Reducing anxiety in your creative life

Listening to a podcast by Eric Maisel this morning, I was struck by a statement he made that the act of choosing almost always provokes anxiety. His example was choosing a bagel over oatmeal and all of our mental ideas about which is healthier, more fattening, etc. I resonated both with the example and the idea of choosing as anxiety-provoker and I thought about how much anxiety there is around choosing to write or do other creative endeavors.

When we think about sitting down to write, to choose to do that, anxiety gets provoked in many of us. Is this the best use of my time? Is it a frivolous use of my time? What if I don't produce anything good? What if I don't have any ideas? Something potentially quite pleasurable becomes a source of tremendous discomfort.

This anxiety gets eliminated if you write every day. If you have a commitment to sit down and write something, there is no choosing, hence no anxiety. There may still be judgement about what you write, but there isn't any anxiety about doing it. You just do it.

So consider whether a solid commitment and practice of writing or other creative endeavor might reduce anxiety for you.