Today I was thinking about why some people avoid doing art or playing in creative spaces.
My whole life I have been creative. In my youth, I loved drawing. I did it ALL THE TIME. I took a lot of art classes in school (every one I able to take). Then I went to art school to avoid the more typical college experience with things like writing, history, math, etc because I struggled with all that stuff.
Then I started my own business and the last 26 years (since 1999) I spent time being creative, exploring, continually creating, and just playing. To me business always felt like it was a highly creative outlet in my life. For part of my career I did professional illustration work to try to do even more creative work. This was always a space I was good at – creating art and communicating through images.
In October of 2023, I started painting and fell in love. I found it really healing, it brought a ton of joy to my life, and honestly I feel it’s helped me tap into a pure authenticity that seemed to go beyond what I already felt was me living a pretty authentic life.
But over the years so many people have told me… “You are so talented. I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler” or “I’m not creative at all.”. Anyhow, this got me thinking…
Why do most people avoid exploring art and creativity?
So this is what I thought I might explore in this article. Some of the reasons seemed quick and easy to guess – judgements, self-doubt, the thought that art is frivolous or silly. Then I thought a bit deeper about it and started questioning why.
There are a few reasons why many people avoid exploring art and creativity, even though these activities can be deeply fulfilling and fun:
Fear of Judgment
People often feel self-conscious about their creative skills, worrying that their work won’t be “good enough” or that others will criticize them. I think this is one of the biggest hinderances. To me sharing art or even producing art makes you get vulnerable and society hates vulnerability as this means giving up control and taking our armor off.
We have built such strong armor and stay guarded all the time to “feel safe”. But what I can tell from from my life experience is… wearing all that armor, and trying to “be safe” all the time, is exhausting.
Vulnerability and letting go of the fear of judgement can be very empowering and liberating. Being creative and doing art is a great way to explore your inter feelings and emotions. Sharing this art is truly shedding all the armor.
Doing art is very healing though and learning to express or feel your emotions is powerful.
Perceived Lack of Talent
Many believe that creativity is an innate gift rather than a skill that can be developed, so they avoid trying because they think they’re not naturally artistic. The funny thing though is artistic style and creativity are learned skills.
I am pretty good at drawing because I put in thousands of hours of drawing. There might be a little natural talent but I learned by playing or looking art art books. Think Bob Ross teaching you how to paint happy little trees. with a few tips anyone could paint those trees.
With creativity sometimes it takes giving yourself and/or another person giving you permission to try something new and just play. The thing is if we do not fear failure, every time we try something new, we learn and grow. The more we try the more we learn and the more we grow. This as I said really is PLAY. It gets better with time and practice.
Time Constraints
With busy schedules, people prioritize work, responsibilities, and practical tasks over creative expression, seeing it as a luxury rather than a necessity. What I found with my painting was I started by doing a layered approach through a 21 day challenge and what that did was plant the seeds of doing 10-20 minutes a day or in each painting session.
The cool thing about that was it was easier to make time to paint for 10 minutes. I will say however that I set up a painting area that was always ready to go for those 21 days. That too really helped build the mindset of getting into painting with limited time in my schedule. My point is, we are all busy BUT there are ways to make doing your art easy and giving it time without a huge commitment early on.
Rigid Education & Social Conditioning
Traditional education often emphasizes structured learning and productivity over open-ended creativity, making people associate art with childhood rather than a lifelong pursuit.
I struggled with the typical education system I guess because I love playing and drawing and didn’t value all the other stuff they were forcing on me. I am a life long learner but I do think we need to support creativity and critical thinking more than just falling in line and being so rigid about how we must learn and what we must learn to be “successful”.
Perfectionism & Self-Doubt
The fear of making mistakes or producing something that doesn’t meet their expectations can prevent people from even starting.
I wanted to do this 21 day painting challenge for at least a year so I get it. I didn’t want to buy a bunch of supplies and waste a lot of money because… “what if I suck?”. Ha! Then the timing was right and I said screw it and bought a few supplies did the challenge.
It has changed my life and now I see how silly it was to get hung up on the self-doubt or perfectionism or fear that held ma back.
Cultural & Societal Norms
Some cultures value practicality and financial stability over creative expression, leading people to feel that art isn’t a worthwhile pursuit unless it leads to success or recognition.
This is silly. I was reading a book a while ago that shared the healthy and wellness benefits of doing arts or crafts for 20 minutes. The thing is it doesn’t even matter if the art/craft is “good” that physical act is really beneficial to your wellbeing. THAT has a ton of value over societal norms in my opinion. Of course I’ve always been okay bucking the system a bit.
Misconceptions About Art
Many believe art is only for professionals or that creativity requires expensive materials, advanced skills, or extensive training.
You know this is one of the things I’d like to change about art. Museums have always seemed a bit out of reach for everyday people, like art is for the wealthy or the “smart” people. I call bullshit on this.
Art is a human expression of self and emotions and it should totally be accessible to all people to view (public museums for example), in schools, and to practice.
Digital Distractions
With endless types of entertainment at our fingertips, people are more likely to consume creative content rather than create their own.
I love creative content – good films, music, books, etc and it is great having easy access to tis stuff, however, creating your own is pretty cool. My son likes Lego and StarWars and he was taking pictures of his Lego StarWars creations. He also like YouTube videos. One day I asked him if he’d like to create a stop motion video of his Lego creations.
He said maybe but wasn’t sure what that meant so I downloaded a stop-motion app on the iPad and showed him how to take photos and then he created scenes and then he created a 20 second video and both my wife and I were blown away. It was really cool. I guess I share this because sometimes we might be surprised at what we can create if we just get in the right mindset and start playing and let go of expectations and perfectionism.
Emotional Vulnerability
Art is a deeply personal form of expression, and some avoid it because it can bring up emotions they’d rather not confront.
What I can tell you from my own experience is some of the work I do is to intentionally get emotionally vulnerable. It is a bit more intuitive painting and following my gut/intuition rather than trying to paint a specific product or image.
I focus on my desires or my fears and just paint whatever comes when I am in a flow state of just exploring those feelings/emotions. Now I do not share all of those pieces but they are really healing and a powerful experience for processing dificult emotions.
Lack of Encouragement
If someone wasn’t encouraged to be creative growing up, they may not see it as an option or may feel lost on where to start.
I was lucky in that my parents were really great at encouraging me and buying crayons and other art supplies for me in my youth. I should also say that my wife has been really amazingly supportive of my painting journey (and everything really).
This does make it easier to stick with it or risk a bit more with each new effort. I would like to build a solid artistic and creative community because I think this is something the world needs more of – a safe space to practice and explore or learn how to be creative and own our own personal creativity and title of “artist”.
Can I ask you a question or two?
- Do any of these reasons resonate with you? Which ones? Why?
- Do you think there are other factors at play that I may have missed?
- Have you ever wanted to try art or grow your creativity? If so, what stopped you? What would help you most get comfortable trying your hand at art/creativity?
