Understanding Creative Resistance: Why Our Negative Thoughts Aren’t Always What They Seem

As a creative person, no doubt you’re familiar with your own finely honed versions of classic statements of self-doubt like: “Who do I think I am, I have no talent”, and “I have nothing valuable to say”.

We all have our personal “favourites”, that ironically seem to actually increase in volume and rise up more strongly when we’re being MORE creative and productive.

These thoughts and phrases that clatter around our consciousness appear at first glance to be nothing other than entirely negative. But with a little deeper investigation we can see they may actually be motivated by a positive intention.

A core belief of coaching is that behind every thought and action there is a positive intention. Every thought and action can be traced back to some positive need or aim.

Here are some of the most common negative thoughts around creativity and some examples of what the positive intentions behind them may be.

Negative thoughts and positive intentions

1. Negative Thought: “Who do I think I am? I have no talent.”

Positive Intention: “I’m scared of trying new projects because I might not be as good as I thought. I’m trying to protect myself from disappointment. Or I might be far better than I thought! What would happen THEN? I’m just trying to protect myself from being scared and
overwhelmed.”

2. Negative Thought: “I’m fickle and undisciplined, I can never make a choice and commit to and start work on a project.”

Positive Intention: “I’m scared of choosing the wrong project and wasting weeks or months of time. I want to be as creative as possible and create the greatest work I’m capable of. I want to choose the right project so I can honour my creative potential as fully as possible.”

3. Negative Thought: “I don’t have enough experience. It’s too late to learn and develop more now, I should’ve started years ago.”

Positive Intention: “If I don’t start anything then I can’t fail at anything. I’m protecting myself from that possible disappointment.”

4. Negative Thought: “I have nothing valuable to say or contribute with my creative work.”

Positive Intention: “What if people love my work and want to see more? I’ll have to produce more and more and won’t be able to keep up with the demand and feel totally overwhelmed. I’m just protecting myself from the stress that might bring.”

5. Negative Thought: “No-one will want to see/hear/experience my work, what’s the point of me submitting any to people who can bring me to a wider audience?”

Positive Intention: “If I don’t offer any of my work I can’t be told it’s not what they’re looking for. I’m saving myself the pain of rejection. Or what if people love my work. Then they’ll ask for more, I won’t be able to just create to order and the pressure will cause me to stop creating altogether. I’m protecting my creativity this way.”

Notice any common themes?

As you can see, there are some common patterns that many negative thoughts can be traced back to, mainly motivated by protecting ourselves from pain, rejection and stress.

What’s also common to these is that they’re all possible future situations that may never happen anyway.

Try some gentle inquiry on one or two of your own negative thoughts and uncover the positive motive behind them. Notice any familiar patterns and themes that develop.

Once you gain a better understanding of your resistance you’ll be able to know better what you’re working with and begin to find ways you can accept its presence and STILL be consistently creative.

One final comment: Remember that creative resistance is totally naturally and experienced by EVERYONE who creates. And it’s true that often the closer we get to the work that’s most important to us, the stronger the resistance seems. So don’t feel you’re alone or some
kind of freak!

Acknowledging this resistance and understanding the part it plays in our creative lives is the first step to overcoming it. What are you going to do today to begin to understand yours?

:: Share Your Experience ::

What kind of creative resistance do you experience in your mind? Which of the above examples do you most relate to? How can you use this idea to understand the intention behind your resistance in a deeper way?

I'd love to hear your comments, just click on the comments link below.

The Experimental Sandbox – New Ways to Free Your Creativity

Brian Wilson, after creating what many consider the finest pop album of its time – Pet Sounds - famously went through a period of composing the follow up album – Smile – sitting at his piano in a sandbox in his living room. He claimed it aided his creativity because it replicated the feel of being at the beach and “created a mood that was magic”.

He also gave some of his musicians vegetables to play, recorded songs in an empty swimming pool and instructed the symphony orchestra to wear toy firefighter’s helmets. But those are all ideas for another article!

Back to the sandbox then. By creating a set of surroundings we find inspiring and comforting - a few metaphorical walls around us, edges that define a safe boundary for us, and familiar objects - we feel able to be more free, and experiment more with our creativity.

There are at least two elements at work in this kind of situation:

First Element: The Safety and Security to Relax

Imagine taking out a new possible love interest for the first time. Then trying to enjoy a steak meal sat in the middle of a pit of hungry lions.

How relaxing would that be? You and your companion attempting to enjoy your meal and get to know each other with a pack of snarling and starving carnivores circling you, saliva dripping from their razor sharp teeth? Probably not the greatest option for a romantic dinner date…

It’s the same for our creativity. By creating an environment that’s comfortable and safe and eliminates some of the external threats and obstacles to our creativity, somewhere where we’re out of the “public gaze” and won’t be critically shot down with every movement we make, we give ourselves a much greater chance and opportunity to produce interesting and rewarding work.

As well as somewhere safe, adjusting the small details of our surroundings – for example, creating a mood by altering the lighting, having motivating and inspiring words and images on the walls, sitting in a favourite comfortable chair – all just by their presence are conducive to greater creativity.

So by doing some of the above, we give our romantic date (in this case a date with our own creative projects) the best chance of being as enjoyable and fruitful as possible.

Second Element: Reducing Options Increases Focus

The second powerful “Sandbox” element is that by reducing our options, we actually become more focused and give our ingenuity and creative invention the green light to work overtime.

For example, imagine you were given the opportunity to be a classical composer for a day. The 100+ players of the London Symphony Orchestra are at your command, ready and willing to put your most amazing musical creation to life. It’s now up to you to simply create a piece of music and tell them what to play.

Where would you start?! Would you first consider the theme of the piece, the story and emotion behind the music? Or would you start by defining the length and structure of the piece, its sections, phrases and movements?

Maybe you’d begin with a melody or note sequence and build outwards from there? Or would you start with the string section of the orchestra, compose the part they’ll be playing and then add the woodwind, brass, percussion and other sections layer by layer?

The options are mind boggling, and the majority of us in this situation would be completely overwhelmed and most likely end up creating nothing at all. Yet this is often exactly the same situation we put ourselves in with our own creative work.

By working in our “Sandbox” and defining parameters – edges and limits within which we’ll work - we can eliminate dead ends, exercise our creative muscles and begin to focus on more specific ideas and solutions.

In the orchestra example, this is the equivalent of making the choice, say, to compose a 5 minute movement based on our feelings after the end of long love affair of our youth, starting with a simple 5 note melody and using the 8 lead players of the string section only.

Already these defining parameters give our creativity something to focus on, get its teeth into, and begin generating ideas around.

Without this framework, our possible options are huge and so too therefore becomes the pressure to choose where to begin and how to progress.

How can you create your own Sandbox?

The benefits of this idea are obvious, so much so that we can often easily overlook them.

So think right now about how you can apply the benefits of the sandbox in your creative life.

How can you incorporate the two elements described above – a safe, secure environment and a vastly reduced and focused set of options - to help you increase YOUR creativity?

:: Share Your Experience ::

How do you relate to the experiences and examples above? How does
it affect your creativity? What ideas have you tried like the sandbox
that have worked for you?

I'd love to hear your comments, just click on the comments link below.