It begins with un-learning.

We have to un-learn everything we’ve been taught about creativity, fear, and productivity. Question your questions. Look beyond the symptoms — that’s where creative anxiety really hides.

Buzzy Lewis has been researching and blogging about creative anxiety since 2014.

“Teaching coping strategies is useful, but it’s no longer my endgame,” Buzzy explains. “When I started exploring the polar opposite reactions and approaches to anxiety, I realised the real clue to our creative blocks lies in the space between.”

Forget one-size-fits-all solutions. The masculine approach says: stack dopamine and hustle harder. The feminine approach says: slow down, tune in, and trust your heart. Both are fine — but alone, they’re unsustainable. The Failure Friendly Mindset blends them.

People who master this mindset understand that masculine energy and feminine energy — action and reflection — are partners, not enemies.

“Powerful action leads to deep rest, and deep rest fuels powerful action. You can’t crush your goals if you aren’t restoring your energy. And you can’t still your mind if you’re hoarding it’s energy. Yet most systems around us glorify one at the expense of the other.”

Buzzy urges: “It doesn’t matter which extreme you chase — prioritising one undermines the other, and ultimately, the whole creative process.”

Too much action = burnout. Too much reflection = lethargy.

The Failure Friendly Mindset reconnects you with your natural rhythm: swinging between action and reflection, like night to day, winter to summer.

“Procrastination, playing small, overworking, or perfectionism? Often, these are just your body nudging the pendulum back into balance. Rather than panicking, we can listen to their wisdom and respond in a healthier way.”

In Being Creative, Buzzy shows a friendlier, smarter, and far more sustainable way to be creative.