Over the years, there's been a number of challenges that I've faced in the pursuit of a creative career.
Lack of confidence, fear of judgment, or not trusting my ideas enough to say the least.
For quite some time, I thought I was just doing something wrong.
I wondered why there were days where it was just so hard to do the work, and if I was doing something that I loved to do, then why did sometimes working on a project feel like going to war?
But I realized through enough practice and reading and talking with friends about it, that these feelings are truly part of it and the real battle is going against this thing called resistance.
I wish this was something that I learned about earlier, especially a couple of years ago when I decided to quit my very well paying 9 to 5 in order to start a freelance career.
You know, you always hear people say pursue what makes you happy, pursue your passion, and you'll never work a day in your life.
But there I was doing exactly that, and yet I still felt like I was hitting all of these internal roadblocks, and it didn't make sense to me as to why.
There was nothing literally standing in my way except for myself.
But it wasn't until I read this book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield that I first heard about this term and also truly started to understand why I was feeling this way.
We can say resistance takes form as a number of things.
The pressure to fit in fear of judgment self-doubt procrastination isolation ridicule contempt rejection, humiliation and despair and overall hell.
It's a whole number of things really, that we can spiral down into, but overall, most of these things fall under the umbrella of resistance.
We could also think of it as the little annoying voice in our heads that constantly make us second guess ourselves.
It tells us all these things that we know are not true, but still tries to convince us otherwise.
And it's to keep us, you know, comfortable in our safe bubble.
But ironically, this is the very thing that holds us back from reaching our full potential.
In the beginning, not only did I feel all of those things, I also didn't know.
It was an actual thing that a lot of people experienced, and I often thought that the work just came so easily to everybody else.
Whether it was client work or personal projects or creating videos on YouTube.
And it wasn't even the work itself that was hard.
It was mostly just the process of sitting down and starting and then to keep going.
But the more I researched about it, the more I realized that this is a more universal experience than I thought.
Fortunately, there is a simple phrase and reminder to get us out of this pit of calamity and despair, and it's to give yourself permission.
Ethan Hawke talks about this in his popular TED talk.
You know, a lot of people really struggle to give themselves permission to be creative, and reasonably so.
I mean, we're all a little suspect of our own talent.
Because I think that most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider good or important.
That's really the enemy, because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good.
We know this.
The time of our life is so short.
And how we spend it, are we spending it doing what's important to us?
Most of us not.
A huge reason why most people won't pursue their ideas is because it's easier not to.
We live in a world where putting ourselves out there often means the possibility of being judged or rejected, and it's easier to hide altogether.
But, as the writers and poets and artists would agree, there's no greater suffering than denying what you're dying to say.
And there's no greater feeling than letting the stories inside you spill out.
It's such a simple thing.
Give yourself permission.
It's almost absurd because it's basically common sense.
Yet on some days it's so difficult and the only thing standing in my way would be myself.
I will say that, after learning about resistance, that it's easier to come back from creative slumps than it used to be.
But it's definitely still something that I constantly deal with regular like on a daily basis pretty much.
But like Ethan said, creativity is vital to answer.
And who knows, maybe somewhere, somebody has to hear what you have to say.
We're all on a rock in space anyway.
So do the thing, give yourself permission, get out of your own way and don't deny the world of your contribution.
I end up discussing this topic a lot on this channel and with my friends in real life, because I don't think it's something that we truly get over.
I think that resistance is just something that we get better at dealing with as we get more experience and as time goes on.
But the good thing about it is that I feel like confidence builds up every time you do get through it.
But if this is something that you relate to and you want to learn more about it, I highly highly recommend the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
I wish that somebody told me to read this book earlier.
It would have just saved me so much stress and anxiety.
It's quite the popular book, so I'm not gonna say too much about it.
But if you are interested then I will leave a link in the description below.
I doubt this would be the last time that I ever talk about this subject on this channel, seeing as though it truly is part of the creative process.
I will assume that as I grow as a person and as a creator, my understanding and questions of it will evolve as well.
I would love to hear your own thoughts on this in the comments below, and in the meantime, you can find me on instagram, tiktok and twitter at life of risa, and i will see you soon.
Thanks for watching.
