List: Ways You May Be Afraid, from Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic
You’re Afraid:
You have no talent.
You’ll be rejected or criticised or ridiculed or misunderstood or-worst of all- ignored.
There’s no market for your creativity and therefore no point in pursuing it.
Somebody else already did it better.
Everybody else already did it better.
Somebody will steal your ideas, so it’s safer to keep them hidden forever in the dark.
Your work isn’t politically, emotionally, or artistically important enough to change anyone’s life.
Your dreams are embarrassing.
Someday you’ll look back on your creative endeavours as having been a giant wast of time, effort and money.
You don’t have the right kind of discipline.
You don’t have the right kind of work space, or financial freedom, or empty hours in which to focus on invention or exploration.
You don't have the right kind of training or degree.
You’re too fat (I don't know what this has to do with creativity, exactly, but experience has taught me that most of us are afraid we’re too fat, so let’s just put that on the anxiety list, for good measure.)
Of being exposed as a hack, or a fool, or a dilettante, or a narcissist.
Of upsetting your family with what you may reveal.
Of what your peers and coworkers will say if you express your personal truth aloud.
Of unleashing your innermost demons, and you really don’t want to encounter your innermost demons.
Your best work is behind you.
You never had any best work to begin with.
You neglected your creativity for so long that now you can never get it back.
You’re too old to start.
You’re too young to start.
Because something went well in your life once, so obviously nothing can ever go well again.
Because nothing as ever gone well in your life, so why bother trying?
Of being a one-hit wonder.
Of being a no-hit wonder.
