{"id":1751,"date":"2012-08-02T16:49:34","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T20:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2012-08-02T16:49:34","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T20:49:34","slug":"so-what-are-you-afraid-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/2012\/08\/02\/so-what-are-you-afraid-of\/","title":{"rendered":"So what are you afraid of?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I picked up Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit<\/a><\/em> from the library the other day. It has been so good and so insightful that I’m buying a copy for my own library. There are so many great quips and insightful tidbits that I could share for many posts. <\/p>\n

But this post is about fear. “No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear,” she writes, “the key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you’ve begun.”<\/p>\n

So, what are you afraid of? Twyla lists her five biggest fears, and you know what? They are almost identical to mine. I bet they are similar to yours too. Wanna see?<\/p>\n

1. They will laugh at me.<\/strong>
\n “They” may. But who are “they” anyway? People I know and love and respect won’t laugh. They may even encourage me if I’ll just be brave enough to share my work with them.<\/p>\n

2. It’s been done before.<\/strong>
\n Well, of course it has. There’s nothing new under the sun, after all. But that doesn’t mean I can’t offer my little bit too. I’ve<\/em> never been before. If I’m a unique individual than so is something in my work. No matter how tiny.<\/p>\n

3. It’s so cliche.<\/strong>
\n Aw, this is the one that really gets me. What if it just looks stupid, trite, worn out. Some days it probably will. Those days the work is called a rough draft. Right? At least it gets out there and then I can always revise or re-work it.<\/p>\n

4. It’s so pompous.<\/strong>
\n And this is probably the direct opposite of the third fear. Can you have opposite fears? It’s like being afraid of being wet and dry at the same time…oh the trials our silly minds will put us through! I have no answer for this fear, except to put the work out there. “They” will let me know.<\/p>\n

5. It’s not good enough. <\/strong>
\n Nope. It isn’t and it probably won’t be. Ever. But see #3. That’s what the habit of doing the work is for. Slowly, with practice and experience you will get better. I will get better. My skills will grow to match my ability. With steady, hard work.<\/p>\n

“There is nothing wrong with fear,” Twyla says, “the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks.”<\/p>\n

What about you? What are you afraid of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I picked up Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit from the library the other day. It has been so good and so insightful that I’m buying a copy for my own library. There are so many great quips and insightful tidbits that I could share for many posts. But this post is about fear. “No one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/1208_nest_403.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2v9Qt-sf","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/gems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}