A paper from decades ago studied both elite and non-elite swimmers. The findings suggest that while both types of swimmers experience intense anxiety, elite swimmers interpreted the emotion as a part of the process—their bodies were getting ready to perform well—whereas more non-elite swimmers felt that the anxiety was debilitating.

This tendency could probably apply towards creative work. When you do creative work, you’ll probably experience confusion, doubt, and even despondence. As you gain experience and confidence, you realize that this is actually a totally normal part of the process.

In other fields of work, you may interpret these emotions as red flags—signs that something is veering off in the wrong direction. In creative work, these emotions come up naturally.

As you develop your craft, these difficult emotions don’t go away, and they don’t dwindle in intensity either. You just get more familiar and comfortable with them. You learn to suspend your belief that something is wrong, even when it feels that way.

There will definitely be times when an idea isn’t quite right for you, or maybe it’s completely not what you want to say. More often than not, you’ll need to at least make a draft before you can make sense of it. Treat it like part of the research process.

Thanks to Rohan Rajiv for sharing and summarizing the study.