Fear As Motivation
I’ve been obsessing about this week’s blog post. Quite frankly, I had no idea what to write about until I sat down and started typing. I feel accountable to have a weekly post on this site (with rare exception). This forces me to be writing and creating content every week. You may ask, “Why?”. I’m glad that you asked.
While I wish my motivation was noble, the true motivator for me is fear. This is the same motivator that keeps me writing new material for stage, keeps me working on new magic routines, and forces me to take part of my day to work on getting the next gig. It’s not a fear that the phone will stop ringing. It’s a more personal fear that the well will run dry. It’s a fear that I could run out of ideas.
Creativity is not something that can be scientifically analyzed and this ephemeral quality adds to the fear. I think about how I created my best comedy material and my most amazing magic and honestly can’t provide an answer. “It just happened.” The inability to cite specifics in regards to this process scares me a little. I can’t (without more than a little doubt) point to one method or technique that produces results. (No one in a creative industry can.) So, it gets scary.
Fear isn’t a bad motivator. While some may view the emotion as negative it has had huge evolutionary advantages to our species. (I typed that assuming that we are of the same species. Any walruses reading this should not take offense.) Fear can make us run faster and fight harder. Turning that fear into a positive result is what a lot performers do every time they take the stage. Transforming nervous energy into a more energized show reaps huge rewards. In the same way, fear motivates me.
While I can’t point to a specific method to achieve success on stage I can take steps to ensure that something good is produced every now and again. Hence this blog. Hence the daily writing. It’s just me fighting the fear.
So, what are you afraid of?
