If you've been "working on" your creative project for a long time but haven't brought it to life, this is for you
Maybe you have a memoir you’ve been thinking about writing. Maybe you want to find a spot to show some of your photographs or your artwork. Perhaps you have this idea to start a small nonprofit. Or maybe you’d like to start being serious about offering your coaching services.
But you find yourself not moving forward. Not really.
What’s going on?
Perfectionism & Over-Training as Entrapment
One of the things I see that keeps women stuck is a belief that we need more training, another class, or just more time to flesh out our ideas before we act.
Don't get me wrong: training is important in many contexts.
I would not encourage someone to open a yoga studio based on having attended a weekend training event. Or focus on helping vulnerable populations without having had some trauma training.
But this is also where I see many people get stuck. They continue to spend time taking classes, getting certifications, fine-tuning their qualifications in lieu of taking concrete steps to bringing their work into the world.
This is the woman who takes writing workshops and audits MFA classes yet struggles to make time to write.
Or this is the woman who has the pieces of her story written, but spends most of her time attending publishing courses and conventions or seems to be endlessly revising and tinkering.
This is the certified life coach who decides she needs Master Coach training before she’s worked with many clients.
This is the creative who takes business course after business course, running the numbers for her nonprofit idea, or having mentoring meetings nonstop, without ever really settling on and actioning next steps.
This is the burgeoning artist who has an idea for a beautiful community art studio and talks to her friends about it every time they meet. She spends hours sketching out plans, only to get lost in a rabbit hole of YouTube’s on next steps. Meanwhile, her own sketchbook sits idle.
Roots in the Patriarchy
There are many reasons women stay stuck, focus on perfecting ideas before acting on them, or otherwise avoid moving forward on doing our creative work. Unconscious energy patterns, limiting belief constellations and generalized fear of failure are all strong forces that can, if unchecked, keep us from the doing the things we long to do.
But I would argue there’s another more insidious reason.
Women suffer from this type of behavior far more than men do, because this type of second-guessing, overtraining, and focus on perfecting ideas before action is a function of the patriarchy.
At its core, the primary role of women in a patriarchal society is to support men and their endeavors. Therefore, there are a whole pile of beliefs and behaviors women have been socialized to accept, which neatly serve to reinforce and perpetuate this power structure.
Not to say the patriarchy is good for men, it isn’t. But in this case, men have been socialized with the freedom to have ideas – good and bad ones, brilliant and bungled ones – and to act upon those ideas. And what’s more, instead of suffering adverse actual or social consequences when their ideas or businesses or plans don’t work out, many men are rewarded.
If you think about it, one fantastically effective way to stop women from having power is to keep them from fulfilling their creative dreams, from fully self-expressing their divine worth.
The Cost of Waiting
Here’s an example of how I’ve seen this play out for people.
Let’s say you’ve just taken a class on writing family stories & memories. You’ve always wanted to write if you’re honest with yourself. And the ideas in the class have you thinking you could write about your experience as a child living with a mother who suffered from alcoholism. But suddenly you think, "Oh, I need a class about memoir writing."
So, you take a class about writing memoir. But it was pretty short, and only gave you a framework and a few key points, so you decide to enroll in a longer course. This one is being taught by someone who wrote and published a book. When that course finishes, you’re still thinking about your idea, and you really, really want people to read this story. So, you decide to take a class on publishing. It’s so complicated, and there’s a lot to learn.
Throughout that course, you realized it would be really helpful to know how to organize your memories, so you purchase self-paced course on Scrivener, a word-processing program designed for writers…
The thing is, I’ve seen women spend years in this mode, thinking that they're working on their creative dream, and when what they’re really doing is telling themselves a version of: I’m not ready, I’m not qualified enough, or I won’t be able to do it.
I was there for a long time myself and had no idea what was really happening.
If something won’t leave you alone, there’s value in pursuing it, really taking steps toward bringing it to life. The truth is there are so many things you don't know about how this creative journey will go.
You don’t know how it's going to change you or the world you bring it into. Waiting on it just delays that knowing and keeps you from the joy of pursuing something that may light you up in ways you can’t even imagine.
What You Can Do
If this sounds like something you may be struggling with, what can you do? This is part of the work I do with women, so I’ll offer some thoughts and invite you to see what might resonate.
Step 1: Expect grief, shower yourself with kindness
Allow space for what you're feeling
Recognizing that you've been stuck in this way of being—sometimes for years—can bring up real loss and disappointment. Allow yourself as much time and space to feel whatever comes up, bathing yourself in kindness. Remember to offer yourself the same compassion you'd offer a dear friend.
Step 2: Question the thought that's keeping you stuck
Try on the opposite belief
Identify one recurring thought that feels like it's holding you back. Maybe it’s something like "I'm not qualified enough," "I don't know how to tell this story," or "It won't work." Then deliberately explore its opposite. What if you are qualified enough, exactly as you are? What if the story reveals itself in the doing? What if it could work?
Step 3: Take the tiniest turtle step
Break it down, then break it down again
What's the next possible thing you could do towards actually doing this dream—not taking another class about it? Make some space in your schedule, then take time to get quiet and ground, asking yourself: what's the next tangible right step for me?
Then make that step even smaller.
If it's truly a turtle step, it should feel laughably easy, fun even. And you should be able to easily see how you can get to it in the next few days. Notice how you feel before, during, and after you take this action. It's all valuable information.
Step 4: Consider getting support
Find someone who believes in your work, not just your preparation
Finding a mentor or guide who understands this pattern can help you stay accountable to actually bringing your creative dream into the world, not just getting ready to bring it into the world. Having someone help you see where you’re getting tripped up and by what can be invaluable. Going on the journey with someone else is worthy.
Who Am I to Not Bring This Forward?
A spiritual teacher once offered me this reframe: If you've been given a genuine desire to bring something into the world, especially something born from wanting to make things better, the question isn't "Who am I to do this?"
The question is: "Who am I to not do this?"
The desire lives in you. The gifts, the longing, the particular way you see things—it's all already there. To turn away from that, to keep saying "not yet" or "I'm not ready," carries its own kind of foolish arrogance. It's assuming you know better than the divine calling itself. It's deciding, without ever really trying, that you can't.
What if you trusted the longing as much as you've trusted the doubt?