179: 6 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Creativity

 

In this episode, learn the sneaky (or not so sneaky!) ways you might be sabotaging your creativity. 

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6 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Creativity

Hello. Welcome back to your big creative life podcast. I cannot believe it's May, when this episode is going to come out. That's, that's, it'll be May. That's crazy. I'm a couple weeks behind. It's mid April. As I'm recording this my phone. I think my phone only has enough battery to record one podcast episode. I try to batch them like I'll do a couple at a time, but and I record the video for YouTube on my phone, because I just we had the social media episodes come out a couple weeks ago, and honestly, some of my biggest suggestions for creating content are just like making it so effortless and easy, and that is me with YouTube and the podcast. It's just like I recorded it on my phone. I do minimal editing, and I pop it up there, and that's how I'm able to do it. But I think I only have one I think I only have enough battery for one episode, so we'll try to get through this one, and hopefully the phone doesn't die.

 

You would think, after years of doing the podcast like and recording it at my co working space, I would know to bring a charger, but I never do. Okay, so we're gonna talk about sabotaging your creativity in this episode. And it's, it's something that I've been thinking about as it relates to, I guess the inspiration for this episode was because I thinking a lot about how much I'm on my phone, generally, but also like when I'm with my daughter. My daughter, Audrey, is 18 months, and I don't like the way that I feel when I have to look at my phone and I'm with her, she goes to daycare during the week, and so I don't see her during the work day, and I just feel like we get minimal time together during the week. And I don't want to be, like, looking at social media when I'm, you know, playing with her after dinner, like, I just, I don't need to be on my phone as much as I am. I'm so addicted to it, it's ridiculous.

 

And so I've been thinking a lot about like, or I guess, just trying to be more mindful of that overall and as it relates to like when I'm spending time with my daughter. But then also it because I've been paying more attention to that. I've noticed I've just been more aware of how consuming content specifically can interfere with my ability to create content, to write and to just have the mental energy to want to do those things. So I was like, Okay, I think we need to talk about this in an episode, because this is, this is huge, and this is also something that I hear from clients, like I hear from coaching clients about just like feeling burned out and not having the energy to want to write or create or whatever. And so I think this is something that a lot of us are struggling with.

 

So the six ways we're gonna talk about six ways you're sabotaging your creativity, and number one is what I just mentioned with scrolling and having just consuming too much content, having too much input coming into your brain in the form of listening to podcasts, audio books, watching YouTube, scrolling on Tiktok or Instagram, and consuming a lot of content that way, and doing it mindlessly, like just numbing out and not even paying attention to what you're consuming. All of these things going into our brain. I think we can't ignore the fact that these can have serious impacts on not just our output in terms of our writing or something like creating content, but also how we feel. I didn't ask me anything on Instagram recently about social media content creation, and someone asked, like, do you set limits around the content that you consume because you're you create content? And it was such a good question.

 

And my answer was, you know, not really. This is something I've tried to do in the past, where I had on my screen time app. I even had apps, like, I downloaded an app once that blocks social media apps after you hit a time limit, and I had my screen time thing on Apple on my iphone do the same thing and like, I don't know, it's just it never quite worked, because I do have to be on social media a little bit because of work, because of my business, responding to comments, engaging with people, posting content, editing content, responding to inquiry. Sometimes people will reach out about working together, like in an Instagram DM or something. So there's, there's some part of my just like, day to day work activities where I have to be on social media. So it just didn't work. And now. What I try to do is I just pay attention to how I'm feeling when I'm scrolling.

 

If I find that it's been 30 or 45, minutes an hour of just my Lucy scrolling, Tiktok, and I feel there's always a tipping point, like I feel worse, or I feel like just completely numb and on autopilot, and I don't even I look up at the you know, clock, or look at my time on my phone, and I'm like, Oh my god. I can't believe how much time has passed. When it gets to that point, I stop, because I don't like that feeling. I don't like that feeling, and especially when my emotional state gets worse, like sometimes I'm in a good mood, I go on social media. I have I enjoy scrolling the first like 510 minutes, and then it starts to veer over into Oh, my content needs to be more like this. Or, why did these people have so many followers? Or, like, what's the deal with this? I hope social media isn't doesn't change and evolve to go this direction, because I don't like this is tick tock gonna get banned?

 

Oh, my content needs to have more view, like, it's just a spiral, and then I don't feel like creating content when I'm in that spiral, when I'm in that space of comparison and like, feeling bad about myself or just numb. I don't want to post, I don't want to create content, and it's so much harder for my brain to think of things to post, or to just like how to word things when I'm in that mental state. And I think that's true of a lot of us. What I talk about, I talked about content creation that example specifically, but I think it's true of writing as well. Like, if I'm in a phase of consuming a lot of content, consuming a lot of stuff, and then I try to sit down and write, it just feels hard. And maybe you've had that experience too. And so I don't want to lecture about this, because I'm still very much dealing with this and wrestling with my own screen time and how addicted I am to my phone and the amount of content I consume.

 

But I just think this is something that we have to be mindful of as creatives, because there's definitely a link. I think we can all agree, and it gets harder and harder to access our own voice when we are so preoccupied with other voices in our head. And this can happen, actually for me, even when I'm like, if I think about before I really started editing and working on a lot of client manuscripts, when I was reading a lot, and I was reading stuff that I considered very just good writing, like the stories that I really enjoyed, I thought the authors were really talented in terms from like a craft perspective, sometimes that showed up in me thinking that my own writing was just absolute hot garbage because it wasn't as good. I'm putting that in quotes as the stuff I was reading. And also it was like, why bother? I don't know.

 

So I think there can not to the same extent as consuming content online, but I do think this can happen sometimes with reading, where, if you're reading a lot and you're reading in your genre, like some people don't like to do that because they feel like it impacts their writing voice. So that's something you're going to have to decide for yourself or or kind of pay attention to. If you feel like that does impact your creativity and maybe not, maybe not for you. Maybe you can read four books a week, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't impact your creativity at all. But I'll just present that as an option, as something for you to do a gut check about to see if that you think that that is impacting your creative output in any way. The next thing we touched on a little bit. But this deserves its own thing, because it's important comparison of your insides to someone's outsides.

 

I talked about this with content where, like, I scroll and I'm like, Oh, wow, this content creator over here, like, has such an amazing esthetic life. Like, I could never my contents never gonna be like that. And then I feel some some type of way, some type of negative feeling about that. Or, oh, this person has, like, you know, such an engaged community. They get tons of views. Like, they're so much better at creating content than I am, blah, blah and, and what we have to remember is, anytime that we're consuming content in social media, you are seeing a snippet of someone's life, and you also have no idea what's going on in that person, internally, their thoughts, their feelings, etc. You don't know how they're feeling. It's so easy for us to just compare how we're feeling internally with someone else's exterior, and that's a fruitless exercise, because, again, we just never know what people are dealing with people can can present an image of success and confidence and like their life is magical and beautiful and wonderful, but be dealing with some really dark shit, and you just wouldn't know it. Dealing with some dark shit, and you you wouldn't know it.

 

And then I think this is also true. Of comparing someone's final product to your first attempt at something. I mean, if we think about writing, how many times have we as writers looked at our first draft of something that we maybe think is hot garbage, and we compare it to a published book that has been through, God knows how many rounds of revision and editors and whatever. And it's like you can't compare those two things either. You don't know what that author went through. You don't know that the struggle, the struggles that they went through, the mindset, stuff that they had to overcome, the imposter syndrome, the self doubt that they were dealing with, and also just how many rounds of editing they had to do. That first draft of that book could have looked completely different. It could have been an equally terrible dumpster fire and just been completely garbage, like we just don't know. S

 

o I think the comparison trap can make a lot of us feel like, what's the point? What's the point of me even creating and putting my creative workout into the world, because so and so is doing it so much more, you know, so much they're doing it effortlessly and better than I ever could. But just, just don't get caught up in that comparison trap. It's it's not worth it, and it's not real. Number three, trying to come up with something 100% original. Okay, if you're a new writer and you were coming up with a book idea, trying to come up with something, but you're like, Oh, well, I can't write about this because there's so many books that do that. Or I can't use this trope because it's a trope, and there are, like, 1000s of books that deal with that thing. Or I can't have my protagonist be this way because or my magic system can't be this way because XYZ. So many books do that. There are basically no new ideas anymore in fiction, or very few.

 

 Anyways, if you are doing something very experimental that is pushing the boundaries of fiction, then sure maybe there's something completely new and unique that you're doing. There might be a certain plot device or a way that you're you're writing that is unique, but like, really, y'all, we're writing about stuff that we've all seen before, what's new and unique is the fact that you are writing it and you are putting your own unique spin on it. I always think about this when we talk about unique, original book ideas. My very first agent that I queried, I queried her because, well, a number of reasons, but one of the reasons I queried her, and something I called out in my query letter, is she had something on her website about what she was looking for, and it was like something to the effect of books that present something we've all seen in a new way. And my first book that got me her, that helped me sign with her, was a book about different generations of women, family dynamics and alcoholism.

 

Like there are millions of books probably that deal with those themes. And so I was like, you know, I this concept of this book is not 100% original, but my spin on it is my characters are how I've approached this, I think is unique and worth looking at. So, yeah, I think, I think the creative process and brainstorming and plotting, if you want to plot your book and figure out what happens before you start writing, I think all of that comes becomes so much easier when you just let go of this pursuit for something that has never been written about before, because you're probably not going to find it and you your time is better served, coming up with the best possible book that you can and exploring topics that you want to explore, creating a main character that you want to create, while being mindful, yes, also of not just copying and pasting other things that you've read into your book.

 

I want to make that clear here. But if you're writing about themes that have been written about before, guess what? So is everyone else. It's okay so that can feel restrictive when you were like, Nope, I can't write about this thing because it's written been written about before. When you try to force yourself into a box that can really stifle your creativity, next up is perfection slash judgment. We are often our own worst critics, and if you're a new writer, this might be the first opportunity once you actually start writing. This might be the first opportunity that you are having to meet your own inner critic, which is that voice that tells you that your writing is garbage. You're never going to amount to anything. Why bother? There's so many books already out there about this thing, blah, blah, blah, whatever your voice tells you that's your inner critic and that can that can sabotage your. Or writing efforts that can sabotage your creativity, all of that.

 

So that judgment that we place upon ourselves, especially for a first draft, the way that I talk about writing is I, I recommend new writers specifically just work on getting the first draft out first before you go back to edit, before you go back to polish your sentences and make changes and tweak things, just try to get the first draft out as quickly as you can before you go back. So anyways, yeah, just that, that judgment that we have, and also perfection. So when I first started writing, I knew I wanted to write a book. I had this idea. This was a story that dealt with the three generations of women and family dynamics and everything. I started writing the book without really having any understanding of how to write a book. And I would sit on my couch, and I would have my laptop in my lap, and I would write before work.

 

And what I was doing when I was writing is I was trying to make my sentences as good as they could possibly be as I was writing, which meant sometimes I would pause mid sentence and stare off into space and try to think of the exact perfect word or at like adjective or verb or whatever I could have the character doing. And that would take me, like, a couple of minutes to do that, and I would try different things, and I would delete and then I would say, Well, what if I phrased the sentence this way, like it was so slow, y'all, I would sit there for 45 minutes and I would get like, 150 words written, which is still progress, like I was writing a book. I was doing it, but it was mind numbingly slow, and it was also really soul crushing, because I would look at this and think, How the hell am I going to write a book? It's going to take me 15 years to write a book at this speed, like I can't keep doing this.

 

 And so that's what I mean about the perfection piece of it is to just just let it be rough. And also when you get to the editing phase, let's say you're listening to this and your first draft is done and you're going back to polish those sentences and edit your book and make sure that everything is where it needs to be. Make sure that your characters are solid. You have enough conflict, the plots solid. All those things we are never going to reach perfection as authors, especially if it's your first book, there's there's just no way. And this is something that I had to kind of realize when I was editing my first book before I wanted to start querying. First time around, I knew I wanted to query, and I had edited my book, I felt like it was solid, but I just was like, well, I could change this thing, and I could change this and I quickly realized that I was going to be stuck in an editing spiral and editing loop for like, years, if I let myself, because I wasn't making any big changes to the book. At that point, I was only changing little, tiny things that didn't make the story better. They just made the story different.

 

And so I was like, Okay, I think we just have to get to that point as writers where we just release it. We've edited the book as much as we possibly can, we've made it as good as we possibly can. It's not perfect, but we know that it's not going to be. And then I think at some point you just have to be like, All right, I'm releasing it, and the same thing is true. Oh my gosh. The same thing is true with any creative work. Like, if you think about art, if you think about, oh, content, this is huge. Oh my god. If you're a new content creator, and you feel the urge to go back and edit or to re record your video 16 times so that you get it just right before you post it. I want you to just release that shit. Okay, you have to get comfortable posting things before they're perfect and stop striving for perfection, because it's it's not gonna happen. The next way that you're sabotaging your creativity is focusing on the perfect, optimal environment.

 

How many times as writers, have we been like, Oh, I just I need to get a new laptop and that will really help me write better, or I need to get one of those devices that doesn't connect to the internet. It's just a keyboard and a little screen, like a tiny, one inch screen, where you can see what you're typing. I need to get one of those things, so I'll those things, so I'll save up for that, and then once I get that, then I can write. Or, oh, I need to have my home office set up perfectly. Like, it's not esthetic right now. It's really boring. I can't focus in there. I can't concentrate. The lighting is too harsh. I need to fix this stuff. Or, Oh, I only have 10 minutes before I have to get the kids up and we have to get ready for school. Like, I can't. I can't possibly write in my bedroom for 10 minutes. I can't. I need to wait until I have an hour to devote to it. How many times have we said shit like that, or some variation of it, whatever it is for you, I just I laugh at myself the stuff that I have said to myself about why I can't possibly write, or how I will be so much more productive.

 

My writing will be so much better once XYZ happens. And here's, here's the truth that that's all, that's all bullshit. I mean, other than small, minor adjustments, like, if you're trying to write in a coffee shop, that's really loud and obnoxious, the people around you are speaking really loudly. It's crazy. And you're someone who does your best writing in silence. Sure, maybe there's a change you can make, other than minor adjustments like that. We've got to let go of perfection in terms of our environment, and this is something that I had to kind of realize for myself when my daughter was born, and I was a new mom, and I was, like, navigating the newborn months, or even, honestly, the whole first year. Okay, I did not try to write the first, I don't know, at least six months, probably more than that, like I just didn't even I gave myself permission, like I knew it wasn't gonna happen, and I didn't really have any desire to either.

 

That's the thing I if I had wanted to, I would have, but I just didn't. And so I do my best writing when, like first thing in the morning, that's just always been my time of day. And when I had a newborn, like I was sleep deprived, or not even, not even a newborn, even when she was, like six months old, like I she was still getting up once in the night. I was sleep deprived. I would have to get her ready when she started going to daycare, and I was trying to get everything managed. I was trying to breastfeed in the morning, like I was doing all of this stuff that just made it impossible for me to write unless I got up at 5am and did a sprint then, and I wasn't willing to do that because I wanted sleep. I prioritize sleep more, and so I just had to accept that like this perfect environment that I've created in my mind where I have a luxurious morning and I meditate and I stretch and I work out and I write like that is not the season of life that I was in in that first year.

 

And so I had to just let that go. And I think a lot of us can, can really get honest with ourselves about like, if we're putting too much weight and placing, yeah, just expecting that everything has to be perfect before we can write, instead of thinking, Well, what we really should be asking is like, How can I fit writing into my life as it is right now? Meaning, is there 10 minutes that you can find where you're writing on your phone? Can you dictate in the car on the way to daycare or school drop off? Can you take 30 minutes on your lunch break and bring your personal laptop to your office and shut the door and write for 30 minutes, like figuring out creative ways to make it work, even if it doesn't match the ideal that you've created in your mind. Because so many of us romanticize writing.

 

We... Oh, I mean, I've even had this thought, like, I want to go on a writing retreat so badly I've done. I did, like, two nights in a hotel by myself, and that was not so great because I was also, like, seven months pregnant and really uncomfortable. But I've never done a writing retreat where you go away somewhere for four or five days or a week or two weeks or whatever, and it's like in some fun location, and you're with other writers, and you just write. It's all you have to do. I would love to do that, but that's just not financially possible for me right now. I don't really feel comfortable being away from my daughter that long, like I just I'm not again. It's just not the season of life that I'm in someday, it's on my bucket list. I would love to do it, and actually, I've even thought about hosting my own writing retreat. I looked into it for this fall, but I think I might do it in 2026 instead doing like a long weekend somewhere.

 

So it's like a three night thing, going into the mountains, the Appalachian mountains somewhere, maybe like North Carolina, getting a big house or a cabin and having, I don't know. Anyways, I do think that would be really fun. That's kind of a side note. So yeah, it can be really easy to romanticize writing and to think that like, Oh, if only I had this thing, if only I had uninterrupted time, if only I had a new laptop, if only I could go on a writing retreat. But you've got to figure out how to make writing fit into your life as it currently is, and like doing what you can, that's that's really what any of us can do if we want to make writing a priority. And maybe writing isn't a priority for you right now, and that's okay, too.

 

The last way that you're sabotaging your creativity is burnout and creativity, but also in life, this is a pretty obvious one, like if you are physically sick, if you are extremely depressed, if you have a job where you work 100 hours a week and you are completely mentally and physically exhausted from that job, it's going to be hard for you to create your best work, but then also just create at all when you are depleted, physically, emotionally, mentally, it's difficult to do good work. I've had periods over the course. Of my business, where I took on too much editing work, I took on too many clients. I was hustling, and I was just burned out. I had no energy left for my own writing. I had no energy left for reading. I had just very little energy for anything outside of the business. And that really affected it affected me. And so I think we've got to be honest and look at other areas of our life, because it impacts our creative output. It impacts our writing.

 

It impacts any creative work that we do. It's not like we have our creative pursuits over here and then the rest of our life is over here and there's no intersection. But I also think creative burnout is a thing too. Like if you have been pushing yourself to write a book that doesn't feel aligned and you hate every part of the process that can lead to feelings of burnout. If you have been hustling and pushing yourself to wake up at 5am and write for three hours before work, even though you're not a morning person, that can lead to burnout. There are all sorts of things that can contribute to this feeling of creative burnout. So I think it's important to look at that in your creative life, but also just your life in general, because burnout is not healthy. It's not sustainable, and of course, it's going to have an impact on you creating work. It just is. So be mindful of all these things that we talked about.

 

But also, I the episode title sounds kind of dramatic, like sabotaging your creativity, but I don't want you to feel like, if you are okay, I'm just imagining someone listening to this and, like, checking off all these boxes, like, oh shit, I'm doing this. Oh shit, I'm doing this, this, this, this, and what I don't want you to do is pile guilt and judgment on top of that, because that's not gonna help anything either. We're human. I think the best we can do is just like, be mindful of these things, and once we're aware of them, try to do some gentle course correction and see if there's a way that we can do things a little bit differently, so that we have time for our creative pursuits and that so that we have the energy to create and the desire to create. I mean, when I'm when I'm doing all these things that I mentioned in this episode, the comparing, the scrolling too much, the whatever it I just don't really want to create because it sounds exhausting, it sounds overwhelming, so the desire just isn't as strong.

 

Whereas when I'm not doing these things and I'm taking care of myself and I'm not consuming too much and all that, then the desire is so much stronger, and it's like a positive desire, and it feels good to have it, and it feels good to want to create things and to create them. So all right, like I said, be mindful of all these things. Think about gentle course correction, as opposed to like, self criticism and shaming and judgment. We'll keep working on this as we go again. I'm right there with you, especially with the phone stuff and the consuming too much, it's tricky, and I'm still working on finding a balance. So it's okay if you are too. Thank you so much.

Katie Wolf