How to Build Creative Courage
Part #1 of "On Escaping The Tyranny Of Comparing Yourself to Other People"
Part #1
Introduction
I have struggled for much of my life with social comparison; I constantly compare myself to other people and, naturally, I want to perform better than those people. And yet, as I pursue my dream of becoming a writer, this has had disastrous effects on my creativity. Instead of sitting down at the page, I find myself scrolling down my social media feeds, bombarded by images of girls who have already attained what I want.
“Why am I not a New York Times Best-Selling author? She did it before she was 25!” I huff to myself incredulously.
Consuming the rose-tinted, successful lives of others has only pushed me deeper into feelings of worthlessness; and it has fueled my addictions to reality TV and YouTube. It makes me worry that I’m a failure, even though I just turned 28 and supposedly have my whole life ahead of me. “Comparison is the thief of joy” President Theodore Roosevelt once said, and from my personal experience I know he’s right. Still, it’s one thing to know that something is terrible for your mental health. It’s another thing completely to take action and stop doing it.
I’ve come to understand that social comparison is something we all have to face and unlearn, if we are ever going to flourish as free, imperfect and creative human beings. So, I’m writing this article to address it. Here I’ll share with you all the ways I’ve discovered to overcome two big roadblocks: comparing myself to other people and feeling that I’m already a failure before I’ve even started. I hope they might also resonate with you and the people you care about.
1. Picture your 100 creative horses
The beginning of any creative project takes patience, energy and focus. And yet when I sit down to start writing a new chapter of my novel or an article on a subject I’m passionate about, there’s nothing that stops me in my tracks more than thinking about other people’s successful book deals. I feel weighed down and depleted before I’ve even written a word!
Luckily, Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, offers us a framework to address this. In one talk, Julia shares what Billy May once said to her,
“Imagine you have 100 creative horses. And if 30 of your horses are worried about what other people will think of you, and 10 of your horses are worried that you’re a failure, that leaves you only 60 horses to round up for your creativity. So what I want you to do is use this book, and round up all your creative horses, so that when you go into a project, you have 100 horses that are all ready to pull you through.”
The book Billy May recommended to her was “Creative Ideas” by Ernest Holmes, a set of spiritual prayers for creativity. I highly recommend it; it is no short of life changing.
When I first heard this concept, I realized that at least 50 of my creative horses were focused on what other people were working on and achieving in their fabulously successful lives. Then 40 of my horses were self-critical, sitting there and wallowing about how far behind I was in my journey to becoming an author. So, I had only 10 creative horses to help me accomplish even a tiny amount of the writing I wanted to do! It was a struggle, even on a good day.
When we are pursuing our creative dreams, especially when we’re fragile flowers and just starting out, this is when social comparison can do the most harm to obstruct our growth and development. Picturing my 100 creative horses helped me learn that any time we spend thinking about the achievements of others drains our own creative energy. It takes up time that we are then not spending building the life that we want or making our own lives better. Rounding up all your creative horses is a great first step to unsticking yourself and making sure your energy is being diverted into the project that is important to you.
To be continued…
Shout out to Alan Jinich and Joe Stonor for help with editing! :)