Feel the Fear and Be Creative Anyway
By: Janz Is Writing
Tags: Procrastination, Anxiety, Journaling, Fear Of Failure, Creative Process

Five steps to make fear work for you

“Everybody experiences fear, but it’s how you respond to the fear that makes the difference.” — Dan Sullivan, The 4 C’s Formula

Here are five techniques that can help you stay creative even though you feel uncomfortable. They are all based on feeling your fear, understanding it, and then gradually reframing how you think about it. I’ve tried them in my own anxiety therapy when I suffered from panic attacks and writers’ block, and I use these tools with my coaching clients when they get stuck.

Step 1: Know your fear

“We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. It is true that when we begin anything new, resistances fly in our face. Now you have the opportunity to not run or be tossed away, but to look at them black and white on paper and see what their silly voices say.”― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Whenever you feel procrastination creeping in while you’re working on something new, don’t turn away. Turn towards it and listen. What are you afraid of? If you don’t give it some room, the fear or block will only get louder.

I have a quote above to my desk by Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chödrön:

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

When my coaching clients are stuck, I ask them to listen and journal about it, as recommended by business coach Gay Hendricks in The Big Leap, or creative Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. Take pen and paper and explore what underlying fears stand between you and your creativity. Finish these sentences with as many reasons as you can think of:

I can’t be successful because…

I cannot expand to my full potential because…

Make this an exhaustive list. How long is it? I get to 15–20 entries myself when I think about my book writing. For example, my fear is that no one wants to read my book — it’s all been said before.

Here’s what you need to know about your list: These are usually beliefs, not facts.

“None of these core negatives need be true. They come to us from our parents, our religion, our culture, and our fearful friends,” says Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Look at your list again. Try to find objective evidence for each one. Are your fears really a fact?

Step 2: Work with affirmations

Once you have deeply understood your fear, start reframing it. One way of doing that is to rewrite your negative statements into positive affirmations. For example, if you fear that publishing a book will show people that you’re a rubbish writer, your positive affirmation can be: “Publishing a book will show people that I managed to finish a whole book.” Or, “I’m a consistent writer, not a perfect writer.”

For over a year, I wrote the affirmation “I, Nicole, am a brilliant and prolific writer.” I wrote that 10 times every morning in my journal. It felt silly at first, but it gave me a sense of hope, optimism, and safety. Positive affirmations are not a magic bullet and it takes time. But it’s a simple, free way of reframing fear.

One of my current affirmations is this (since I had a relapse into panic attacks last year): “I accept anxiety as a direct way to listen to my body and inner wisdom.” Panic attacks are not the same as procrastinating on your book. But the principle is the same.

If your inner critic shouts at you while you’re writing these affirmations, and you feel embarrassed or silly, then you’re doing it right. Your inner critic wants to keep its job. So you do yours: Keep writing your affirmations.

Step 3: Invite your fear

Another tool is to invite fear to the table — but not let it take over completely.

For example, Elizabeth Gilbert recommends in Big Magic to accept that fear and creativity belong to each other: “Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome.” Gilbert makes space for her fear and invites it along on her writing journey. She even wrote a letter to fear:

“Dearest Fear: Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. I understand you’ll be joining us, because you always do. I acknowledge that you believe you have an important job to do in my life, and that you take your job seriously. Apparently your job is to induce complete panic whenever I’m about to do anything interesting — and, may I say, you are superb at your job. So by all means, keep doing your job, if you feel you must. But I will also be doing my job on this road trip, which is to work hard and stay focused.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Take pen and paper and write a letter to your fear. Adjust the letter to your situation. You might be an artist. You might be an entrepreneur. Create your personal letter to fear, take a deep breath, and let it sink in.

Stick the letter above your desk and read it every day.

Accepting that fear will accompany you on the ride is the most effective way of letting it go.

Step 4: Reframe fear as courage

It might help you to tell yourself that fear is a way to develop courage and new capabilities. If we always work within our comfort zone, we’ll never progress.

“You may not yet have the capability or confidence to pull it off, so when you go into action anyway and start moving toward the result, that takes courage. It doesn’t mean you feel good about it, but you’re going to persist until the new capability and confidence actually come into play,” explains business coach Dan Sullivan in The 4 C’s Formula.

Fear is a sign that you’re learning.

You’re courageous because you keep going. You can use this idea in your journaling when you feel procrastination and fear creeping in. Write about what your fears are, and write down what you’re learning at the moment, where you’re developing new capabilities. Acknowledge that, if you keep going with your project, you show immense courage.

Step 5: Make the mountain smaller

Reframing how you think about fear is complex and takes time. It’s a mindset shift. It won’t happen overnight. So, here’s a simple action you can take right now: make the mountain smaller.

Break down all your tasks into tiny steps and use micro goals. Micro goals are simple, concrete tasks that can be completed in 30 seconds or less. For example:

Go over to my desk and sit down.

Open my laptop.

Open the file I’m writing on.

Scroll down to the right section.

Write one word.

“It is daunting to think of finding time to write an entire novel, but it is not so daunting to think of finding time to write a paragraph, even a sentence,” says Julia Cameron in The Right to Write.

The same goes for new projects in your business.

And while you keep working away on small chunks of the mountain, you’ll gradually see that by working with the fear by your side you’re doing a hard thing, as Glennon Doyle says in Untamed.

But you're doing it.