Imagine a meadow with a fence around it. It's warm and sunny, little bees and flowers moving slowly in a light breeze. Well walked trails go up and down through the grass, you stroll around on them. One of them eventually takes you to an edge of the meadow. You stop, look.

Beyond the fence is a forest. The forest is darker, filled with shadows and uncertainty. 

That's where we're going today. You coming?

A huge, beautiful library with a high ceiling and big windows. Rows and rows of bookcases. But no books.

The streets packed with people. Rushing from importance to serious. But no one is on their phone.

A meeting, with enthusiastic people sitting around a table. No one is speaking.

A world with no voices.

Our most important creative work often lies in the place where our fear and passion is strongest. Naturally, creating in that place is hard, very hard.

We care so much, we can barely touch it.

It’s so loaded with hopes and longing, we get scared of it. We get scared we can’t do it, that we’ll fail and all those hopes will come crashing down. If that dream disappears, we don’t know who we’d be.

Our dream gets trapped in a state of inaction.

But we can do it, with some manipulation of the situation. Let me present a model for doing that scary, passionate work.

Where did Creativity go?

Anyone seen my creativity? No?

Nobody?

Do you feel like you've lost your creativity? Did it run away and now you can't find it again? You're not alone, it happened to me too. Don't worry, we'll find it together.

Let's go searching.

Today, you are a detective. I want you to go get your detective's hat, fake beard and plastic nose. Seriously, we’re on a mission here.

Self-doubt can mess with our creativity to point of keeping it hidden deep, deep inside of us. Fighting against self-doubt can feel impossible, especially if you’re not sure whether your thoughts are self-doubt or just you being realistic. The case here is to identify your self-doubt to see if it’s messing with your creativity or not.

You ready? Good.

Now, let’s go undercover and catch self-doubt in the act.

Oh come on, I can’t do that. I’m not strong/creative/skilled/experienced/adjective enough.

We all have those thoughts. We firmly tell the world no. We guard what we can and can’t do like our lives depended on it.

Unfortunately, we’re not completely wrong. Our doubts are often based in some kind of truth, or else they wouldn’t be so powerful. But they don’t tell the whole truth. Only the part keeping us from doing the work we’re hesitant to do.

Have you tried learning a creative craft and gotten overwhelmed by all of the advice out there? Felt confused by the contradictions and whether you should follow tip X or Y? Been unable to make your creative choices or get anywhere because there are just too many different paths and you don't know which to choose? 

Yeah, me too. 
I was fed up with advice. I needed space.

But how do find the space to make choices that are entirely our own? I've found a way I'd like to share with you.

When learning a new creative craft, or finding a new direction, we search for our creative voice. We wonder who we are in our creativity, if we have a voice at all. It's a journey filled with struggles, copying and thoughts of giving up. But those of us who have walked it once know one thing: it's worth it. 

"I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."
- Bilbo Baggins

Do you recognize that feeling? 
Your mind not being able too keep up? Your head a clutter at the end of the day? 

How do we create while we're stretched? Where do we find the energy and time for creativity in a world of scrolling and scanning? 

We start out this life infinitely curious, with no regards for should or shouldn’t. We are unruly, wild, overly dramatic and poop all over the place. We point and laugh at people, scream when we’re mad, asks why until we get our parents annoyed. 

We are creative. Creating naturally, ideas never ending. We question everything. 

Are you a creative newbie at something? If you are, let me tell you this: you will make mistakes. A lot of them. Oh the mistakes you'll do.

You'll do cringe-worthy mistakes. You'll feel shame. You'll probably want to hide a little.

But your mistakes is not what's important - it's what you do with them. What you learn from them.

During the fall of 2015, an idea slowly started to form in my mind. When summer ended I came to the conclusion that I longed for creating. It wasn't something I'd been aware of, but when it hit me it made so much sense. How I like working with projects, and actually loved writing my thesis at university. Why I keep coming back to writing. I want to create.