Beginning is the hardest part…to create something where there was once nothing. Any artist, of any medium, knows the feeling of anxiety that arises when you stare at the blank canvas or page. It stares back into the depths of your soul, taunting you to fill it.
Whether you are trying to start a new business or just trying to start that nearly overdue term paper, the feeling is the same. Fortunately, the strategies to overcome the anxiety and start creating are the same regardless of what it is that you are trying to create.
Step One – Understand the Upsides
Usually, we downplay the upsides to actually starting what we deeply want. We find it difficult to believe in the possibility of achievement. So, the first step to overcoming the anxiety of starting is to ask two simple questions… why are we doing this and what it will feel like to complete it?
Even if what you create is an absolute failure, will the fact that you tried give you a sense of accomplishment or deepen your learning? At the end-of-the day, that’s would still be a win (and that is worst case scenario).
And what if it succeeds? Will you be one step closer to achieving your goals, building a great life, and creating better work? How would this make you feel? Probably, alive – probably like there is hope, probably like your life matters.
ACTION TIME: DO THIS EXERCISE NOW
Write down the answers to these questions for the creative task you are struggling to begin:
- ‘What do I want to create or accomplish?’
- ‘What’s the worst that could happen if I try and fail?’
- ‘What is the best case scenario?’
- ‘How would this make me feel?’Close your eyes and imagine your best case scenario.
Feel it in your body, in your heart, breathe it in.
Step Two – Practice Non-Attachment to Results
What Other People Think is None of Your Business
Being able to see the upside to any outcome brings us to the second point which is non-attachment to results. You have to create like you just don’t care what happens.
Of course you want to do great work, that’s natural. But what happens after you create it and put down the pencil or the computer, how the world perceives it is not your problem.
There are too many factors at play and you will make yourself mad trying to rationalizing opinion. So do yourself a favor and just don’t. Deliberately choose not to care what other people think about your work. In the beginning, do it just for you.
Non-Attachment to Success = Complete Freedom
This same advise applies if your work is a raging success. Don’t be attached to that win, thinking you must be the new hotness. It will only make creating the next time that much harder.
Of course you want to continually improve. So, it’s important to reflect on your past work, but that’s a task only for you to do, not for other people. You know what you want to become so improve in light of that.
The act of creating anything should make you a better person, otherwise you are probably doing the wrong work for the wrong reasons. Doing the work and becoming a better person in the process is the aim, not the results.
ACTION TIME: DO THIS VISUALIZATION NOW
- Imagine again that best case scenario you saw in step 1 and when you have it firmly in mind, let it dissolve. See it wash away like a sand castle at the beach.
Step Three – Don’t Expect Perfection, Revise Towards It
Just Fucking Ship It
If you are just starting to overcome your fear to create, then don’t expect perfection straight away. Your only goal is to begin…to get words on the page, to get strokes on the pad, to get that first paying customer – whatever the most basic version of your end-point is.
There is magic in starting, in the flow that starts as a trickle and opens up the flood gates to more creativity. And what happens when creativity pours, but our shit sucks? We show gratitude because we are getting the raw resource we need to craft something with potential for perfection.
Michelangelo would re-draw a line a hundred times until it was just right, the first one was never good enough. So its crazy to think you will be any better.
Shit is the Raw Material of all Growth
It might be a painful start at the beginning, trying to work with the piddly shit that comes out, but stay disciplined and trek on. Eventually you will have accumulated the raw material of work that greatness can be forged from.
Now the real work begins – you’ll have to spend about five times the amount of time and energy on revising it, redoing it, reworking it into something you are proud of. It is in this stage of editing and revision when the soul of the work comes alive – so respect it and give it the time it deserves.
ACTION TIME: NOW GO AND DO THE WORK
- Set aside a 20min block of time today in isolation to put in the focused work you need to do. Write that article, create that presentation, build that marketing plan, whatever it is, just do it with full creative flow without stopping, without fear that what is coming out sucks. You can go longer than 20mins, but the goal is simply to have some raw work down to reflect and revise on.
- Give yourself a gestation period of no more than 24-hours and set aside another 1-hour time block for revising that 20mins of raw creative work.