how well they’re doing with their own writing, how they’ve “conquered” their own fears and insecurities and “mastered” self-discipline. In a culture that sees hard work as a moral virtue (and writing regularly is hard work), they get to feel very good about themselves, even hold themselves up generously as an example of what “anyone” can do if they put their mind to it and simply refuse to allow writer’s block to happen.

If you are one of the majority of writers who struggles with blocks, please understand that it’s totally normal and it’s real. There’s no need to deny the existence of writer’s block in order to deal with it. In fact, accepting that it happens, that it isn’t an implication of moral weakness or inherent laziness, will help you move through these periods faster. It’s okay to feel insecure about your writing, to fear failure. If you are struggling with mental health issues that hold you back, you have my compassion and understanding: me too. Sometimes we just need a break, that’s the honest truth. I find that taking short periods away from writing every month or so helps me maintain my enthusiasm over time.

If you are experiencing a longer period of writer’s block, my deepest sympathies. After I finished my PhD, my burnout was so severe I couldn’t write much of anything for two years. I endeavored, I made strides, but I couldn’t write. To those of you who maintain writer’s block isn’t real or crow about how you don’t “allow” it to happen to you, here’s what that sounds like to me: an invalidation of those heartbreaking two years of my life, of the struggle I encountered finding my way back to writing, and of the challenges I still face in managing my mental health while pursuing my creative dreams. Do you really want to imply that I am delusional when I have writer’s block, that I’m experiencing some kind of hysteria, or that I am simply lazy, that I lack the character necessary to be a “real” writer? Please attempt some kindness and compassion. The world certainly needs more of it, and you sound like an asshole.

How to Judge the Value of Your Creative Work

How do you know if your work is any good?

This post is also a podcast episode!

When I was just starting up my blog and podcast, I’d have cold sweats and heart palpitations every time I hit the publish button. Okay, not gonna lie I still do sometimes. The question that looms large in your mind when you’re putting your work out in the world, regardless of whether you’re new at it or not, is, “How do I know if this is any good?” And while we’re asking, how do you know it’s good enough to dedicate time to producing it in the first place? Creative work requires a lot of time, time that in all likelihood you’ve taken away from something else. How do you justify that, unless you’re actually producing something of value?

Most creatives and artists cycle through extremes when it comes to their feelings about their work. One day they’re imagining all the accolades they’ll receive, the next they’re questioning all their life choices as they stare despondently at the crap they’ve just brought into the world. It’s notoriously difficult to accurately judge your own work. Nonetheless, it is possible to come to a stable assessment of it. I’m going to give you some realistic parameters of evaluation that are anchored in the nature of the creative process itself.

Why is it important to use the creative process as your basis of evaluation? Because if you try to judge your work based on either your own feelings about it or other people’s opinions, you will continue to be stuck in that cycle of extremes. While I do think it’s important to find value in your own work that’s rooted in your enjoyment of doing it, that’s not a good way to judge its value to the world. And relying on other people’s judgements is pure folly: a good review puts you on top of the world, a bad one sends you crashing down. It’s exhausting to live that way.

A much better way to judge your creative output is by your capacity to actually do the work. Producing creative work takes persistence and patience. That’s it. Your relative talent isn’t very important, because if you continue to do the work, your skills will increase as a byproduct of that process. You won’t even have to try that hard to improve: the human brain is wired to seek challenge and learning. As long as you continue to feel motivated by your work (learn how to maintain motivation in this post), improvement will happen.

The relative excellence of your work is a moving target. Because creative work is about process, the value of your output is found in its improvement over time, not how good it is in any given moment. You must have a long view when it comes to judging your work. It doesn’t matter how “good” any particular piece of it is; it’s in the regular accumulation of your work that its value is found.

Take for example Seth Godin, a well-known thought leader in matters of entrepreneurship and creativity. His work is of high value, at least based on traditional measures: he’s popular and he makes money. But Seth Godin isn’t saying anything other people couldn’t say. In fact, many other people are saying similar things. What Seth Godin does is put a lot of work out into the world without worrying too much about whether it’s “good”: currently he writes a blog post a day. He has ideas, and he writes about them and puts his words out there. He keeps doing (and shipping) his work.

I’m not saying that value equals fame and fortune. Most of us will never have either. Seth Godin is simply a well-known example of the value of process. In fact, on the very day I’m writing this his blog post is about the incremental improvement comprising process. I’m willing to bet that Seth Godin judges his own work primarily based on the fact that he did it yesterday, is doing it today, and will do it again tomorrow, and that it will evolve over time in accordance with what inspires him.

That’s creative process.

When you begin to see your work as an evolving body rather than discrete outputs, you’ll begin to find value in the creative process itself and your dedication to it. Your attachment to specific outcomes will lesson, and you’ll worry less about what other people think. Everything is experimentation, a work in progress. Don’t be too precious about your work. Just keep doing it.

Creative Success Really Does Come Down to Just These Two Things

The only things you need are persistence over time and patience.

Look, I get that we all define creative success in different ways. I define it almost exclusively on internal conditions: am I happy, satisfied, fulfilled by my creative activities? Do they feel meaningful not just to me but within the context of the wider world? If those conditions are met, I feel successful. Validation, money, etc. are just icing. Nice, but not necessary, and sometimes they even spoil the dessert (I don’t want brownies with icing, thanks very much).

Maybe you define it differently, and your way is totally valid if it’s working for you! But I bet regardless of your definition of success, one thing remains true: if you’re not actually doing your creative work and finishing projects, there is no success to be had.

This is where most people end up failing. Yes, most. For every person who finishes a novel and puts it out into the world, a hundred, and probably far more, have thought about writing a novel but didn’t, or made an outline but then never wrote it, or got through chapter four and abandoned the project, or even finished a rough first draft but then didn’t have the heart to dive into editing.

Sticking it out is the hardest part of creative success. And in fact it is the only truly necessary and sufficient ingredient. Talent is neither necessary nor sufficient, it’s really not. It helps, but what constitutes talent is relative and plenty of people of average talent succeed.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s involved in sticking it out. That “rule” about 10,000 hours of practice? The one that says you have to do something for that long to become an expert (whatever that means)? Toss that out the window. It can take a lifetime to amass that many hours, and not everyone has the capacity or desire to spend that much time on their art. Imagine spending 20 to 40 years getting your 10,000 hours (that’s spending between five to ten hours a week). Will you still want the same things at the end of that? Will you only then be ready to debut your precious art? That’s silly. Share your art now. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert, it doesn’t matter if you ever are.

There is one thing that the 10,000 hours rule does get right, though: if you dedicate yourself to achieving your 10,000 hours, you will most certainly manage to not only do your work (obviously), but probably finish lots of stuff.

The truth is that you only need two qualities to be creatively successful: persistence over time and patience. We tend to overvalue the first, undervalue the second. We know that we need to keep at it, this is ingrained in us through our cultural myths. Think The Little Engine That Could, or Slow and Steady Wins the Race. What we often don’t understand, the thing we trip up on, is the colossal, unbelievable, and frankly insane amount of patience that is needed to be a successful creative.

How long do you think it will take to finish your project? Double that and add six months. And it still may take longer. Not all projects are like this, but many are. And if you seek long-term success as a creative, you must essentially have never-ending patience, because the work never ends. And it’s always work, always effortful (though it’s also joyful if you accept that it’s always effortful work and learn persistence and patience). This is what the creative life is. It’s doing your work, continuing to do so, and practicing the patience of one who has deeply absorbed the lesson that it’s all process and journey, never arrival and destination.

Do you have what it takes? There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t. Maybe you prefer short-term gains, the feeling of progressive achievement, the world’s esteem. You may get those things from creative work, but if that is your aim, you will probably find yourself struggling to establish a creative practice that supports large projects. And that’s fine, because you should do what’s right for you. Just be clear on your own capacities and desires.

But if you do have what it takes, rest assured that truly the only things you need are persistence over time and patience. You can build these qualities into your creative practice, they can become what is sacred about it. You will find joy in your work, you will finish your projects, and you will see improvements in your skill over time. You will develop self-confidence and self-respect. And your success will take care of itself.

The Truth Is That the Creative Life Isn’t Very Exciting

It is a life defined by the act of fully inhabiting yourself.

It only took 20 years of adult life to work it out, but I can now say that I am living the creative life. What do I mean by that? I think it’s probably different for everyone, but for me, this is what that looks like: I dedicate a portion of each day to my creative work, and I try to the extent that I’m able to pass the rest of my time in ways that are conducive to fostering creative flow.

I didn’t always know there was such a thing as the creative life. As a writer, I saw life in terms of the dichotomy between successful writer vs. still trying to be one. And I was very much on the side of still trying, because I visualized success as having achieved publication. The life of a writer, I imagined, would feel more real and alive than my sad life as a wannabe. There would be events, inspiring friends, possibly travel and interviews involved! 

And possibly there would be, and certainly are for some writers. But I’ve jettisoned my old ideas of what success looks like; I now think being happy and creatively fulfilled is success. And now that I’ve found my happiness and fulfillment in the creative life, I have to laugh at such imaginings. Because the truth of the creative life is that at its heart it really is rather boring, at least viewed from the outside.

Here’s the main of it: I sit down and write today, then I do that same thing tomorrow, then I do that same thing the next day after, then I do that same thing the day after that…. And that’s it. That’s what it’s all about. Some days I come away from writing feeling awesome, but most days I just feel satisfied, not particularly excited. For every day I do feel on top of the world about my project(s), there are more days that I do not.

The creative life is about doing the same thing day after day with patience and persistence. It’s about iterated effort over time, and about understanding and accepting that that’s the sum total of the foundation of a creative life. Regardless of any successes you experience or don’t experience along the way, the creative life is constituted by the quiet act of dedicating yourself once again today to your work. 

There is absolutely no glamour about it.  

That, in fact, is what I love about it. The creative life is a humble thing, and therein lies its beauty. It is a life defined by the act of fully inhabiting yourself. It is what happens when your focus shifts from trying to fulfill external expectations, real or imagined, to the task of expressing your internal, lived experiences into the world in the way that suits your nature. This is what creative practice is about. Not the goals or singular achievements, but the iterated act of being yourself in the best way you know how.  

What Would Betty White Say?

It’s never too late to achieve your creative dreams.

I can’t emphasize this enough: it’s not too late for you. You’re turning 40 soon and still haven’t written that novel? Not too late. Turning 60 and still haven’t written it? Not too late. In your 70s and thinking to yourself, why bother now?

What would Betty White say? I think you know what she would say.

It’s not too late for you.

Here’s something I like to say: late bloomers bloom the brightest. Why? All kinds of reasons. You can probably think of a few yourself. I’m not going to list any here because my intention with this post is different. I’m here to tell you not only that being a late bloomer is awesome—better than being an early bloomer!—but also that we all have the capacity to be late bloomers, regardless of whether we already bloomed early.

That’s because what we all are is repeat bloomers. We are perennials, not annuals. We are meant to live out many iterations of blooming throughout the length of our stay here on earth. We excel at reinventing ourselves if we give ourselves permission to do that regardless of age.

You want to be a painter at 50? Go do that. Learn classical guitar? Do it. Make the rest of your life the brightest blooming part of it.

Never stop blooming.

No Time for Creative Practice? Learn to Listen to Your Energy Cues

Most of us have an energy problem, not a time problem

The major reason we don’t get around to our creative projects isn’t that we’re too busy. Most of us have the time somewhere in the day, even if it’s just twenty minutes. And that is absolutely enough daily time for a solid and rewarding creative practice. The problem is that when that twenty minutes shows up in our schedule, we either don’t notice, are too revved up to sit down and be creative on cue, or are too exhausted to do anything but collapse on the sofa and catch an episode of 30 Rock on Netflix. But by doing a little energy magic, we can open up more energetic space in our lives that we can fill with creative practice – and other stuff!

We need a framework to understand energy before we can start to work our magic, and this article in the Harvard Business Review provides a good one. It divides energy into four categories: physical, emotional, mental, and spirit-sustaining. The trick is to figure out what activities in these four categories give you energy rather than drain you. The best way to do this is to simply pay attention to the activities you are already doing throughout the day. Chances are you’re already working some energy magic without realizing it.

Physical energy is the one we tend to be most cognizant of in our health-obsessed culture. Often just that act of moving through the day is physically draining for most of us. Getting out of bed, going to work, doing chores…these activities are usually not generative in terms of physical energy. But exercise often is. Many people use exercise as a way of counterintuitively generating more energy. It may tire them out, but it also releases endorphins, which are both calming and energizing. Now, I don’t like exercise. But I do like talking walks. That counts! Maybe for you it’s gardening, yoga, jumping rope, or wiggling. Move your body in a way that renews you.

Emotional renewal usually comes in the form of interactions with others. For sensitive creative types, interactions can often be draining, but if you pay attention, you’ll find that there are certain types that give you a burst of energy. For me it’s often a simple, low-pressure exchange with a check-out person in a store. It’s brief, usually friendly, just a perfect type of interaction for me. The HBR article suggests practicing expressing appreciation for others, which I think is brilliant. It also points out that we often feel emotionally drained when we feel like victims of circumstance. Learning how to examine our assumptions objectively can help us move past that mindset and reconnect with our personal power.

Mental exhaustion is perhaps the most common type we deal with in our productivity-centered culture. The truth is we just don’t have as much capacity to focus and get stuff done as we think we do. In the course of the day we have one, maybe two 90-minute windows to concentrate on challenging tasks before we’re drained. This is called our ultradian rhythm, and understanding it can be life-changing. I’ll be writing a separate post on this in the near future, but to start working with this rhythm the first thing to understand is that pushing yourself past it results in rapidly depleting energy and quality of work. You can learn to recognize your own ultradian time period by paying attention to when you reach that point where you are having to really force yourself to concentrate. You may hit it sooner or later on any given day. That’s your natural stopping point. Give the task a rest and come back to it later, preferably the next day.

Spirit-sustaining energy is the one we often stumble on the most, and it’s the one most important to creative practice or any activity that’s closely connected to what we would call our heart or soul. When we feel our lives lack purpose and meaning (an extremely common affliction in our culture), we lack this energy and everything else gets harder. But here’s where us creative folks have a leg up: for us, creative practice can give our lives a feeling of purpose and meaning. It really can be that simple. We have a magical energy-generating engine inside of us: our urge to create. Uncovering it and keeping it running through creative practice can permeate all other areas of our lives with clarity and vitality.

If you learn to recognize your energy cues throughout each day, you can gradually make changes that will open up that energetic space you need for your creative work.

Divergent Thinkers Have an On Switch

Misfits exist for a reason.

I’ve spent much of my life feeling like I’m doing it wrong. It’s like other people know something I don’t: they get it, and whatever “it” is eludes me. Growing up, I noticed my brain seemed to work differently than it was supposed to. The first time I took a standardized test I failed, because the questions didn’t make sense. I couldn’t pick an answer from the multiple choices because in my head I was thinking of all the contingencies, hidden variables, and alternative possibilities inherent in the question. What was supposed to be a problem of logic appeared anything but to me. I didn’t realize at the time that this was simply a symptom of my highly imaginative, non-rational (intuitive) way of seeing the world. My logic isn’t based on rational cognition.

When you grow up feeling like you’re doing it wrong, like you may even be a bit stupid because you just can’t figure things out the way you’re supposed to, you start to wonder what your use is. What possible role can you play in society when you can’t understand the rules of the game? Maybe you allow your difference to be pathologized: there’s something wrong with you, clearly. It’s not developmental, exactly, but it could be psychological and emotional. Therapy and meds may help you be a normal person who can have a normal life. You look at the people around you living out their normal lives seemingly happily, or happily enough, and of course you think that’s what you should want.

Or maybe you consign yourself to your fate. For whatever reason you just weren’t born for this world or this time, it sucks and it’s unfair, but you have to accept your alienation because what choice do you have? This is who you are. Therapy and meds don’t make much of a difference because your difference is more fundamental than emotions or psychology, or even a chemical imbalance. It’s about who you are. But still, there’s that question. What is your use? Why are you like this, what purpose does it serve? Because you know you’re not alone. There are others out there like you, and there has to be a reason this type of person exists, some evolutionary advantage to being out of step, of not seeing things the way others do.

I think there is. Divergent thinking may not be valued during times when maintaining a status quo is seen as paramount (which is most of the time), and it may even be feared and rejected during those times, but when the status quo is experiencing a great upheaval, divergent thinking is exactly what we need. Times of turmoil, when old ways no longer function well or are being outright challenged, are times that need people who can see opportunity in chaos, who even thrive in such circumstances.

Something interesting happened to me when the Pandemic of 2020 hit. It was like I had an on switch inside of me that got flipped. Even though I experienced the worry and sadness I saw leveling those around me – and I was cognizant that I occupied a relatively privileged position of being able to avoid many direct and personal effects of the Pandemic – that year was the most creatively rich and fulfilling of my life thus far. It was as if the confusion and disquiet of crisis awoke in me some kind of constructive response that I’m still not sure I fully understand. I had a distinct feeling of “this is my time.” I can’t explain it, but there it is. I’ve spoken to others who had a similar reaction, so I know I’m not the only one.

I think this is the reason divergent thinkers exist. We play an important role in society at all times, but in particular it’s those liminal periods of uncertainty and ambiguity where we can shine. Where other people may react with fear and grief, we sense the possibilities and may even feel excited by them. And this is one of those times in history. Maybe the Pandemic didn’t hit your switch, but something else might. One thing that holds misfits back from recognizing our potential is that while we are usually aware of how we don’t see things the same way as others, we aren’t as aware of how we do see things. Often we can feel guilty about our true thoughts and feelings because they aren’t the "correct” ones.

You’re not doing it wrong. In fact, you may be doing it right. Wake up to your potential by learning the value of seeing things differently. And you may find that you’re not that different from the many other misfits out there, looking for their people!

Are You Afraid to Put Your Work Out There? This Will Help

Eight guidelines to help you get brave about putting your work out into the world.

Time and again the number one thing my coaching clients say holds them back from fulfilling their creative dreams is fear of putting their work out there in front of other people’s eyes. Fear of negative judgement, or worse, being totally ignored (this is a far more common outcome) can become a real creative block, and keep people from even starting a creative project. It can hold others back from finishing, because the thought of putting their work out into the world for consumption steals the joy from their private creative practice. The chasm between the subjective experience of creative practice and the objectification of your creative work in the public sphere can feel vast and terrifying.

I understand this fear because it held me back for many years. I experienced a lot of rejection in the early part of my writing career and it eventually wore me down until I was unable to write at all. When I started up again, I knew I would need to develop some better mental skills to help me deal with this fear of being seen and judged. I still struggle with putting my work out into the world, but I’ve come up with some guidelines that have helped me, that I share with clients and now am sharing with you.

1. In the beginning, it’s just hard. There’s really no getting around the fear and anxiety of taking those first steps of putting your work out there. But I promise, it gets easier, and the rest of the tips are meant to help with that.

2. Volume. When I started my blog, each post felt so precious because I felt like I had to make each perfect. This made me feel extra vulnerable. But after I had a bunch up, I stopped worrying so much that each one was excellent. If you are working on larger projects, like a book, consider joining a critique group where you can get feedback on small bits.

3. Consistency. What doing your creative work regularly helps with is realizing that not all your stuff has to be brilliant. I write a weekly blog post. Some weeks I’m on fire, others definitely not. I post regardless (mostly). Some of my blog posts are just “eh.” That’s okay. Same goes for my fiction.

4. Nothing is personal. The way people receive your work and what they think about it is 100% about them, and you have 0% control over it. Repeat this to yourself as much as necessary.

5. Be specific about the feedback you want! Asking for and receiving feedback deserves its own separate post, but in the beginning when you are putting your work out and need some encouragement and practice with hearing people’s responses to it, tell your friends exactly that! Ask them to tell you one thing about your work that they liked, that inspired them, that stood out, that made them think. Tell them you do not want any critiques or advice! Just positive, loving, encouraging words. And choose which friends you ask carefully. You know which friends are great at positive support, and which aren’t. Then, believe what they tell you.

6. Make sure you enjoy doing your creative work. If you enjoy your process and feel good about your work, that will go a long way toward insulating you against difficult feedback.

7. Take all feedback with a grain of salt. Again, people’s opinions on your work are 100% about them. Pick and choose what you listen to depending on context, the type of creative work you are doing, and ultimate goals. Be your own advocate, believe in yourself and your own judgement, and stand strong in your own truth.

It’s always hard to put yourself out there. But you can get better at it with practice. Don’t feel bad if you struggle with it! Us creatives are all in the same boat with this, and believe me when I say that we all feel similar fears, insecurities, and self-judgment. So here’s my final guideline:

8. Reach out to other creatives! Find people who aren’t afraid to talk about their struggles and difficult feelings, and share their journey with you. Knowing you’re not alone is one of the best ways find strength on your own journey. And you’re not alone, I promise.

On Belonging

If you want to feel you belong with others, first you must feel you belong to yourself.

I’ve recently joined Andy Mort as one of the facilitators of The Haven, his gentle community for deep thinkers and sensitive creatives, where I run a forum called “From Burnout to Book.” Writers of all kinds and at all stages of their own writing journey can find kind and compassionate encouragement there, and I invite you to join us. If you sign up to the Haven using my special link, you will get a free 45-minute consultation with me about your writing, so I can learn how to better support you in the forum. The Haven is a wonderful community and a true home for us gentle souls, and we’d love to have you there!

The Haven is built around a year-long contemplation of themes that change with the seasons, and in October we are reflecting on belonging (we just recorded a podcast episode about it that will be coming out soon, available here). Let me ask you a question: Do you feel like you belong, truly belong, anywhere?

I’m one of those people who’s never felt they belong. I have always had this deep-seated feeling that I don’t belong here, in the world. It mostly manifests as a sense that other people all know what they’re doing, they belong in their own lives, but I somehow don’t. It’s like an existential version of imposter syndrome. I can’t say where it comes from, though I have my suspicions it has its roots in being a shy, highly sensitive kid who often experienced rejection and was deeply hurt by it. Its origins don’t really matter to me, though – what interests me is how belonging, and not belonging, have resonated through my life, and how I see these things now, as an adult looking backward and forward from the middle stage of my life.

Being a misfit is a part of my sense of self (I’m an Enneagram 4, after all!). It’s something I value, but also something that has always been painful. I left the US at age 16 to go live abroad, because I did not feel I belonged in my home culture. I spent the majority of the next decade living in other countries, because not fitting into a culture where I was a foreigner was easier than not fitting into my own (and I genuinely love learning about other cultures and studying languages).

What I realized after a while, though, was that living overseas was in part an attempt to escape myself. For a time in a new place I was able to pretend I was a different person, exploring different ways of being in a new culture, but my self always caught up with me eventually. Usually around the one-year mark, if you want to get specific. Wherever I went, there I was.

It’s telling that I didn’t start to feel like I belonged somewhere until I started to feel like I belonged in myself. The sense of being rooted in myself, living the life I’m meant to live (whatever that means), is what brought me home, finally. I don’t mean physically: I’ve been back in my home culture for many years now. I’m referring to the feeling of having found my thing, and my people. And what brought me to this place, my home, as I see it, is accepting who and what I am. I’m a writer, a creative, a person who must live and be in that realm of creative energy and inspiration for the main of my time. Even if it means my life isn’t successful in a conventional sense. Even if it means I never make much money.

What does it feel like to belong? It feels safe, and unbounded by conditions. It feels like not having to change myself, or perform thoughts, feelings, or actions. You know you belong when you enter a space that was already holding you before you walked through the door. That’s how I feel in the Haven, and it’s how I feel in my own life. I have made space for myself, I am holding myself compassionately and with deep and unconditional support.    

So often we go about things in an inside-out way. If I belong with others, I’ll feel like I belong (to/in myself). If this equation isn’t working for you, try flipping it. If I feel like I belong (to/in myself), I’ll belong with others. I found my people when I became my own people. Focus on yourself, know who you are, do what pleases you. You may find that this is what turns the world toward you, and brings you to a place of greater belonging that has always already been holding space for you.

What We’re Missing in Our Conversations About Creative Entrepreneurship

Creative commitment is the missing ingredient.

It’s no secret I aspire to be a part of the creator economy. I’m a creative entrepreneur: I put out creative work (essays and a podcast) on a regular basis for public consumption, and I’m seeking to monetize my work through offering coaching, Patreon tiers, and hopefully soon a creative product such as a course or ebook. I’ve joined a large a growing group of people seeking to do that same thing. Competition is fierce, rewards are scarce, but that is perhaps the nature of all business ventures. That’s not my problem with the whole thing.

My problem is that I see two things getting lost in the conversation around creative entrepreneurship. The first is that the creative part of things usually gets subsumed by the entrepreneurship part. For people who are primarily business-oriented, this is fine. But for those of us who consider ourselves first and foremost creatives, we can find ourselves being distracted from what drives and motivates us: the joy of creativity, our lifeblood.

My second problem has to do with the way we talk about entrepreneurship. We are overly focused on the external manifestations of success (think social media followers, money), and of it happening on a relatively short timescale (think a year or two). For many of us, entrepreneurship is going to look like a long, hard road of frequent failures, a success sprinkled in here and there. Most of us will never “make it,” if making it is defined by riches and fame. Some of us may perhaps find modest success. Many of us will give up.

The interesting thing is that the first of these problems can provide us with a solution to the second. Committing to creativity can see us through. The first reason is that the long, hard road of entrepreneurship looks a lot like creative life, as anyone who has ever tried to publish their writing or get noticed for their music or art will tell you. I have decades of experience in not achieving my creative dreams behind me, and while that may seem heartbreaking on the face of it (it certainly felt that way often enough), it actually has been a great gift. I am now able to truly find joy in my own creative process regardless of outcome – and this is the holy grail of creative life.

Entrepreneurship is different, of course. The point is to generate revenue through providing value, so doing it for the love of it isn’t enough. But as a creative entrepreneur, I can use my hard-learned lessons in persistence and patience to keep me on the path through the inevitable failures and disappointments. I believe that success is often simply a function of sticking it out. You keep showing up, and eventually you’re the one in the room with the biggest body of work behind you and the greatest face recognition value.

But the most valuable tool in our kit is our capacity for creative commitment. By making our commitment to creativity rather than entrepreneurship, we can weather both that long, hard road of entrepreneurship and make it a little less frustrating for ourselves. Entrepreneurial success entails making money, and there are many ways this can play out over time in the life of a creative, many or most of which we can’t predict or control. But creative success entails feeling fulfilled by your creative work. It doesn’t rely on extrinsic measurements of value such as money or esteem. It is about how you feel about your work. It’s about that joy of creativity that drives and motivates you.

Commitment to creativity through thick and thin – through sickness and in health, in other words – may seem weird, because we don’t often think of creative work in those terms. Usually we think of creativity as serving some other goal, not as something that has value in and of itself. But for creatives, it is a way of life, of being in the world. Making a commitment to your creativity can be the essential ingredient that sees you through, because what it means in a practical sense is that you keep doing your creative work regardless of how the entrepreneurship part is going. On the entrepreneurship journey sometimes you’ll be up, and sometimes you’ll be down. Your balancing force is your creative commitment.          

Are You an Analyzer or a Synthesizer? Or, What Robots Can Tell Us About Creativity

What we can’t program into AI tells us a lot about ourselves.

I started my PhD on an interdisciplinary fellowship that required me, a social scientist, to be housed in a STEM lab with other fellowship students who were in fields such as ecological engineering and biochemistry. I’ll never forget what our faculty mentor said on our first day.

“We don’t need more analyzers,” he said. “We don’t need more people who study ever-smaller parts of the problem. We need synthesizers. People who see the bigger picture and cross disciplinary boundaries.”

The fellowship was meant to train a new generation of scholars who were not constrained by the traditional academic project of specialized analysis in disciplinary silos. Unfortunately, I realized early on that while academic institutions may pay lip service to the value of interdisciplinary scholarship, the way they and their peripheral institutions (i.e. funders, publishers) are structured makes it extremely difficult to do good interdisciplinary work.

The problem is that analytical work is just easier to value within our system. We know how to fit it into existing structures of knowledge, and it’s easy to calculate its value based on known parameters. Analytical methodologies are more predictable and easily systematized. A prime example is the scientific method. It looks the same regardless of your project.

We have a system built on analysis. So what about synthesis? What is it about the work of synthesis that makes it kind of like that guest you regret inviting to the party because they’re so perplexing and disconcerting? Here’s where robots come in.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has seen amazing advances in the last fifty years, and is currently a burgeoning and exciting field of inquiry. One of the challenges is figuring out how to program self-directed learning. AI robots are skilled at analytical tasks like deduction and modeling – both important in terms of learning based on expected outcomes. But they have made few strides in synthesis – which is a learning process that results in unexpected outcomes. Analysis is inward-looking and makes use of a set of constraints that guide the inquiry and outcome. Synthesis is outward-looking and requires both an open field of inquiry and open-ended outcomes. Analysis can deliver understanding of current conditions. Synthesis can deliver new solutions to current problems.*

What are AI robots missing? According to roboticist Hod Lipson, two essential types of intelligence: creativity and curiosity. We have not yet figured out how to program and operationalize these traits in AI. Partly this is because we don’t understand how they work, particularly creativity. Creativity is fundamentally an experimental and evolutionary process. Evolution proceeds through trial and error, and without a specified or predictable end goal. It is experimental in nature, and very much dependent on a complex interplay of constantly changing inputs and incremental outputs.

Curiosity is perhaps the greatest driver of creativity, besides the problem structure itself. Curiosity is an active drive that pushes us to pursue knowledge not only about the world right there in front of us, but about abstract unknowns. It is what enables us to not only learn what we need to know about our immediate environments in order to survive, but to imagine what lies beyond the horizon. It is at the core of human adaptability and our success as a species. And on an individual level, curiosity functions in a similar way. Curious people often fare better because they’re better at handling uncertainty, ambiguity, and novelty. They’re creative problem solvers.

The challenge of programming creativity and curiosity into AI underlines just how distinctive and exceptional these traits are in human beings. They are perhaps among our most valuable characteristics, and should be fostered at every turn. While it remains to be seen if we’ll figure out how to design AI robots that match humans in these capabilities, we can intentionally direct and grow our own creativity and curiosity. And may I suggest we combine those with another trait that thus far eludes AI: kindness.

*This and the following sections on AI and robots were inspired and informed by this paper by roboticist Hod Lipson and this interview with scientist Lex Fridman.

Movement as Part of Creative Practice

Physical activity is the flip side of the coin to creative work.

I’ve noticed that the most creative people I know have a physical activity that they regularly practice. I know musicians who run, writers who do yoga, visual artists who hike. I personally love to take walks. When I ask my coaching clients to describe how their creative practice fits into their life, many talk about their physical exercise as something that is at odds with their creative practice. Exercise is often a priority for them because of its physical and mental health benefits, but they don’t generally see it as directly related to their creative practice. I encourage them to see physical activity as a part of their creative practice, the flip side of the coin to doing dedicated creative work.

The reason so many creative people have a physical practice is that movement actually makes you more creative. Most people don’t consciously understand this connection. They may think that the elevated mood generated by exercise is conducive to getting their creative work done, because it’s easier to do stuff when you’re feeling good. But actually, this isn’t the reason exercise enhances your creativity. That endorphin high from exercise is a parallel benefit to enhanced creativity but is not causally related to it. The exercise itself is what makes you more creative.

Creatives through the ages have used physical activity as a component of their creative practice, even if they do not explicitly frame it as such. The American Transcendentalist writers Emerson and Thoreau were well-known for their lengthy nature walks. Thoreau walked, or “sauntered,” as he called it, for at least four hours a day. He identified it as a spiritual practice, but the way he saw spirituality is very much how we see creativity today: as an understanding of life that arises as we gaze through the lens of our inner selves at the outside world. The Transcendentalist perspective emerged in part as a reaction to the development of empirical science that posited that the world can only be known through our observations of the material realm.

The Transcendentalists understood that an intuitive experience of the world is essential to the flourishing of the creative soul. Thoreau intentionally used his sauntering habit as a way to harmonize his body and mind and thus elicit creative thinking. In fact, he did not believe that a mind could be properly inspired unless the body was, too*, making physical activity both advantageous for and integral to creative thought.

Ironically, empirical science now backs that up. Numerous studies have shown the benefits exercise has on creative thinking (this NYT article has a good summation of them). However, some types of physical activity do serve creativity better than others. It is not a coincidence that creatives generally prefer solitary or semi-solitary types of exercise: running, yoga, hiking. Team sports, where your mind is engaged with the other players around you and the strategy of the game, are not conducive to creative thought because they focus your mind too much on the outward circumstances of the game. The goal with a physical activity as part of your creativity practice is to soothe your mind into a state where its subconscious cognitive processes switch on. These are where creativity is born and develops. Thoreau saw this method of unfocused yet guided cognition as thinking with “carelessness.”†

I encourage you to see your physical activities as part of your creative practice. Even activities like gardening count. The only requirement is that they be the type of activity that doesn’t require too much active focus on your part, so that you can give your brain the space to activate its subconscious, intuitive thought processes. Creativity thrives when we expand our perception of what counts as creative work. It’s not just the moments we sit down and start doing our creative work. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes in our brains to make those moments of “performance” possible, and you will reap the benefits if you give your brain the space and time it needs to fully access its creative potential. Integrating your physical activities into your perception of what comprises creative practice is one way to do this.

*This and other insights related to Thoreau were inspired by David C. Smith, 1991, “Walking as Spiritual Discipline: Henry Thoreau and the Inward Journey” in Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 74:1/2, 129-140. You can find the article here. It is not open access, but you can sign up to the database (JSTOR) using your personal email and read up to 100 articles a month for free.

† Ibid., 134.

Creativity Requires a Different Kind of Productivity

Making anti-productivity work for you.

Can you define productivity? Go ahead, give it a try. Or if you’re anything like me, just keep reading to see where I’m going with this haha.

Most of us would probably define it something like “doing lots of work efficiently.” We may also specify that the work has to be of a certain quality. You’re not being productive if all you’re producing is crap. Another important aspect of productivity is that you have to have an idea beforehand of what kind of work you want to get done and what it’s going to look like when you finish. This is so you can measure whether or not you’ve been productive. Did you accomplish the goal, meet expectation? Productivity is as much about judging results as it is about making them.

So. Productivity = a combination of efficiency and output that is measurable. Do you apply standard productivity goals and measures to your creative practice? I’d be surprised if you don’t. Productivity is the framework we apply to almost all types of work. Do you have a goal to do your creative work on a daily basis? For a certain amount of time? Do you have a time deadline for completing your project? That’s using a standard productivity framework.

Does it work for you?

Does it really?

Do you feel like you’re tapping into your creative potential? Do you enjoy your creative process? Do you feel creatively fulfilled? If you do, then you are suited to standard rational models of productivity. If you don’t, you may want to consider an intuitive approach to productivity. A method I call anti-productivity.

Anti-productivity is how to be productive in the creative realm. And it’s pretty simple. First you toss out all those external goals and measures. No more word counts, hours spent, timelines. Now, it’s difficult to entirely get away from such things. It’s okay if you still have vague goals along these lines, especially at the beginning. Keep reminding yourself that for now you’re experimenting with not doing it that way. You will find as you grow in skill at anti-productivity, you’ll increasingly just not care about that stuff.

The second step is to link your work to how you feel. Pay attention to your feelings and how they manifest in your body not just when you’re doing your creative work, but when you think about it at other times of the day. When you have good feelings that make you feel expansive and excited inside, that’s what you want to focus in on and explore. If something feels bad, makes you tighten up and feel anxiety, that’s your body telling you it’s not the way. Do what feels good. Put what feels bad aside for now. Eventually you’ll get to a place where you’ll trust yourself and the signals your body sends you. Your creative practice will start feeling amazing. And then you’ll take off with it, and nothing will stop you.     

It probably seems like I’m just telling you how to develop intrinsic motivation vis-à-vis your creative practice, but that’s only part of it. Intrinsic motivation helps productivity across the board, not just in terms of creativity. What I’m getting at here is that creativity is productivity in its fullest sense. Standard productivity that centers on goals and measurements is a method that has extracted some components of human labor and drive to work and rationalized them for mass production. Real productivity is inherently creative, and creative work is inherently productive. They are one and the same. We just have an incomplete understanding of what productivity is in our society, one that is suited to capitalism but not to human nature.     

Creative productivity works very differently from standard (extracted) productivity. In fact it thrives on the very aspects that have been eliminated from our understanding of productivity. Procrastination, for example. A recent study has shown that moderate procrastination enhances creativity. So pay attention to your feelings and they tell you that today isn’t a great day to do your creative work. Indirect focus is another counterintuitive part of creative productivity. Standard productivity requires sustained and methodical focus. Creativity thrives when you don’t do that, because creative thought originates in our subconscious mind and requires an unfocused, mind-wandering type of cognition (the type that happens when you are daydreaming, for example).

I like calling this anti-productivity because that appeals to the rebel in me, and I think so much of the info out there about productivity gets it wrong. I like feeling like I’m being anti-establishment and going against the grain. But you may find that a different way of conceptualizing it works for you. Playing around with ideas and framing is part of the process. Ultimately having fun has been shown to be one of the best ways to enhance productivity, so try eliminating the unenjoyable parts of your creative practice and see where it leads! You may be surprised by the results.

Should Creativity Be Enjoyable (or Easy)?

The best thing I did for my creative practice was stop forcing it.

I’m going to answer that question straight off. I think creativity should be enjoyable, and while I won’t go so far as to say I think it should be easy, I don’t think it has to be hard. Not only that, I want creativity to be fun. Not all the time, not every single minute, but for the most part.

I didn’t used to think this way. I believed I was compelled to do creative work – in my case, writing – whether I enjoyed it or not because I’m a born writer. For years I didn’t actually enjoy writing very much. What I enjoyed was the idea of myself as a writer. But not the actual writing. Sometimes, on rare occasions, it would all come together and the writing would flow, but mostly I just felt relieved when a writing session was over. I’d been a “good” writer and done my work.

Things couldn’t be more different for me now. I enjoy writing – well, most of the time anyway! – I’m producing more than ever before, and most importantly, being creative brings me joy on a daily basis. I love the work of being creative now, not just the idea of it. I no longer have to rely on the concept of myself-as-writer to feel good about my writing. I feel good about it because I feel good doing it. So what changed for me?

I stopped trying so hard. I gave up the struggle. I realized that forcing things was working against me because it made writing joyless. Which made me not want to write. Which made me try to force things. And through all of this my writing became increasingly lifeless. It wasn’t creative work anymore, it was just work.

We live in a culture that glorifies struggle. If it’s not hard, it’s not worth it. Relationships, jobs, success…we expect everything to be really hard, and often it is. But I made an important discovery about myself. I don’t want things to be hard. I got tired, y’all. Burned out. I was ready for some easy. And if that meant I had to give up on trying to be a writer, so be it. Except something amazing happened. The less I forced myself, the more I felt drawn to writing. And the more I insisted it start to be easier, the easier it got. I realized that the thing that was making it so hard all the time was me. I had all these expectations and insecurities bound up in my creative process. Once I decided that writing wasn’t worth it anymore if it was going to feel bad, and became willing to give it up if I couldn’t find a way to enjoy it, that’s when it all changed for me. I realized it didn’t have to be hard. Challenging, sure, but challenges are fun. That’s different from hard.

When I started feeling that urge to start writing again, I knew I’d have to be careful or I’d be right back where I started. I’d burn out again. I decided that never again would I allow things to get that hard. If I am struggling to the point of having to force it, that’s a sign that I need to back off, take a new direction or take a break. I have relied on that rule since then to guide me. I never force things. Sometimes there’s resistance, and I usually work through that, but if I start to feel significant anxiety or despair, I stop right there. A hard stop. Even if it means I don’t write. Even if it means I get really lazy about it for a while.

The reason this works is because creativity originates in our intuitive, subconscious mind. And when you are forcing things, you are using your rational, conscious mind. The rational mind likes to take control of your process and keep control, and you forcing things is like its fuel. The more you force, the harder it gleefully grips the reins. Your intuitive mind is a bit of a wallflower and will gladly let your rational mind hog all the space and all your attention. Eventually your intuitive mind fades so far into the background that you cease to interact with it in any creatively constructive way. That’s creative burnout.

It’s okay to want things to not be so hard, even to want them to be easy, and to be more fun! That doesn’t mean you’re not a serious artist or serious about your craft. It actually means you understand how your brain works. It’s pretty simple. When you enjoy an activity, that activates the dopamine connection, which motivates you to continue doing it even when you encounter resistance. Think of an exercise routine. You don’t always want to do it, but when you do, you feel great. If that ceases to be true, if you have to force it, drag yourself through it, if it becomes too hard, eventually you’ll quit because human beings only possess so much willpower. Much less than we think.

Sometimes the answer really is to stop pushing ourselves so hard. Sometimes the answer is to take some time to do nothing. Sometimes it’s even learning how to waste time on purpose. Counterintuitive practices such as these can have the effect of freeing your intuitive, creative mind and setting you back on track to be more productive than ever before.

Did You Know That Flow Can Be Active OR Passive? Both Are Necessary For Creativity

Learning how to cultivate passive flow can help you enter an active flow state.

This blog post is now a podcast episode!

(This is a follow-on to last week’s post about using flow for discovery writing.)

If you are any kind of creative, chances are you’ve come across the concept of flow, and you may even actively cultivate flow for your creative work. Flow is a state where you become so immersed in an activity that you lose track of time, and your actions seem to emerge naturally and without extreme effort. Artists often describe this experience as the work doing itself: the words are writing themselves, the music is playing itself…. Athletes also experience flow states. When I enter the zone while skiing, for example, I feel like the mountain is skiing me, not the other way around. I liken it to the feeling of swimming with the current.

But creative work can often feel the other way around, like you’re swimming against the current. It can feel like pulling teeth. The flow state is coveted by creatives but it’s difficult to get into. It requires us to enter an intuitive space, and our rational mind has us in a stranglehold. It doesn’t relinquish control gladly. So how can you make it easier to get into that zone? You can start by cultivating what I call passive flow. This is a more low-key state of flow that can be maintained at all times. You may dip in and out of it, but it’s always there, and when you stray too far from it you can easily reestablish the connection. I liken the feeling of being in a passive flow state to floating with the current – or going with the flow.

Passive flow is a way of living. It’s a state of being and a feeling you get when you are able to stop struggling so much against the way things are and surrender to the flow of life. In the Chinese philosophy of Daoism, this is called wu wei. The characters that make up this word represent the concepts “without” or “lack” and “action.” Together they are best translated as “effortless action.” This is when you are living in harmony with the natural flow of things, and you encounter little resistance to your actions. You don’t waste energy trying to change or control things you can’t, and you accept the way things are and work with what you have already available to you. It’s an easy and pleasant way of living, one that keeps you largely immersed in the moment. It is a type of flow state, but one that is always there, because you’re living it.

Some people use meditation and mindfulness to cultivate passive flow, but that stuff has never worked for me. After years of failure, I made a discovery: passive flow is something we all naturally have, but the way we live our lives has taken us so far from it that we believe we’ve lost it. We haven’t, though. It’s like a stream that has so much junk thrown in that the water no longer seems to flow. But it still flows! It’s just gone underground. We need to clean out the streambed to encourage the water to flow there again.

We can do that by eliminating some of the stuff from our lives that clutter our streambed. We can’t get rid of all of it, but we can still do a decent cleanup job! The stuff that blocks our access to passive flow is anything that causes us to tighten up, feel debilitating anxiety, that makes our lives smaller, that creates trauma – you get the picture. It’s the stuff that makes you feel bad, that you have to force, that doing is like wading through a tar pit. It’s the stuff that causes you harm, that makes you hide, that makes you fearful. All of that takes you away from your flow. And if you have too much of that kind of stuff in your life, you’ll become totally blocked.

It can take time to eject that junk from your life. Some of it feels inescapable, some of it feels like stuff we have to do or put up with. And sometimes we hang on to the junk because we don’t know anything different, or it gives us a sense of identity. Sometimes we don’t want to deal with the grief of letting go. There are all kinds of reasons we hold tight. So start small. Is there something small in your life that drains your joy? Can you get rid of it or stop doing it, even if there are consequences? Try it. Stand strong in your decision, even if people complain or judge you, or you judge yourself. Tell yourself that you’re doing this for your mental health. Your mental health has to come first! Without that, you have nothing. You’ll start to see that things are still okay in your life without that thing - in fact, they’re probably better. Over time you’ll gain confidence and be able to tackle bigger and bigger things. Your sense of empowerment will grow. And who knows what will happen then! Your world will start to open up once you are living in the flow.

Of course most of us won’t ever reach a state of being in that passive flow state all the time – and honestly I’m not sure that should be the goal. I use it as a reference point for myself. I can tell when I’m straying too far from it, or filling it up with junk, because I get that tight, anxious, small feeling. That’s a signal that I need to pause, take a look at what’s causing that feeling, and work to ameliorate or eliminate it from my life. By cultivating passive flow like this, you’ll be better positioned to access an active flow state when you need to. For more on that, see this post. Even though it’s about writing, you can apply it to other creative endeavors. You can do this!

What the Heck Does a Dissertation on International Water Treaties Have to Do With Creative Identity?

Do you feel like a real creative or artist, or are you just trying to be one?

The other day I opened my dissertation file for the first time in three years. I haven’t looked at it since 2018! When I was done with it, I was done. And because I had decided not to continue on in academia, I haven’t had to think about it since. My dissertation was about international water politics, but believe it or not, it actually informs the work I do in my creative business. Before I get into that, though, here’s the title of my dissertation. Take a deep breath before you read this.

Treaties as Endogenous to State Interest: Politicization and Securitization of International Water Treaties in Bilateral Riparian Relationships.

LOL. Yeah, it’s a mouthful, and I’m sure you’re wondering how the heck that informs my current work. The subject matter doesn’t, but its theoretical underpinnings do. What I was really studying was how identity determines behavior and constitutes our subjective realities. The thread of commonality that runs through all my work, including my fiction, is this: that perception, and particularly how we perceive ourselves, creates our realities. In my dissertation research, I looked at how state identity plays out in international political conflict over water. In my current research on creativity, I’m interested in how changing our perspective even just a little can make us feel more creatively fulfilled, and thus constitute a creatively fulfilling life.

This is why when I work with clients, I focus first on how they see themselves vis-à-vis their creativity and their creative practice. I ask them: Do you see yourself as a artist/writer/musician/creative? Do you identify as a creative or artist, or is your creative work something you are just attempting? For example, if writing is your thing, do you feel like a writer, or are you just “trying” to be a writer (be honest)? Without fail, my clients always say they feel they don’t quite have the right to call themselves a creative or a writer or an artist or whatever it is they’re “trying” to be. Usually it’s because they haven’t had “success” with their art (exposure, money, etc.). Often it’s also because they don’t feel they’re doing enough – “real” artists spend more time on their creative work, are more dedicated, are recognized as real artists by their peers.

All these feelings are based on a certain perspective that it is other people who get to decide what you are worth, what the value of your work is, and who you are. Once other people decide they want to buy your work, you’ll be a real artist. Once other people see your success, you’ll finally be able to stop saying you’re “trying” to be an artist. You’ll have arrived.

Except, if you live your life from within this perspective, you’ll never arrive. Not really. Because the truth is, other people simply don’t have the power to determine who we are, no matter how much we want them to. No praise will ever be enough, no amount of money. You know this is true. It’s not that praise and money don’t matter – they do! But that stuff isn’t ever going to give you the feeling of being settled in yourself, living the life you’re meant to, living your purpose.

You know what will? Taking back your sovereignty over yourself. You decide who and what you are. And once you realize that you have absolute authority over your own identity, you understand that all those extrinsic measures of worth are arbitrary, constructed out of the human mind and burnished with a sheen that is supposed to look like truth. But it’s no more true than anything else. You’re not a real artist unless you make money off your work? Says who? Exactly. Only other humans who have no more right than you to decide that’s true. Or to put that another way, you have just as much right as anyone else to decide things about yourself and your work.

Do you want to know what makes you a real artist? Here’s the big secret. It’s so simple yet so profoundly life-altering when you begin to see it clearly. You’re a real artist if you feel like one. That is your truth: your feeling about yourself and your work. And here’s how you start getting that feeling. By deciding that you are already what you want to be. You’re already an artist, a writer, a musician, a creative. You have a right to decide that! And you don’t have to base it on any “evidence.” What will make it true is that you feel it’s true. I know that sounds very uncomfortable. Things aren’t true just because we decide they are! Well, sure, this isn’t going to work in many cases, nor should we believe that all truth is arbitrary. Obviously. But in this case, when it comes to your own creative identity, you can decide what your truth is.

Step into that identity, claim it as your own, wear it proudly, and your actions and behaviors will start to follow on that and constitute that reality in the world. I should know, after all I did a dissertation on this process! And I went through this process myself when I decided I’d had enough of feeling depressed about not fulfilling my creative potential. So take that first step, and say it out loud to the universe: I am a creative (artist, musician, writer…).

Creativity Isn’t Right-Brained (So You Can Stop Feeling Bad if You Are Left-Brained)

What neuroscience says about creativity.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve associated creativity with the right hemisphere of the brain. And this was always a problem for me because I’m language-oriented, and language is apparently left-brained. Whenever I struggled creatively, I secretly feared it’s because I’m not right-brained enough. Maybe you’ve worried about the same, particularly if you see yourself as being a logic-driven person. The idea that the left brain is somehow the logical, straight-laced side and the right is the free-flowing, creative side, while not entirely inaccurate, has become ingrained in popular understandings of where creativity comes from, and what kind of person gets to be called creative.

In the last decade or so neuroscience has evolved in how it views the brain. It has shifted from seeing brain functions as domain-specific, and now understands that it is the connectivity between brain areas that determine our functionalities. Cognitive processes are complex (shocked, I am!), with multiple regions working together to create different effects. It turns out creativity is both-sided. It relies on two types of cognition that must be used in an iterative sequence, and that use networks that span the brain: the central executive network (CEN) and the default mode network (DMN).*

The CEN is the cognitive process that gets activated when you are involved in an external goal-oriented task, whereas the DMN gets triggered when you are not involved in anything that requires that kind of focused attention in the outside world. The DMN is the “daydreaming” mode of the brain. The thing to understand about these two processes is that they are mutually exclusive. They do not operate at the same time. What this means is that if you are always or even predominantly goal-oriented, you are not giving your DMN enough time to process, and thus dampening or blocking your creativity. If there ever were evidence that compulsive goal setting is toxic to creativity, this is it.

For those of us who live in a task- and goal-oriented societies, such as the US, our CEN is usually well-developed and highly active. Hyperactive, even. We spend relatively little time intentionally encouraging our DMN. It does get activated regardless – any time you find yourself zoning out, thinking about the past or future, about other people’s emotions and motivations or your own, you are in DMN-land. But we don’t know how to use our DMN to our advantage, largely because we tend to view its associated thought process, i.e. daydreaming, meandering thoughts, and rumination, negatively. But they are essential to the creativity, in combination with the task-directed thought processes associated with CEN.

In order to be useful to creativity, the mental wandering of the DMN state must be somewhat directed. A free-for-all going on in there may be useful for other purposes (general relaxation, or just for fun), but for creativity, you must begin in the CEN and create a goal. However – and this is very important – the goal needs to be vague and broad, i.e. diffuse. So for example, lets say I want to write a novel. You’d be tempted to say the goal is “finish novel.” This is too specific. A diffuse set of related goals is better: write regularly, get to know characters better, have fun, learn stuff, etc. The reason diffuse goals are better is that one, they give you more targets to hit, and two, they give your brain more to work with. This is where the DMN shines.

Once you have your diffuse goal(s), creativity is divided into two parts that iteratively follow on each other. The first is CEN-related: you sit down and do your creative work. You write, or brainstorm, or play your music, whatever. The next part is DMN-related: you involve yourself in other activities that do not require you to explicitly focus on completing tasks. Passive enjoyment of something aesthetic is a great way to do this, like music, art, or TV shows that give you space to let your mind wander (ever feel compelled to zone out by binge watching mindless TV after arduous cognitive tasks? Yep, that’s your DMN making its needs known!). Other activities that are somewhat rote, like walking, gardening, or cleaning could also work. What you’re looking for is semi-boredom. You don’t want to be totally zonked, just relaxed. Importantly, don’t try to actively think about your creative project. Just let things percolate.

Guess what comes next? Yes! More CEN, task-oriented creative work. And so on and so forth. As you get better at going back and forth and learn to trust the DMN time more, you may find that you have more flashes of inspiration during your down time. At the very least, you’ll start to feel more creatively fulfilled once you realize that your creative work is part of a larger experience of life, and that your whole life, including your zone-out time, can be part of your creative process. You will begin to feel the benefits of this back-and-forth practice once you understand how it works and intentionally incorporate it into your life, because it naturally facilitates creativity. So give it a try!

* Information for this post comes from Elkhonon Goldberg, Creativity, Oxford University Press: 2018.