Photo by Dean Zhang on Unsplash

Today’s guest post is by Marni Freedman, author of the new book Artistic Badassery: How to Unblock and Become a Creative Force of Nature.

Alana met an impressive agent at a conference who, in turn, was quite impressed with her. So much so, he had asked for the first thirty pages of her book. She loved her book. Loved the characters, the hook, and especially the windy twisty twist at the end. But what she knew needed help, what she didn’t like, was the first 30 pages.

Alana had carved out two precious hours to rewrite her beginning. She had everything she needed: her favorite spot by the big window at her favorite coffee shop, her high-octane coffee, her laptop with motivational stickers, and a reasonable goal: rewrite 1,000 words.

But when she opened the laptop and saw her original opening paragraph, panic struck. The new words she had to write had to impress the agent. She scrolled, re-reading the first ten pages of her book, and suddenly she was convinced that she had no talent at all.

Her fiendish inner critic yammered, I can’t believe I finally have someone like him who wants to see my pages, and I’m just sitting here scrolling and wasting time. A real writer wouldn’t struggle like this. A real writer wouldn’t be this inept.

She looked outside and noticed an easygoing woman entering a flower shop. She longed to stroll down the block and look around, but told herself that a stroll would only waste more time. She looked around the shop; everyone else was click-clacking away. She got more coffee and decided to hunker down and push herself harder. After an hour of looping caffeine-fueled tormenting thoughts, Alana packed up her laptop, got in her car, and said out loud, “Damn, I’m pathetic.”

When I met with Alana, she told me she often had this experience. In fact, “Pathetic” was a word she usually called herself on her drive home. She said her motivation was at zero; she didn’t trust herself to get the work done and, basically, she now dreaded going to the coffee shop. Somewhere along the line, she had turned her creative practice into a punishment.

The great discipline myth

As a therapist who works with artists and a writing coach who has spent years helping writers bring their stories into the world, I’ve noticed a pattern.

Highly talented, hardworking, dedicated writers sometimes hold themselves to impossibly high standards and can be hella mean to themselves. They measure their worth in word counts. They turn moments of lack of inspiration into evidence of their character flaw. And when they falter, instead of taking a minute to get curious about what’s happening or what they may need (like a nap), they pull out a hammer to bonk themselves on the head for not doing better.

The reason is that somewhere along the way, they absorbed the myth that being hard on themselves leads to success.

I’m not saying that discipline doesn’t matter. Finishing a piece of work requires showing up and doing the work. And there are times when doing that work is the last thing you want to be doing. But I want to take a minute to distinguish between discipline and self-punishment.

When you are disciplined, you think, This matters to me, so I’m going to make time for it. When you are stuck in a self-punishment loop, you think, If I don’t succeed, there’s something wrong with me. One nourishes a sustainable relationship with your creative life; the other turns the very thing you love most into something you dread.

When discipline turns into self-punishment

How do you know when you’ve crossed the line from discipline into self-punishment? Pay attention to the way you are talking to yourself. Another client of mine, Rick, got feedback on his manuscript from an editor, and within seconds he concluded that he was nothing but a fraud. Shelly compared her first draft to a published book she had just purchased, and wondered why she even bothered. When Alana realized she could no longer get to the coffee shop for an extended period, she scheduled her writing for the early morning hours. When she didn’t get up in time for four out of seven days, she told herself she was too unfocused and inept to be professional. She ignored the fact that she had a full-time job, three kids, and cared for her ailing mother who had just moved in.

I asked Alana where she might be being unfairly cruel to herself. She sighed, then laughed a little. She said she would set word counts she knew would be hard to reach with all of the constant interruptions in her home. When she was hungry or tired, she often refused to take a break, thinking she didn’t earn one. And when she did accomplish a task, she would randomly raise the bar, so no matter what she got done, it never felt like enough. “Oh, and I usually top it off with my daily dose of I’m so pathetic.” This left her dreading her morning writing sessions.

What the science says about self-compassion and motivation

Psychologist Dr. Kristin Neff is a pioneering researcher in self-compassion and author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. Neff has spent decades investigating what happens when people respond to their struggles and shortcomings with kindness rather than judgment and pressure. Her work challenges one of this culture’s most deeply held assumptions about achievement: that if we aren’t hard on ourselves, we won’t improve.

And here’s the thing: being self-compassionate isn’t about pretending everything you write is clever, shiny, or worth publishing. And it’s definitely not about letting yourself off the hook or abandoning your ambitions. It’s about creating a nurturing internal environment where you can acknowledge mistakes without attacking yourself for making them. I know, easier said than done. But follow me, because the evidence strongly suggests that a compassionate approach can actually strengthen your motivation.

Researchers Juliana G. Breines and Serena Chen conducted four experiments in which they encouraged participants to respond compassionately to their mistakes. Findings published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin showed that responding compassionately consistently led to greater motivation to improve. In one experiment, participants who practiced self-compassion after struggling on a task spent more time studying for a subsequent task. Think about that for a moment. Being kinder to themselves didn’t make these participants less motivated. It actually helped them reengage with the challenge.

For writers, this means beating yourself up doesn’t help your actual dreams and goals. To put it bluntly, you are more likely to continue with a task if you talk to yourself nicely.

When working with writers, our goal is not to abandon deadlines or ambition. Our goal is to lose the cruelty towards ourselves to maintain and reinvigorate our motivation. Treating yourself with self-compassion can help to repair your relationship with the page and rebuild trust with yourself.

Alana asked for specifics on how to create the conditions for a sustained healthy relationship with her creativity. I shared that this involves four self-compassion shifts: lowering the stakes, clapping back when the inner critic gets noisy, shifting from cruelty to curiosity, and paving the way for an easy return.

I broke it down for her like this.

1. Lower the stakes.

When you sit down to write, tell yourself you know you will do your best, but that what you create in that moment doesn’t even have to be good. It can be useless sludge that you decide to throw away. You never need to show it to anyone. Acknowledge yourself for showing up, for leaning into your craft no matter what.

2. Let your compassionate self clap back.

When your inner critic pipes up, don’t immediately believe what it is saying. Notice it, then invite another voice into the conversation. Invite in the part of you that is encouraging, wise, grounded, and capable of seeing the bigger picture.

Start by writing down what the inner critic is telling you. Maybe something like, You are so slow, you will never finish the book. Now, let your most compassionate and encouraging voice take a crack at responding. Yes, I’m behind my original vision and I’m disappointed, but none of that means I can’t finish. I can always look at what’s getting in my way, get curious, adjust my plan and take the next step.

Or maybe your critic might say, That page was horrible—you have no idea how to write professionally. The compassionate encouragement self might say, This is only a rough draft. Its purpose is to be rough. I have plenty of drafts to make it better and polish it up.

The compassionate voice isn’t Pollyanna, lying to you or pretending that everything is rosy. When stuck, discouraged, rejected, or overwhelmed, it’s speaking the truth without cruelty.

3. Shift from cruelty to curiosity.

If you find yourself saying, “This is no good, I suck,” tell yourself, This is a difficult moment; struggle is part of every writer’s journey. I can be kind to myself and still take the next step when I’m ready.

Tell yourself, If I’m feeling stuck, can I also follow the path of I wonder? I wonder what would happen if I got playful? I wonder what would happen if I started with the dramatic moment on page three? Or I wonder if this character would work better if she had wicked-black humor. I wonder if I need a break, a sandwich, or a walk in the fresh air?

4. Pave the way for an easy return.

Before you stop a writing session, even if you’ve gotten nowhere, drop a “comeback breadcrumb” for your future self. Leave yourself a note about what you may want to explore next, or ask a question that would be fun to answer, or toss off a couple of bad ideas for the next scene. Or start a delicious scene and end it halfway so you will be excited to finish it the next day. Leave an encouraging note on your computer so it’s the first thing you see. Make returning to your creative work a fun onramp.

The more you practice, the more familiar it becomes to respond to yourself with compassion. Your mind will soon start looking for the compassionate alternative to the cruel or harsh voice. And before long, you will not only trust yourself and your process, but you will look around and realize that your relationship to creativity encourages you to return tomorrow, next month, and ten years from now. So next time the self-punishment dance begins, try a little tenderness instead.