I used to think creativity was about discipline, sitting down, focusing on writing the script,
and trying until something inspirational appeared. It worked for a while until it didn’t.
There were moments when I faced a roadblock and felt unable to create anything. One afternoon, I was alone inside my quiet apartment, in the living room. It was the perfect moment, with no disturbance. Yet, not a single sentence came; just a blank page. I kept looking at the screen and moving the cursor as if movement or ideas were coming.
And when some words were about to come, they sounded stupid and didn’t make sense.
I was hard on myself, feeling like I was forcing myself to create.
Inside my head, after a long period of not typing a single word, and suddenly something came up, I’d think, “Is this any good?”
I thought I was lacking inspiration.
The Creativity Trap: Perfection Over Presence
Growing into adulthood, I always believed productivity and achievement equaled worth. Value was always measured in output. Our assumptions, shaped by our culture, childhood, and the system around us, conditioned me to value praise in school that came from good results, not the effort involved—just scores. Back from school, I had tuition, which felt like preparation to make fewer mistakes and score high on exams. So much of my life was preparing for the ‘real test’; if you studied hard and got good grades, then you received praise, and when you were praised, you felt safe. So, all the while, I was studying for the grade instead of exploring curiosity. And so, I carried the same mindset into every creative attempt. A blog post had to be very well written. Videos had to be so polished. I slowly started to doubt myself. Everything had to be measurable, useful, and performable. Everything had to prove something.
Why can’t I do this anymore?
Am I wasting my time?
It’s so hard to accept the answer.
It was uncomfortable because I didn’t feel safe making mistakes and being bad at it, always wanting to focus on perfection. Fearing nobody would be interested.
My screen remained empty, and my camera had been idle for long enough.
The Moment Compassion Walked In
I realised my inner critic didn’t help me to create better work because I was always unsatisfied whenever I tried. After a while, this made it harder for me to start creating.
It’s not easy to do something that lasts. Sometimes I felt like abandoning everything that I had started and just forgetting it. I used to worry about the outcome, as if writing were like taking exams.
I treated writing too seriously; it wasn’t fun anymore.
But one evening, after another unproductive day, I decided not to continue with my work and instead went for a walk. I realized that all this pressure I thought wasn’t helping was indeed the reason I wasn’t creating. This walk distanced me from my work and allowed me to get away from my pressure. I walked slowly and didn’t check my phone, or try to come up with ideas. I just listened to the wind, the meow of a cat, and the noise of the rain.
After 60 minutes of walking, that night I just journaled what I thought, not focusing on creating something that I felt satisfied with. I allowed myself to just write anything. No editing, no deleting, just letting what came to my mind flow onto the page. I wrote without any judgment or expectations. I gave myself the freedom to write without pressure, to express, explore, and mess up, and to treat myself with kindness, to be childlike and curious again.
From Inner Critic to Inner Coach
The shift in mindset didn’t happen overnight. Sometimes I still fall back into old patterns. I still overthink things, and there are days when I delete more sentences than I write.
1.Morning pages with no expectation
I write a few lines, writing freely whatever comes to me. I put aside incomplete sentences, not constrained by any word limit restrictions or expectations. The objective is not to force me to create, just to clear the noise, with no editing and nochecking from the beginning. It’s to get the flow going. I accept if it’s silly and not perfect. I stop measuring the progress of my work. It was slow, but it was also deeper.
2. Creative Walks
I stop and do not force myself to continue writing if I can’t. I allow myself to stop and rest. I walk with no music, no phone, no headphones, no goals, just my thoughts on something not related to my work or writing. Most often, ideas appear not because I am chasing them, but because I don’t force the ideas to come; my mind is relaxed and not actively trying to generate them, it just comes when I least expect them. I always have notes beside me to write things down, just in case.
3. Self-Kindesss Rituals
I realize that taking more interval rests or defocusing on other things brings me relief. This includes activities like simply focusing on walking and asking myself and others questions about gratitude. Furthermore, it’s important for me not to neglect the stress I experience with social media. What simple yet restorative practices bring you a sense of relief and calm amidst the pressures of creative work? I drink my favourite oat milk, and I put on some nice 80-90s music, reviving nostalgic memories that make me smile and happy. I treat myself a little better, like a friend to myself. I will figure things out later. It’s okay to have slow and unproductive days. The ideas will come back. I need to have more patience for myself.
4. Create for Myself
Not everything needs to be published. Some of my work lives in private folders. Photos are taken just for my memory. Journals are just for me. Not everything needs to be approved or validated. I talk to myself how I would talk to my 8-year-old self, remembering the curious person I used to be.
5. Resting Without Guilt
Creativity needs incubation: silence, daydreaming, walks without monitoring your step counts. I used to feel guilty about resting and sleeping when I couldn’t create something good. Resting should be part of the process of creating. I used to think resting was laziness because we have grown so used to rushing that we have forgotten how to create from the inside out. Take deep breaths, and allow myself to rest in between without guilt. Rest is not guilt; it’s fuel.
Final Reflection:
If you are feeling stuck and reading this far, I want to share this truth with you:
You don’t need to be hard on yourself if you ever feel you have to create something meaningful. It’s okay to be messy. You just need to show up with kindness.
When you are starting anything, you may not have any emotional support from anyone, be it your friends or colleagues, and you might be the only support that you can rely on. That’s why you need to remind yourself to be kind to yourself. You don’t need another tutorial or course; you need a friend who would sit beside you and hold your hand and say you are doing okay. You can be that friend to yourself now. And through writing this, to you reading now.
Perhaps you can ask yourself some of these questions
- What would you create if no one ever knew it?
- What would you do if you did not need to impress?
Our biggest enemy is ourselves. Learn to be kinder and enjoy the process.