This article is adapted from the Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist Podcast episode:
Listen to This Episode
“Too Exhausted to Create? Keep One Small Door Open“ on:
Too Exhausted to Create? Keep One Small Door Open
You still care about your art. That may be what makes this so frightening.
The ideas have not become meaningless. The dream has not vanished. But life has used the energy you normally give to creating, and now even something you love can feel like another demand.
You are not only tired. You are afraid of what the tiredness might mean.
If you slow down, will you lose momentum? Will people forget you? Will the opportunity you have been waiting for arrive while you have nothing left to give it?
Sometimes your creativity has not disappeared. Sometimes life is simply using all your available capacity.
Life Can Take the Energy You Normally Give to Art
My family’s life changed abruptly when my husband’s role ended. Because we live in the United States on a work visa, the loss affected far more than income. It created immediate questions about our ability to remain and work here.
At the same time, I was preparing for a TEDx talk, raising children, recording a podcast and trying to keep existing creative commitments moving.
I still cared about all of it. But caring and capacity are not the same thing.
Your version may be illness, grief, caregiving, financial pressure, parenting, a relationship crisis or a demanding job. The cause may be different, but the creative fear is often similar: “If I stop now, will I disappear?”
Why Slowing Down Feels Dangerous
Artists are repeatedly told to rest, but that advice can miss what makes rest frightening.
Creative careers require action. Auditions close. Deadlines pass. Algorithms move on. Somebody else may take the opportunity. If you fought hard to create momentum, slowing down may not feel like care. It may feel like losing everything you built.
Much of my own relentless activity used to come from fear of missing out. If I did not submit, post, answer or say yes, perhaps the opportunity would not return.
That fear can keep an exhausted artist moving long after the movement has stopped helping.
When life has already taken nearly everything out of you, forcing normal output may not protect your artistry. It can turn the thing you love into one more place where you feel behind.
You May Be Losing Capacity, Not Creativity
Reduced output is easy to mistake for lost creativity.
But your mind may be solving urgent problems. Your attention may be pulled toward decisions that cannot wait. There may be less room for imagination because there is less room for almost everything.
That is information about your capacity today. It is not a verdict on the artist you are.
I am still recording my podcast and preparing my TEDx talk. I am keeping some of the creative patterns I built before this crisis arrived. But I cannot pretend I am doing them with my usual energy.
Some days I am not building momentum. I am trying not to lose contact with myself.
Momentum asks, “How much did I produce?”
Connection asks, “Did I touch the part of me that still knows I am an artist?”
Keep One Small Door Open
When life has taken nearly everything out of you, do not demand your usual output. Keep one small door open to the artist in you.
Ask yourself:
What is one small thing that returns me to myself without asking me to prove anything?
It may be ten minutes with your instrument and no recording device. One notebook page with no plan to publish it. One song danced in your kitchen instead of a full class. Reading the script without forcing yourself to tape the audition tonight.
Or it may not look like creating at all.
There are days when I keep working because I am afraid to stop, even though I am too depleted to solve anything. Going into the hot tub for ten minutes does not solve our job or visa situation. But it gets me away from the screen and interrupts the state I am stuck in. I come back able to hear myself again.
Sometimes the doorway into your artistry is doing one small thing that makes you available to yourself again.
This Is Contact, Not Content
Do not make the small thing earn its place.
The walk does not need to become a reel. The notebook page does not need to become a post. The ten-minute reset does not need to make you more efficient afterwards.
This is contact, not content.
You are not proving that you can maintain a normal creative career while your life is on fire. You are keeping the relationship alive.
There will be another time for momentum. Today, the brave move may be refusing to interpret exhaustion as the disappearance of the artist you are.
Your output can change without your identity disappearing. Your pace can change without your art becoming less important.
You can have nothing left for a finished product and still keep one small door open.
Go Deeper
If this spoke to something in you, my book Audacious Artistry: Reclaim Your Creative Identity and Thrive in a Saturated World goes deeper.
You can also download the free 10-week group study guide and walk through the book on your own, with a friend or with a group of artists.
Find the book and free guide at: https://larabiancapilcher.com/book
It’s written for artists and creatives who still feel called to create but are tired of proving, comparing, waiting for permission, or wondering if their work still matters.
Read the book + get the free guide:
https://larabiancapilcher.com/book
This article is adapted from the Healthy Wealthy Wise Artist Podcast episode:
Listen to This Episode
“Too Exhausted to Create? Keep One Small Door Open“ on:
Or visit the podcast page:
https://larabiancapilcher.com/podcast
With you as you keep creating,
— Lara Bianca Pilcher
Connect with Lara
Website:
https://larabiancapilcher.com
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/larabiancapilcher
Build a life of love, purpose, adventure & boundless creativity!