How to Win the Battle Against Creative Resistance
Photo by Janke Laskowski on Unsplash
Note: Today’s article is an excerpt from my book “Build Your Best Writing Life”.
All writers experience creative frustration from time to time. But what if you experience creative frustration most of the time?
If you’ve picked up this book, you’re likely dissatisfied with your writing life in some way. Maybe you’ve yet to finish a first draft after years of writing, always lured by the siren song of a new story idea not long after beginning the last. Maybe you’ve developed an idea you love, but you’re afraid of failing to do the story justice. Maybe you’ve been struggling to find the time or motivation to sit down and write. Sound familiar? You aren’t alone, writer.
Creative frustrations come in all shapes and sizes and can result from a lack of time, knowledge, skill, energy, and focus. This book will tackle each of these issues in turn, but the attitude you carry with you into any creative endeavor will define both the quality of your everyday writing life and your long-term writing success.
To lay the foundation for the work to come, you must first hone a healthy creative mindset. The first step in doing so lies in addressing the underlying current that makes it so difficult to find your creative footing: resistance.
What Is Resistance?
Resistance is the antimuse. It’s the feeling that stops you in your tracks when you try to put pen to paper. It’s a combination of doubt, dread, and, sometimes, inexplicable indifference. Such is the power of resistance that author Steven Pressfield even refers to it in The War of Art with a capital R.
Resistance. It’s one hell of a writing roadblock right out of the gate, and it lives within your mind.
At its core, resistance is nothing more than fear. It’s what you experience when you desire something you believe will bring immense value to your life, but you’re too afraid to pursue it. With resistance, the fear of risk outweighs the potential for reward.
For writers, that reward is creative fulfillment, while the potential for risk runs far and wide. Writing itself demands a great deal of time and energy, and there’s no guarantee you’ll translate your vision for your project onto the page. The act of sharing the work you create then invites criticism and rejection. For some writers, creative work even brings the possibility of judgment and disapproval from those they love.
It’s therefore no wonder that resistance preys upon writers’ creative desires, including your own. When faced with resistance, your willpower takes one look at the dangers involved in pursuing the writing life and decides that walking you straight to the couch for a Netflix binge is a much better idea.
With Netflix, there’s nothing to risk, nothing to fear—or so says resistance. But in truth, what greater fear is there for a writer than to leave their stories unwritten? To never pursue the creative work that brings them so much joy?
Writer, It’s Time to Fight Back
When faced with resistance, it isn’t your job to defeat fear. As Steven Pressfield says in The War of Art, “The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.”
Pressfield couldn’t be any closer to the truth. To overcome resistance isn’t to defeat fear. It’s to brave your fears. To pick up the pen despite the risks involved in doing so. To put in the difficult creative work to become the writer you want to be.
Bravery isn’t an easy choice. But if you’re no longer willing to accept the damage that fear inflicts, it’s the right choice to make. You’ll recognize this when you realize you’re tired of staring down your drawer full of unfinished manuscripts, or debating whether every last word you’ve written is the right word to use in that spot, or loathing yourself for doing anything but writing.
More importantly, you’ll know you’re ready to choose bravery when you’re willing to fight to find the creative fulfillment you crave. Does this sound like you? Then it’s time to face the enemy within.
The surest way to gain higher ground in the battle against resistance is to cultivate a healthy creative mindset that favors bravery. That work begins with learning to defend against resistance’s primary weapon of choice: doubt.
If you’re anything like the writer next door, you’re full of creative doubt. But contrary to common belief, doubt isn’t your creative enemy. It’s a neutral force that highlights potential issues in the form of questions, such as the following:
Does that line not evoke the image I want to share?
Have I done enough to develop that character?
What if no one likes my story?
Is my voice too bland?
What if I never publish my book?
What if I publish my book and no one buys it?
Doubt highlights the presence of uncertainty, and uncertainty will forever be part of your writing life. You can’t find a clear and definite scale by which you can critique your work, nor can you divine the future, so it’s natural to question the quality of your work and the potential for your projects’ success.
It’s natural to doubt. How you respond to doubt determines the state of your creative mindset.
The healthiest response to doubt is action. When you acknowledge the uncertainty of an issue, you can determine the best way to resolve as much of that uncertainty as possible.
If you’re worried a particular line in your latest chapter isn’t written as smoothly or precisely as you’d like, you can rearrange the structure of the sentence or run the passage by a friend for critique. If you’re worried your book won’t sell when it’s published, you can seek out resources that teach book launch and marketing strategies.
Activity: List Your Doubts and Brainstorm Solutions
During your next writing session, use a notebook to jot down any creative doubts that crop up. Then review your list at the end of your session, and brainstorm the actions you can take to resolve them. If you’re unsure, try searching your query online or asking a fellow writer how they handle the same uncertainty.
When deciding which doubt to resolve first, you have two options. You can tackle the doubt that has the most immediate impact on your writing life, or you can tackle several doubts that are quickly resolved to ease the burden on your creative mindset.
If you find several ways in which you can resolve a particular doubt, then choose the action that’s most applicable to your situation. For example, if you’re worried that your character isn’t well developed, you can study characterization techniques or ask for feedback from a trusted source.
Studying the topic can reveal many helpful insights if you know little about characterization. On the other hand, seeking feedback is often the better choice if you’re unsure of whether your character translates well on the page.
Sometimes taking action is easy. Sometimes it isn’t. But when you don’t take action, the alternatives are fear, stagnancy, and self-loathing. And oh, how resistance knows this.
Resistance loves to deter you from acting by convincing you that doubt is the real creative enemy—and that its presence indicates a personal failing. “Can’t seem to work out your plot?” it might say. “Worried that your book won’t sell? Clearly, you’re an awful writer. You never should have picked up the pen.”
This is the voice of resistance. And when you take resistance at its word, you alter the nature of doubt. You strip the question mark of its uncertainty and twist it into the period of a limiting belief, a conviction that restrains you from living out your full potential. Resistance loves to whisper limiting beliefs like these in your ear:
You can’t be a writer. You aren’t good enough.
Your stories aren’t original. They’re too weird, too silly, too grim. No one will read them.
Don’t you know that writing is selfish? You’re taking time away from your kids and your loved ones.
You’re kidding yourself if you think that writing will get you anywhere in life. Who are you to be a writer?
At some point in your life, someone spoke your limiting beliefs to you as truths. Perhaps they came from a schoolteacher, parent, or friend. Or maybe you heard them in a speech or as silly one-liners on a late-night sitcom. Either way, you aren’t at fault for believing these lies. It’s easy to internalize limiting beliefs when they’re presented as truths. But you are responsible for what you choose to believe going forward.
To hone a creative mindset that fosters bravery instead of fear and inaction, you must unpack the limiting beliefs that threaten your resolve. Listen to your negative self-talk. The next time resistance whispers a limiting belief in your ear, recognize that belief for the lie it is and counter it with a true statement, such as one of these:
I’m as good a writer as I work toward being.
My stories are original because I’m the one telling them.
I write the stories I want to read, and that’s good enough.
I will be someone’s favorite writer.
When I pursue my passion for writing, I become a better version of myself.
When I write, I show my children that it’s good to pursue what brings them joy.
Writing is an expression of self, and I’m worthy of being heard.
I am a writer.
Call it an affirmation, a mantra, or a personal pep talk. When you commit to responding to your limiting beliefs with words of truth, you begin the slow but steady process of revolutionizing your creative mindset.
Activity: State Your Truth with Affirmations
Recognizing your limiting beliefs can be difficult. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself. The next time you find yourself engaging in negative self-talk, write down the limiting belief you were thinking, then list a true statement that disproves it. You can now use these true statements to oppose the call of resistance.
Repeat this practice as often as necessary, speaking your affirmations aloud to reaffirm their truth. You may find it helpful to maintain a notebook (or a note-taking app) devoted to this purpose.
As you continue the practice you built in the Affirmations activity above, you’ll notice an increase in your awareness of your limiting beliefs and find it easier to reject them. In time, you’ll even begin to recognize when resistance tries to twist doubts into limiting beliefs. When this happens, remember that doubt isn’t your creative enemy. Rather, doubt is uncertainty. Whenever you can, take action to resolve this uncertainty.
When you do, and when you choose truth over limiting beliefs, you’ll strengthen the foundations of your creative mindset. You’ll recognize that writing brings you immense personal reward and begin cultivating the bravery you need to fight against resistance. In other words, you’ll take the first step toward becoming the writer you want to be.
