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Fear has a tendency to suffocate creativity. You grow older and quit dancing because you might look stupid. You quit singing because somewhere along the line, you started thinking your voice was bad and you’re too afraid to keep singing. You quit observing and wondering because you’re afraid of being unproductive.
I see this with my college students. Each year, I have each member of my new cohort create a sketchnote and students will get up and leave the room. They’ll put their hands over their work. They’ll rush through it and stuff it under their notebook. When I ask the class about it, the overwhelming answer is “I’m not an artist.”
The truth is, everyone is an artist, even if we aren’t particularly adept at sketching. But too often, we learn to hide this side of ourselves because of fear. Maybe it’s a moment of shame when someone teases you about your art. Or maybe you start comparing your work to others and decide that only a select few can be “real artists.” But whatever the cause, the underlying mechanism is fear. Fear that you’re not any good. Fear that you’re wasting your time. Fear of being found out.
Courage is a critical component of every part of the creative process — courage to pursue an idea, courage to make, courage to keep revising even when you’re scared it won’t get better, and ultimately courage to send your art off to the world. Launching your work is an act of vulnerability. Each time you share what you’ve created, you’re setting yourself up for judgment. This vulnerability increases even more when you’ve spent hours on a project and invested your emotional energy into it.
