For Twenty Minutes, Your Creativity Doesn't Have a Job

You have the notebook.

Or the paints. The fabric. The camera. The guitar. The half-written manuscript. The Cricut. The clay. The ridiculously expensive set of markers you absolutely needed because this weekend was going to be the weekend.

How do I know this? Because I have them. We all have them.

You were going to make something.

And then you didn’t.

Again.

How do I know this? Because I have about eleventy-five stacks of materials for projects I was going to make. But didn’t.

Maybe you’ve started telling yourself you’re blocked.

Maybe you’ve decided you’ve lost your creativity altogether.

Maybe you scroll past other people’s paintings, books, quilts, songs, photographs, pottery and perfectly curated studio spaces and wonder how everyone else seems to be creating while you can’t even open the damn notebook.

But I’m wondering if you’re not actually blocked.

I’m wondering if somewhere along the way, your creativity got a job.

And now it’s exhausted.

When Did Everything We Make Have to Do Something?

Think about the way you created when you were a kid.

You drew pictures because you wanted to draw pictures.

You made up stories that made absolutely no sense.

You sang songs nobody asked to hear.

You built things out of cardboard boxes.

You colored the grass purple because the purple crayon was right there and why the hell not?

Nobody asked about your target market.

Nobody suggested you develop a cohesive body of work.

You didn’t wonder whether the algorithm preferred purple grass.

You shrugged off your parents’ comments to “stop singing already”.

You certainly didn’t calculate whether your cardboard-box castle could become a scalable revenue stream.

You made things because making things was fun.

Then we grew up.

And somewhere along the way, creativity became another thing we were supposed to be good at.

Then social media came along and suddenly we weren’t just supposed to make things. We were supposed to show them.

Photograph them.

Post them.

Brand them.

Promote them.

Sell them.

Teach other people how to make them.

And my personal favorite - Monetize them.

And preferably film ourselves making them because apparently the algorithm would like that too.

No wonder some of us don’t feel creative anymore.

Our creativity has been working overtime.

You Probably Didn’t Run Out of Ideas

When people tell me they’re creatively stuck, I don’t usually believe they’ve run out of ideas.

Most creative people I know have the opposite problem.

There are ideas everywhere.

In notebooks.

On scraps of paper.

In the Notes app.

In screenshots.

On Pinterest boards.

In half-finished projects tucked into closets and drawers.

On Post-It notes in your purse or the car console.

The problem isn’t necessarily coming up with the idea.

It’s what happens approximately three seconds after the idea arrives.

That’s stupid.

Someone has already done that.

I’m not good enough to pull that off.

Who would read that?

Who would buy that?

What if nobody likes it?

What if everybody hates it?

And my personal favorite:

Who do you think you are?

The poor little idea barely gets through the door before we convene a committee meeting to determine whether it deserves to exist.

And here’s the really unfortunate part:

You’re the entire committee.

We reject our own work before anyone else gets the opportunity.

That’s not a shortage of creativity.

That’s a shortage of creative self-trust.

Comparison Changes the Question

There’s another thing happening that didn’t happen when we were making purple grass.

We can now see what everybody else is making.

All day long.

And not everybody else’s messy studio, rejected manuscript, crooked seam, terrible first draft or painting they threw in the trash.

We see the finished thing.

The published novel.

The sold-out collection.

The gorgeous quilt.

The perfect photograph.

The viral song.

The artist with 147,000 followers announcing that the new collection sold out in eleven minutes.

And then we look down at whatever we’re making and think:

Well, shit.

Comparison doesn’t just make us feel inadequate.

If we’re not careful, comparison teaches us to distrust our own taste.

The question slowly changes from:

What do I want to make?

to:

What should I make?

What sells?

What’s trending?

What gets engagement?

What will people like?

What fits my niche?

What’s on brand?

Those aren’t inherently bad questions. If you’re running a creative business, some of them are necessary questions.

But they shouldn’t always be the first question.

In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they should NEVER be the first question.

Sometimes the first question needs to be:

What sounds like fun?

Or:

What am I curious about?

Or maybe:

What idea won’t leave me alone?

Those questions lead somewhere different.

This last one probably the most important. What ideas keep coming back to you, time and time again. What ideas actually keep you up all night? What ideas show up when you’re in the middle creating something else, screaming “Hey you, Creator, look at me. Look at me. LOOK AT ME!”

Perfectionism Has Excellent PR

Before strategize on getting Unstuck, we need to talk about perfectionism.

Because perfectionism has somehow convinced us that it’s a virtue.

I’m just a perfectionist.

Sounds very responsible.

Very high-achieving.

Very committed to excellence.

Sometimes it is.

And sometimes perfectionism is fear wearing respectable clothes.

Because if I keep revising the first chapter, I never have to finish the book.

This one hit home for me. I have an amazing novel that’s been sitting in a drawer for over forty years because I have rewritten Chapter 1 about a gazillion times. That’s slightly more than eleventy-five, in case you were curious.

But there’s more.

If I keep adjusting the painting, I never have to hang it.

If I keep redesigning the product, I never have to list it for sale.

If I keep planning the project, I never have to find out whether I can actually make it.

An unfinished thing still has infinite potential.

A finished thing can be judged.

That’s terrifying.

So sometimes we stay stuck because stuck feels safer than finished.

But here’s the bargain creativity asks us to make:

You have to be willing to make things that aren’t as good as you imagined them.

That’s how you eventually make things that are.

Or Maybe You’re Just Tired

There’s another possibility that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough.

Maybe you aren’t afraid.

Maybe you aren’t procrastinating.

Maybe you aren’t lacking discipline.

Maybe you’re freaking tired.

You worked all day.

You answered emails.

You sat in traffic.

You made dinner.

You helped somebody with homework.

You took somebody to an appointment.

You handled the thing at work nobody else wanted to handle.

You paid bills.

You folded laundry.

You worried about people you love.

You carried approximately 937 tiny responsibilities around in your brain all day.

And now it’s 8:47 p.m. and somebody on Instagram is telling you that if you really cared about your dreams you’d get up at 5 a.m.

No.

Sometimes your creativity doesn’t need more discipline.

It needs rest.

There’s a difference between being creatively blocked and being creatively depleted.

Learning the difference may save you years of believing something is wrong with you when your brain is simply asking for a little room.

Nobody Is Coming to Certify You

Here’s another thing creative people spend an astonishing amount of time worrying about:

When am I allowed to call myself an artist?

Or a writer.

Or a musician.

Or a photographer.

Or a quilter.

Or a maker.

There appears to be some imaginary licensing board we think is going to review our application and determine whether we’ve produced enough work to use the title.

I regret to inform you that the Creative Licensing Board does not exist.

There is no Creative Bar Exam.

Nobody is arriving with a certificate that says:

Congratulations! You have now completed the required number of mediocre paintings and may officially identify as an Artist.

Do you paint?

You’re a painter.

Do you write?

You’re a writer.

Do you make music?

You’re a musician.

Do you quilt?

You’re a quilter.

Getting paid changes your business status.

It does not determine your creative identity.

And being a beginner doesn’t disqualify you.

It means you’re beginning.

Every person whose work you admire was once terrible at it.

They just kept going.

Truth! 100%. Don’t believe anything else.

Maybe We’re Asking the Wrong Questions

So much creative paralysis begins with questions we can’t possibly answer.

Am I good enough?

Good enough for what?

Will people like it?

Which people?

Can I sell it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Will this ever become something?

Who knows?

Those questions demand certainty before creativity has even had a chance to do its job.

Try different questions.

Instead of:

Am I good enough?

Ask:

Am I curious enough to keep going?

Instead of:

Will anyone like this?

Ask:

Do I want to see what this becomes?

Instead of:

Could I sell this?

Ask:

Would I still want to make it if nobody ever bought it?

Instead of:

What should I be creating?

Ask:

What won’t leave me alone?

As I alluded to earlier, that’s the question I particularly love.

Because some ideas do that.

They keep tapping you on the shoulder.

They follow you around.

You dismiss them and they come back.

You tell yourself they’re impractical and they don’t care.

You put them away and six months later they’re standing at the door again saying:

Hi. Remember me?

Pay attention to those ideas.

They may know something you don’t.

Your Twenty-Minute Permission Slip

So here’s what I want you to do.

Not tomorrow.

Not when you finish reorganizing your studio.

Not after you order the better markers.

Today.

Choose one thing you’ve wanted to make.

Not the business around the thing.

Not the Instagram post announcing the thing.

Not the website where you’ll eventually sell the thing.

Choose THE thing.

Set a timer for twenty minutes.

And make it badly.

Write the terrible paragraph.

Paint the ugly flower.

Sew the crooked seam.

Play the wrong chord.

Sketch the ridiculous idea.

Take the photograph.

Cut the fabric. (Even if it’s expensive, measure once, cut once).

Open the document.

For twenty minutes, you are not allowed to sell it.

You are not allowed to post it.

You are not allowed to optimize it.

You are not allowed to ask anyone whether it’s good.

You don’t need to decide whether it fits your brand.

You don’t even have to finish it.

For twenty minutes:

Your creativity doesn’t have a job.

It doesn’t have to earn money.

It doesn’t have to build an audience.

It doesn’t have to prove you’re talented.

It doesn’t have to become content.

It doesn’t have to justify the money you’ve spent on supplies.

It doesn’t have to become anything.

It just gets to play.

And maybe twenty minutes won’t change anything.

But maybe you’ll remember something.

Maybe you’ll remember what it felt like before every creative impulse came with a performance review.

Before you worried whether the purple grass was realistic.

Before you needed somebody else to tell you that what you made was worth making.

Here Is Your Permission

You don’t actually need permission to be creative.

But if you’ve been waiting for somebody to give it to you anyway, fine.

Here it is.

Make something unnecessary.

Make something imperfect.

Make something nobody asked for.

Make something that might never earn you a dime.

Make something because there’s a tiny voice inside you whispering:

I wonder what would happen if...

Follow that voice.

Twenty minutes.

No audience.

No algorithm.

No customer.

No judgment.

Just you and the thing that wants to exist.

Go make some damn magic.

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