If you're here, you're likely coming from a similar place as I am: I have these ideas that I think could turn into something; I have capacity to be creative or intellectually stimulated in a different way than I am at work, and I just can't figure out where to start.

And if I could just figure out the “what”—what it is I want to dedicate time to—momentum would open up like floodgates, and I would sail off on the wave of creative output into some bright future. So I've spent years noodling on what would be worth dedicating time to—ideally something that would benefit my career. If I'm going to spend time on it, it might as well be productive.

Turns out that was a bad call.

How do you stop forcing creativity to be productive?

To stop forcing creativity to be productive, you must give yourself permission to make things that have no benefit—financial, career, or otherwise. By disconnecting your creative appetite from external validation or linear goals, you eliminate the performance anxiety that causes paralysis and allow your intuition to chase curiosity.

Your fledgling creativity is like a baby—it needs to be nurtured, fed, and played with. You can't put pressure on it to make you money. Liz Gilbert (Big Magic) famously noted that asking your creativity to pay your bills is like screaming at a cat: it doesn't understand what you want, and you're probably just scaring it.

Here is the framework for shifting from a consumer mindset to an active creator, without the burden of productivity:

  1. Abandon the usefulness criteria: If you wait for an idea to arrive with a clear path to money or career goals, you will sit stuck. Creativity often makes you better at your job or teaches you new skills, but never in a linear way you can predict from the outset.
  2. Treat ideas as collaborators: Try this on for size: ideas are invisible beings floating in the air, looking for a willing human partner. If you aren't ready to dedicate the time, they will go find someone else. You don't have to say yes to every idea, but you must engage with the ones you keep—otherwise, they bail.
  3. Focus on accumulation over inspiration: You can't see how the dots connect when looking into the future. Stop waiting for a master plan and just focus on drawing more dots by following your curiosity. The more dots you put out, the more chances for them to connect.
  4. Embrace the anxiety of uncertainty: Anxiety will always show up because creativity has an uncertain outcome, and anxiety expects the worst. This is a natural part of the process; acknowledge that it’s along for the ride and keep moving.
  5. Love your ugly experiments: In those fledgling months or years, ignore the final output. Put it out there—your newsletter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, website, or Reddit. Do share your work, even if it feels like a void. You have to love your experiments like you would an ugly child.