Why Does Creating Feel So Hard?

Ever feel like creating has started to feel… heavy?

Like every post has to matter. Every podcast has to change someone’s life. Every workshop has to be transformational. Every launch has to work.

In this episode, I’m unpacking an idea I’ve been playing with: what if we’ve accidentally given our creativity a job it was never meant to have?

I share a story about the attic my sister and I grew up playing in (where there were literally no rules), a lesson from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic that completely shifted the way I think about creating, and why one of my favorite “rules” inside UNMUTE is actually to go rogue.

If you’ve been overthinking every piece of content, putting enormous pressure on yourself, or wondering why creating just isn’t as fun as it used to be, I hope this episode feels like a deep exhale.

Maybe your next post doesn’t have to change the world.

Maybe it just has to be made.

♡ If this episode felt like it was describing you, I’d love to invite you into SEEN—my 3-session private coaching experience for entrepreneurs who are tired of overthinking every post, editing themselves before they hit publish, and feeling like the real them keeps getting lost online.

Together we’ll untangle the pressure, quiet the noise, and help the right people finally meet the real you.

You can learn more about it here:

https://www.tamarcoaching.com/seen

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yo yo. Welcome back to Brave Little Things. Tamar Gersh here, your hostess for today. We're going to have some fun today talking about why does creating feel so damn hard? Because I know a lot of you out there are feeling it because you tell me and so we're going to talk about it. Because I myself have my own thoughts about it. So anyways, by the way, time of recording is pre-my little family trip away. But while you guys are listening to this, I am hopefully paragliding in Portugal or surfing the beautiful Atlantic, right? It's Atlantic over there. I think the Atlantic Ocean. So hopefully I'll have lots of stories to share my podcast when I return. But, you know, I want to talk about this today because I want to just throw this idea out there that I've been playing with myself and I don't even know what's true, what's not true, but things feel really true. And maybe there's other ways of seeing it. But I think one of the biggest mistakes I personally make, and I have a feeling that I'm not alone here. And when I say I have a feeling, I mean I know because I talk to so many of you who personally share this. I mean I work with so many creatives. Mo, you know, most of my clients are creatives, so they feel this, that we put too much pressure on the things that we create. You know what I'm talking about. I know that you do. That somehow every podcast has to matter and every post has to help somebody and every, you know, piece of artwork or photography has to like change somebody's life. And then I wonder why I don't feel like creating or why my clients don't feel like creating, right? This is like pressure we put on ourselves. And I think that accidentally, somewhere down the line, we have given this like job, this little job, that like every single thing that we create, a job that it doesn't need to have. Like we've made it responsible for somebody else's transformation. I'm gonna make this, I'm gonna write this post, and it's got hit for somebody. I'm gonna, you know, create this painting that someone's gonna put by. And it's like not just gonna be decoration in their living room, but it's gonna like every time they walk by, I want them to feel this like, you know, feeling of like, oh my gosh, I wasn't, I was depressed and I was miserable and now I'm happy and spiritually connected, and we just put give this like freaking job to our our creations, and it's a lot. And you know, I was, you know, I know that I was dis discussing this little topic in my head before I hopped on here to record, and it reminded me of this attic my sister and I had growing up. I'm one of four, and my sister closest to my age, we shared a room for a good portion of our childhood. And in this house, we just moved to Kansas City, Missouri. And our bedroom in this new house had this little secret door that led upstairs into this attic. And I can still picture it. It's like, you know, green carpeted stairs that smelled like baby powder mixed with like must and this like old attic feel, slanted ceilings and wooden beams and just this wide open space. And the day we moved in the house, my parents told us something pretty awesomely crazy. They said up there, there are no rules. No, no rules at all. You can draw on the walls, you can bring up snacks and you know, make a mess there, you can collect different kinds of items, like nobody is gonna make you clean up there. I mean, guys, how cool are my freaking parents? I mean, I mean, down down below in our actual bedroom, there were rules, don't get me wrong. But up there, there were no rules. And that attic became our first creative studio before we even knew what a creative studio was. And my sister and I would spend months in different kinds of projects, and we would spend months building this this there's a particular project I remember, this doll house that we spent months building out of toilet paper rolls and scraps of doll clothes and fruit peels from our snacks. I remember like making a bathtub out of a orange rind, I remember this specifically. And like whatever we could freaking find. And she put me in charge of the guest room, which was a big honor. I mean, she's the oldest, she got to decide all the different kinds of things, and I remember being so proud that I got to be in charge of one thing by myself, and I took that job incredibly seriously. And I will tell you, I don't remember sitting there wondering whether that guest room was gonna impress anybody or change anybody's life or anything like that. I was just making something because making it was unbelievably fun for me. And somewhere along the way, guys, I think we started making with a whole different energy. We started creating with a whole different intention. And maybe maybe because we started caring too much about it, right? It kind of like attached us to this project. I I'll tell you, remember reading in Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I talk about, I talk about her all the time with you guys. And there's this line from um Elizabeth Gilbert's book that says, You're not requ we're not required to save the world with your creativity. And then she goes on to talk about how when people tell her they're writing a book because they want to help people, she what automatically what automatically comes out of her mouth is don't. Please don't. Please don't do that. Because I mean, yes, of course, helping people, beautiful thing, great, but because that's an impossible amount of pressure to put on one piece of work. Right? She shares that if she had if she had sat down to write e pray love, thinking this book has to heal people, that that book has to change lives, that she without a doubt would not have written that book or at least not finished it. Right. She wrote the book she needed to write. But the helping came afterwards. She wrote it for herself because she needed healing. And then what happened was because you know, she was so in it, it was able to help and heal other people. And I think about that all the time. I think that is such a beautiful share that she gave in that book. Right, to do it for yourself. And no, because you're human and you share the same prenat as everybody else, that good chance that if you are being healed by your work, that somebody afterwards, the the folks you're wanting to touch are gonna be touched. Right? Because that's who we what we wanna be doing. We wanna be making a difference, but we wanna be focusing on how can this help me. Right? 'Cause we what happens instead is we accidentally ask that one podcast to carry our whole mission or that, you know, one Instagram post to restore someone's confidence that they're gonna their lives are gonna be changed from this one Instagram post I'm about to put. It's so much pressure for one little thing to carry. You know, a few months ago I was in this online workshop where we put we are put into different breakout rooms and we were told to ask this question three times, what do you want? And then the person responds, then you ask again, what do you want? And then again, what do you want? And obviously this idea is to, you know, when you're up here asking a question, the same question over and over, we're just trying to get to a deeper layer. I use this all the time in my coaching. But the responses were this, you know, most of them were like, I want to help people heal. I want to make a difference, I want my clients to feel seen. And yes, those are freaking beautiful. Like, yes, we should want those things. And we're not at all saying that we shouldn't. But I also did think about after I closed out the, you know, the the workshop and I like, you know, left and was in my own little world, I was like, have we forgotten how to want something simply because it brings us, you know, alive, it makes us feel alive. Like the just the desire to want, like it's okay. I don't know if you guys know this, but it's okay to want something just because you want it. Period. End of story. It's also okay to want something and not create it, not make it happen. That's also okay. But somewhere we just like, you know, start to, and I think especially as us folks who are like, you know, you guys, my people who are like listening, you're mostly in the same boat, just like you're creative, you're healers, you're heart-centered, you're, you know, sensitive, you're here to heal the world. And so it's very hard to not go there. But when we go there, the amount of pressure we put on ourselves is immense. And then what happens is we stop. So, you know, this also, you know, could have me thinking about right now, my I'm you know, I'm running an I unmute, my 28-day visibil visibility challenge. We're at the tail end the last week, which is amazing, so exciting. And basically, I in the beginning of the challenge, I do did a whole kickoff call and I shared with my people the rules that we have for this challenge for the 28 days together. And the last rule or one of the rules was to go rogue, to go rogue, which means that you know, we're here as a community, I'm gonna be dropping down prompts, I'm gonna be we're gonna be showing up, and anytime it doesn't feel right for you, you go rogue. If you don't like the prompt, if the prompt's not speaking to you, then you change it for yourself. If I'm telling you like we're showing up every single day for 28 days, but you're somebody who's never showed up ever, then you're gonna make yourself a new plan. Maybe it's gonna be showing up three times because, hey, three times is better than no times because you've been showing up no times. And you just go rogue. You go and you tweak whatever I'm giving to make it work for you. And it was so interesting is that, you know, these adults that there's they be were so uncomfortable being given permission to break the rules. There was the most amount of questions on this rule, and then now we're like, you know, deep into the to the challenge, the amount of also just Facebook comments or just shares about how they love that rule, how that is so fantastic, and they're loving, you know, making it work for themselves, and it's so freeing. And I love that. I love that for them. So, you know, this also kind of connected kind of this this thought process, you know, as I'm like thinking all this stuff out loud, had me thinking about this challenge that I did with another coach of mine a few years back. She had a visibility challenge, she didn't call it that, but she called it the garbage post challenge. And the garbage post challenge was 100 posts in 30 days. And I by the way, I told my people, I was like, guys, I'm giving you 28 posts in 28 days. I have done three cycles of a hundred posts in 30 days, so you can say thank you and move on your way. But the whole point wasn't to obviously create bad content, even though that's the name you would think, okay. But the point was to stop treating every single post like it was some precious little masterpiece that had to justify its existence. No, right? The point was to write, to post, to move on as quick as possible. Because, you know, you had to post sometimes, even numerous times a day to get a hundred in be for 30 days, obviously. And I remember one of the biggest things that shifted for me was realizing that everything doesn't have to have a purpose. It doesn't have to connect back to my business, it doesn't have to have some huge life lesson ending it. In fact, I remember one time because I was like trying to get so many posts in, there's a Jewish holiday called Tubishvat, which is a celebration of the birthday of the trees. And I remember that day I was trying to create is create, you know, posts, and I posted five times about trees. Now I'm a freaking life coach. I'm a business life coach. Talk about visibility and self-doubt. I was posting all day, you guys, about trees. And yes, I absolutely, literally, I'm not even I'm not even being sarcastic here. I literally went into my bed and put the sheets over my head and in there texted like my community at the time, like, guys, I'm going to die of embarrassment right now. But the idea was kind of like we can do these things and not actually die. We could feel like we want to die, but we're not gonna die. And it's like an ex immersion therapy, right? But the idea is here that every piece doesn't have to be this unbelievable kind of thing, right? Oftentimes we can think, I don't want to make this unless I know it's gonna be good. And whenever that thought shows up, I know I've gotten a little bit too far away from that sweet little attic that we were just creating because it was so fun. So lately I've been asking myself a different question. So instead of will this help people? And the answer usually being, I really hope it does, or the question of like, will this work? And my brain is usually all, oh God, I hope so, right? You hear the desperation in my voice. I've asked myself, would I genuinely enjoy making this? Because I actually trust that if I create from that place, the helping will take care of itself. The connection and the impact will take care of itself. I know that to be true. And with that, I've been creating the most amazing things in my business, things I'm the most excited about right now. And I think we just need to stop asking every single thing we make to carry the entire weight of the world, literally. You know, maybe our mission inspires what we create, but maybe our creativity deserves room to breathe and wander and play, like a little room to make something simply because it feels good, just like we did when I was in the attic, and I'm sure you guys all have your little kid memory as well. Because honestly, I have a feeling that where some of our best work comes from is from that place. Actually, it's not even a feeling, it's a knowing. You hear so often the folks who are like, I've been posting on Instagram reels every single day, nothing happens. And then, you know, the moment I just like I was just like literally three seconds I created something, put it up because I knew I had to like go to a party, and I was like, uh, whatever, that was whatever, and I get like I go viral, right? That's what happens. So I just want to say, if you are listening and thinking, yeah, I think I've been putting way too much pressure on everything I create, here is a little experiment for you. Okay, I want you to close your eyes for a second. I want you to picture the version of you with glue on your fingers and marker all over your hands, or maybe all over your face, depending on what kind of kid you were. And the version of you who made things just because making them was damn fun. I want you to ask that version of you, what would you love to make today? Just because it sounds fun. What would you love to make today just because it sounds fun? And not because it'll help someone or not because it will make money, but because you want to make it. I want you to ask that small little version living inside of you and wait for her answer. And when you want to put that into practice, like how can we then practice this, right? Great, so you've got some answers. Well, let yourself start when it might have nothing to do with your business. Like when you were asking, like what you know you want to be doing right now, maybe it doesn't have to do with the business because the business is so tied into all of that. Maybe it's coming up with like the title of a book you'll never write, just for fun. Maybe it's like wandering into like a really pretty stationary store in your town because you've been thinking about journaling again. Maybe you'll buy a journal, maybe you won't. You know, maybe it's opening up a Google Doc and writing one paragraph of that workbook that's been living in your head. Just see what what comes out. Maybe it's like looking up surfboards because some tiny or maybe huge part of you always wondered what surfing would be like. You don't have to finish any of this, right? We're just kind of starting it and seeing what happens. Because you don't even have to do any of it like I mentioned before. You just have to remember what it feels like to make something without asking it to carry the weight of changing the whole freaking world. How fun does that sound? So, or also imagine scary as well. I want to put that out there so I totally get that. But also just want to say, you know, if you're here and you're also thinking, yeah, somewhere along the way, you know, it creating stuff the creation stopped feeling playful and started feeling really, really heavy. That is something that I actually specifically focus on on a new offer that I've just created called Scene, which is so fun. People usually come to me thinking that they need better messaging, you know, better writing or more confidence or clear strategy and how to show up and be seen and attract their clients and customers that they w the way they want to. And sometimes that's true, but a lot of what we're really doing is taking all that weight off of your creativity and help them stop helping you stop like perform and overthink and really help bring in the right people who finally want to meet you. You know, because listen, creativity, it when it has a chance to breathe again, your voice has a chance to really come out and really allow your people to see you so you can see them. And I will put all of the details of this new offer in the show notes. You can check it out, or you can just reach out to me on Instagram and ask away. But this is a beautiful bundle that is very accessible to many people, and I think will speak to many people to just be in touch with with me with that. So I hope that was a lot of a lot of info today, a lot of things to think about. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts if you want to be in touch with me via Instagram or email. And I love you guys. Go out and create, do something really fun, create something today because oh, that would be really fun. Period. End of sentence. I love you guys. See you next time.