Living a creative life and earning your living from your creativity is a life lived in constant fear. For the very act of creating is to leave ourselves open and vulnerable. In fact, people who pursue a creative livelihood are more likely to have embraced Susan’s beloved affirmation, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!”
Susan wrote about the “Five Truths about Fear” that she discovered during her own process of learning to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. These Truths apply to all of us who continue to grow through our lives, but they also could have been written specifically for someone pursuing the creative life:
- The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.
- The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.
- The only way to feel better about myself is to go out . . . and do it.
- Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, so is everyone else.
- Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
No matter how successful a painter, musician, writer, film maker, or designer becomes, to achieve continued growth, to continue to push the boundaries, they will always have to live with fear. To achieve anything worthwhile demands us to take on new things and that will always be scary.
To live an authentic life,a person has to travel his or her own individual unique path.”I took the road less travelled by ,and that made all the difference.”That is part of a poem by Robert Frost.
Find your own path.Like Nietzsche said,”Become what you are”Form your own opinions. Check that they are relevant , lawful and moral.Make them known to the world.Make a difference!
Leave your comfort zone.Feel the fear and still do the right thing!Become what you are!
Thank you ——— whe I started facing my fears quie a few years ago I found that fear actually pervaded so much of my life, but amazingly when I actually walked through fear I found that thinking about the ‘what ifs’ of actually doing it was more fearful than actually doing it. My son had died on Xmas day and I dreade that day, but one day I had had enoufh and decided I would stay alone on this dreaded day and lo and behold I survived without seeing anyone. Now I can be alone, or not, but the main thing is I realised just how much fear had been running my life, even though I thought it wasn’t.