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When Mark tossed out the challenge of sending in our creative blocks, I hit the keyboard faster than a speed demon in a red wagon. I was determined. I was going to tell someone. Once and for all.
I have performance anxiety.
I know, I know, that’s a dreaded thing to have. Especially if you’re considered something of a blogosphere phenomena that churns out great content by the bucketful.
But there you have it – some days, I just can’t write. It’s not for lack of ideas. It’s not for lack of ability. It’s just performance anxiety, a very simple creative block that stops you from achieving more.
It goes like this: I sit down, determined to write The Most Brilliant Post Ever. And about 137 words or so into my work, I stop and stare at what I’ve done. I look at it and realize that what I have written is in fact The Worst Blog Post Ever.
That was not the plan.
Why do I think it’s The Worst Blog Post Ever? Well, let me tell you:
It’s not inspiring enough.
It’s not witty enough.
It’s not smart enough.
It’s not good enough.
It’s not knock-your-socks-off-rock-your-world-awesomesauce.
That wouldn’t be a problem in itself. The problem is that I’m absolutely positive rock-your-world quality is what my readers expect. (Some of them have actually told me that’s what they expect. They’re very helpful that way.)
This is part of the problem with our passions, our hobbies and our jobs – doing what we love to do every day is a long-term exercise that isn’t exactly sustainable in guaranteed quality.
We all have our moments and moods. We get tired or lose our inspiration. We doubt ourselves. We have a hard time thinking of something smart to say. We’re not always the most thoughtful homo sapiens spouting wisdom with every breath we take.
Every single one of us, especially the artists and talented people out there, has off days where we either don’t feel up to it, don’t feel like doing it or just don’t feel it at all.
But to get that rock-your-world kind of talent going on, you gotta feel it.
Solution: Stop the Show
Performance anxiety generally means that you feel stressed out because you have to do something in front of people. There may be official judges whose job it is to gauge how well you’ve performed. It might be a competition in which you have to beat out all other hopefuls (who certainly want to beat you). Or it may simply be that your audience judges you every time you step out to perform.
Whatever the reason, whatever the situation, there’s a guaranteed way to get through this: by not performing in the first place. No performance, no anxiety. Problem solved.
As I wrote to Mark, I didn’t always have this problem. I told him how the more popular my blog became, the harder it became to write. I could easily see for myself that my performance anxiety increased in relation to how much pressure to perform I felt I was under.
Impress 7 readers? No problem. 700? Can do. But 7,000? With more readers lining up every day?
Yeah. Blank page syndrome for sure.
So I ripped my eyes off the blank page. I quit trying. I said, “Screw it.” And then what did I do?
I wrote.
No, really. I couldn’t write for other people, but I could write for myself without any pressure at all. I’d work on some fiction, or I would pen off an email to a friend, or I’d answer a question in a forum or comment around the blogosphere. I could write website copy, or an article or an essay, if I wanted.
No problem. No sweat.
We All Did It Because We Loved It
This isn’t a post on how to cure your performance anxiety. Mark’s there for that, and he can help you far more than I can.
But this is a post on how much we screw ourselves up because we lose touch with the fact that we started doing this in the first place because we love doing it.
That’s the key – remembering that we started what we do for us, and not for anyone else. When each of us began – writers, designers, musicians, artists… we didn’t have anyone but ourselves. It was a private performance. We didn’t have readers yet. We didn’t have clients yet. We didn’t have fans yet, or traffic or customers or anything.
We had passion, and talent, and a need to do what we loved because we loved doing it. We had to do something with it or we’d burst.
I’m not cured of my performance anxiety yet, but I’m learning to love writing again. This post, for example, I wrote just for me. I didn’t think about how many people would read it, or where I would post it, or who would comment. I wrote it because Mark asked me to give a shot at the kind of performance that’s completely anxiety-free: the one you do for yourself.
It was easy. It was fun. And it absolutely flew by.
How About You?
Have you ever gotten jammed from performance anxiety? What did you do to get over it?
About the Author: Want to read more on how to overcome blogger problems that hold you back? Check out James Chartrand’s blog, Men with Pens, where you’ll find very little performance anxiety and a ton of great tips and advice to help you succeed.
James, I love the irony. When you write a blog, you’re allegedly writing for your readers. I feel a heavy responsibility to my readers, which jams me up on a regular basis. I don’t think it would matter how many readers there are.
I’m working on an ebook, which has become 10 times harder than any post. I announced to my partner just last night that I may have “cured” myself of my love of writing forever.
This is excellent advice. I am so glad you wrote this. It’s just what I need, when I need it.
Thanks, James.
I think what is hard as well is that you start out writing from your passion, and people like that, that’s why they tune in and keep reading.
But as your popularity grows you’re going to get some people who like some of what you do because there’s a buzz about you on the Internet and so your following grows.
Then you find yourself wondering how to please them, and please the people who liked you in the beginning, and then please potential people you would like to like you.
It’s hard to remove the idea of the audience when it is an integral part to our blogs and businesses.
I find myself writing the post / article web copy but promising myself I’m not going to do anything with it. It’s just a way to clean the pipes.
Sometimes it goes in the bin, but sometimes I can use it, because the pressure of pleasing people has been removed and I’ve found my own voice again.
Great post. 🙂
When I worked as a magazine editor in the early 1970s, we told contributors we didn’t care if they submitted their articles scribbled with crayon on a brown paper shopping bag. What counted was their ideas.
Similarly, in my blog I’m delighted when I have a great idea and absolutely undismayed if the first draft(s) come out like dog vomit. I mean, I absolutely don’t care. Why? Because I’ve been a full-time writer for 30-plus years, and I know how writing ‘works.”
To expect to be brilliant first shot out of the box is hubris, plain and simple. Writing is a craft; expectations of sudden, divine illumination are vacuous. We attract inspiration by the energy we put out. If we were cabinet makers, would we expect our work to come to us suddenly, as if dropped from a cloud? Hardly.
Bloggers can learn a lot from people who’ve spent years cranking out words for a living. The key is to develop a sense for good ideas, and an awareness of quality. The latter, we can acquire by reading good writing.
The rest is just plain work – energy expended over draft after draft after draft. P.G. Wodehouse, the great British humorist, made his writing look effortless; but other writers know better – Isaac Asimov and others considered Wodehouse the best writer of the 20th century. Wodehouse was an amazingly hard worker. There is no other way. There is no writer’s block, only a dearth of ideas and energy.
I can totally relate to the performance anxiety.
I’ve always written for myself, and the words just flow and ideas come forth.
But of late, I’ve been writing for my blog (with a growing readership) and I’ve been asked to write for magazines. All of sudden, the words aren’t coming and I’m questioning what the hell I’m doing.
The one thing that gives me solace is knowing that I’m not the only one this happens to. So I suppose it’s just normal, and something to just deal with.
Thanks for sharing your insecurities. It’s helped me!
Very timely for me. I’m just now making a major career change and planning to pursue music full time after never giving myself the opportunity to succeed for years.
I also get major performance anxiety when it comes to writing great songs. Writing music is such a personal endeavor, but it has to really speak to your audience as well.
I guess what I take from this is that, even though your audience expects awesome content, they also expect an extreme authenticity. Being authentic is what makes your content awesome and that’s what they really want.
This is a lovely, honest piece. I think it’s actually quite important in its simplicity. I’m making my way through the Lateral Action course and it’s amazing, to be sure, and incredibly important to start learning to be strategic in what and how we write and post and present to the world, but there is a danger in it too: we can lose sight of the very reasons we have chosen a creative career (it wasn’t for the money, speaking for myself anyway).
And even though it can be a considerably-more-than-full-time job trying to learn to do this ‘properly’, strategically, with a chance of finding success and recognition and all that good stuff which we’re all after (if not, why are you here?) – I think it is absolutely worth keeping a place for what I would term ‘Joyful Creativity’ – not strategic, not aimed at acheiving a particular result, solving a problem or providing a benefit or overcoming an objection, just creating because it Feels Good.
Thanks for reminding me of that today…
I’m with runbei.
From experience, the amount of discrete effort going into a piece has almost no correlation with it’s audience acceptance.
Which is why I sweat over every single article.
Because the sweat counts in the long term.
Performance anxiety… sometimes, not too often.
Wow. I had this very problem a couple weeks ago. I had a brand new article I was working on for my blog, and though I’d written nearly the entire book-length article, it became more important to me that I was posting teaser snippets to Twitpic than actually writing the article for it’s own sake.
And by the time I thought I was nearly done, I thought the article sucked. Had, in fact, gone TOO far in sensationalism. And that was the first time I’d ever felt that way.
I ended up scrapping the article because by then, reading it back to myself I felt like it was almost all hype and almost no substance. Ended up in a vortex of confusion for days after that, unable to write at all, let alone even consider rewriting on the topic of the original article.
Ultimately I didn’t revisit it. Instead, I let it die an excruciatingly painful death within my own mind. And I felt guilty. Both for having gone that route and for having sent out a bunch of teaser snippets. As if I had abused my relationship with my audience. Which led to me writing an actual apology article.
It was at that point when I made the commitment to get back to honoring the process and my readers.
The fact that your article hit a nerve with me actually helped because it let me know that I’m not unique when it comes to this stuff. And that there’s hope for me as well…
Wow, what great comments, everyone – thanks for sharing your thoughts!
@Stacey – Taylor mentioned last week that she actually separates types of writing to motivate herself. “Okay, this is the kind of writing I really want to do; this is bread-and-butter writing. Let’s do bread and butter first, then we can get to what I really want.” Bribes herself, she does.
@Amy – A lot of people tell me to just write whatever I want. That would be about akin to buying tickets to their favorite performer and him deciding to play the harp instead of the guitar. So, you have to find the middle balance between that – and enjoy it!
@Runbei – Good thoughts, and thanks for that. I think many people who haven’t tried blogging as a career choice often believe that it’s as simple as how you mentioned – several drafts, hard work, honing the craft. I wish it were, because I’d be rich by now 😉 Unfortunately, blogging is the racing derby of the horse world. Fast, sweaty, hard and full of people clamoring for more. Taking the time to hone a craft is a luxury we often can’t afford.
@Maria – What the hell you’re doing is seeing how far you can take it, just because you can and because you have the chance. Yeah? That sounds way cooler and funner to me than anything else. Enjoy it!
@Tyler – When I had a conversation with Kevin Parent (famous Quebec musician), he said that he often pays more attention to the awkward moment and looks for it. That awkward moment becomes something human that people relate to and it creates a bond.
@Tobias – Exactly. There’s strategy, tactics and planning, but when you get down on the battlefield, you have to remember that there’s a lot more that comes from deep within. You need to find that courage, bravery, and passion – and then start yellin’! 😉
@Dave – I’ve busted my butt over some posts that I thought were friggin’ awesome – they barely got a handful of comments. I wrote others in 15 minutes and tossed them up; the crowds went wild. There’s no way I can predict accurately what’ll happen with any post I write. (Which is probably why I don’t break my head over every single one of them…)
@Alan – You’re not unique nor alone. Just because most people don’t talk about their worries or issues doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Assume they do, assume someone’s been where you are – and remember they made it through. You will too!
Now go dig up that piece and revisit it. 1) for closure, and 2) because you cared enough to start writing it in the first place.
Uh oh… Realization time, here!
Maybe part of the reason I find it so hard to write my thesis (but not anything else like blog comments or twitter posts or writing for myself) is this whole performance anxiety thing.
I don’t have a large audience, but holy crap is it important to me!
I figure there will be just a handful of people reading my thesis (my advisor, the judging committee, my husband, a few friends, my mom and dad), but every one of them really wants to know what I’ve been doing in school for so long. So, of course, I want this thing to be slathered in awesomesauce.
Consequently, each paragraph takes hours to write, and feels like pulling teeth, despite the fact that I profess to love writing. I’m not very good at letting the first draft be awful, either, maybe because I’m worried that my advisor will ask to see what I’ve done at any time.
What I need is to write this damn thing for myself, in my own voice, as if I’m explaining to myself what’s going on. If only it was as easy to do as it is to say… 😉
This is what I needed to read. I’m a 23 yr old ceramic art student in Sweden, just started at a new school for my MA level degree and I am struggling with my own expectations of me versus what I believe the expectations are of me from my colleagues and teachers. It’s a completely dead-end way of approaching my studies, even though I should want to out-perform myself all the time it’s very hard to tackle it when the performance anxiety becomes almost choking. This recent week has been a complete bitch. New studio, new people, new level, new clay, new everything and no routine works wonders at creating self-doubt… I have this view of creative work and how it should be and it goes “Make what you like and make it well” but it’s not easy to hold on to all the time unfortunately. And when that happens, it’s great to read about how other people reflect and experience about this issue, which can be completely crippling. Tomorrow, I’ll be back in school, determined to follow your(and my own) example!
Very good information. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon).
I’ve saved as a favorite for later!