week 19: the worst creative block is thinking you aren't good enough
Creative careers demand confidence, so what happens if you lose it?
This week, I faced the worst creative block of my entire 6 years as a copywriter.
There was no singular catalyst for this block. There was no single piece of feedback, no specific assignment that failed to spark my creativity.
Truthfully, it had nothing to do with losing creativity and inspiration. What I lost for a moment was my confidence.
Confidence is the worst thing you can lose as a creative. It is debilitating.
D- Doing: Discovering the biggest obstacle to creativity is self-confidence.
There is a healthy level of delusion you need to possess to make a career out of your creativity.
A little ‘fake it until you make it’ mentality can help you transform a blank page into a first draft.
After the first draft, the skills and experience you’ve acquired, edit, refine, and create something worth submitting to your client.
When confidence is lacking, it's not the experience and skills that suffer; it’s the delusional part. The part that says, ‘you can do this because it comes naturally to you, and because you're good at it’.
You start to question why anyone would want you to do this anyway. And what happens when they realize they don’t want you anymore? Then what?
I- Interested in commiserating with other creatives.
Crying on the phone to my sister (a creative who has made an impressive career off her creativity), I found someone who could truly empathize with what I was going through.
Like anything else, you need to know you're not alone.
My sister, a Design Director (more on that to come next week), completely understood what I meant when I tearfully said that the worst block is the feeling of being depleted of all your confidence.
We’ve both experienced different types of creative blocks:
When inspiration is low, we both opt for a walk outside.
When motivation is low, we both opt for a work session at our favorite coffee shop with a matcha and a pastry.
When confidence is low, we both opt for a cry.
G- Getting through it by getting over it.
If I had to pinpoint what got me to the other side of the creative brief I had due this week, I would say it was simply that I had to.
Due dates are a powerful motivator to get over it.
I would also admit that calling my sister and crying it out was essential to the creative process.
The advice she gave me was simple. “Get it done and turn it in.”
And she was right. Not every piece of creative work is going to flow from your brain to your fingertips without friction.
S- Suggesting that we share the dark side of creative jobs, of freelance work, of being your own boss.
As cathartic as that phone call was, this is an exercise of catharsis too.
In a society that favors glorifying creative work and romanticizing working for yourself, I hope I can provide a dose of realism.
Sometimes working as a freelance creative can feel so isolating. I have copywriters I look up to, but few whom I know personally, and with whom I can commiserate.
When you don’t have an office, you don’t have an office bestie to share the good, the bad, and the ugly with. Office gossip and co-workers commiserating are what keep the economy running.