10 Things Guaranteed To Kill Creative Energy

It’s fine to be proud of a creation but too much if it forces me to be static.

Anger has the remarkable ability to crowd out all other feelings and thoughts leaving nothing but bitterness. And there’s certainly no room for creativity.

Coveting someone else’s creativity does nothing to enhance mine.

The ultimate creativity killer. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and for hours I was consumed with what someone whom I greatly respect thought of me. As expected, all that fear was for naught as the person was not judging me as I imagined. It’s so easy to let our imaginations create false realities about others criticizing us for our self expression.

I firmly believe discipline is a cornerstone to creativity, not sitting around waiting for “the muse” or some similar nonsense to inspire some sort of creative firestorm. That can happen, but it’s more likely to happen when I sit down and do the work EVERY DAY. I’ve let that discipline slide this week.

This one is usually not a problem for me but I have caught myself berating my work a few times as if I was a loser. This is the self-embodiment of the fear of others judging us. And like those fears, negative self-judgment is a figment of our imaginations.

It seems all the great music, businesses, art, writing, and so many other creative endeavors were done by people in their 20s and 30s. I’m in my 40s now, and I cannot help but feel that time is passing me by. But of course, that’s bullshit, as I can point to countless examples of great creators in middle age and beyond (Henry Miller wrote Tropic of Cancer when he was 43, for example).

Creativity is the birth of something fresh, something never before experienced. Creativity cannot truly be tapped without a mind that is open to change, opposing ideas, or going places it doesn’t normally venture.

This one was tied to my negative self-talk. “I’m not good enough.” “I don’t have enough.” “I can’t go outside the bounds.” A freely creative mind can’t operate with this mindset. It has to believe with conviction that it has all that is required; that the world possesses all the resources required that I might need and that I can tap into them anytime I want.

Nothing kills creativity faster than insisting on perfection. On the first attempt, I should not be trying to craft the most engaging opening paragraph ever penned or starting to compose the beginning of the symphony only when I’ve thought of something as memorable as the opening to Beethoven’s Fifth. It’s never going to happen. Just start and correct course along the way.