Mastering Creative Anxiety

An Interview with author Eric Maisel, Ph.D.

Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of Mastering Creative Anxiety and numerous other titles including Brainstorm, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and A Writer’s San Francisco. America’s foremost creativity coach, he is widely known as a creativity expert who coaches individuals and trains creativity coaches through workshops and keynotes nationally and internationally. He has blogs on the Huffington Post and WholeLiving.com and writes columns for ArtBistro and Art Calendar Magazine. Visit him online at www.ericmaisel.com.

Q: You’ve written many books for creative people. What’s your intention with this book?

A: I’m continually surprised by how much anxiety the creative process generates and by how much difficulty creative people have dealing with the many anxieties connected both to the creative process and the creative life. I’ve written on these matters before but in this book I identify the many different anxieties that can arise — whether it’s about going into the unknown, lacking self-confidence, experiencing a crisis of meaning, and so on — and present a useful arsenal of anxiety management tools from which creative people can select. I think it’s the most in-depth look at these issues to appear so far.

Q: Why does creating produce so much anxiety?

A: First of all, so much is on the line. For someone who’s self-identified as a writer, painter, composer, scientist, inventor, and so on, his identity and ego are wrapped up in how well he creates — and when what we do matters that much, we naturally get anxious. It’s one thing to sing in the shower and another thing to agree to sing at your daughter’s wedding: so much more feels on the line! Second, the process demands that we don’t know until we know: it is a voyage into the darkness of an unknown place where our plot or image or melody resides. People want to know right now, even before they begin: they want a kind of guarantee that they will succeed based on already knowing the outcome. But this guarantee just isn’t available — which produces anxiety. There are many other reasons, too — enough to make anyone sweat!

Q: Which situations produce the most anxiety for creative people?

A: It’s quite idiosyncratic, though certain situations are notorious for producing anxiety. For most performers, waiting in the wings is much more trying than actually going on. Some painters find the blank canvas intimidating while other painters feel more anxious as they try to decide when and if their painting is actually complete. One writer is made tremendously anxious by plotting while another gets into a panic at the thought of talking with her literary agent. It is quite idiosyncratic but the general rule is, the more important you consider the situation, the more anxiety you’ll experience. That big audition, that television interview in front of millions, that conversation with the last editor likely to want your book — the bigger you perceive the moment, the more anxiety gets generated.

Q: Is there some way to avoid creative anxiety?

A: There are certain things you can try but they tend not to produce the results you want. You can decide not to create. You can decide to do formulaic work and keep repeating yourself. You can try to handle the anxiety that arises by drinking too much or by using addictive drugs. All the methods available to avoid anxiety, like fleeing the creative encounter, or ineffectively managing anxiety, like getting drunk, are second-rate. It is much better to embrace the reality of anxiety, rather than to try to deny it, and to learn effective anxiety management tools like the more than twenty I present.

Q: What strategies are available for dealing with creative anxiety?

A: There are really a great many, from taking charge of your basic attitude and becoming a calmer person to doing a better job of appraising situations so that they don’t seem so dangerous to using time-honored devices like good luck charms. In Mastering Creative Anxiety I present a menu of twenty-two effective anxiety management tools, enough tools that everyone can find at least one or two that will work well.

Q: Of these many strategies, what are the top two or three?

A:The simplest is to remember to breathe; a few deep cleansing breaths can do wonders for reducing anxiety. The most important anxiety management tool is probably cognitive work, where you change the things you say to yourself, turning anxious thoughts into calmer, more productive thoughts. And creating a lifestyle that supports calmness is also very important: if the way you live your life produces a lot of anxiety, that’s a tremendous extra burden on your nervous system.

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