The Comedian And The Butterfly
If you’re
a perfectionist like me, you’ve
probably struggled with this fear of
failure on far-too-many occasions.
Most people think fear of failure only
applies to stage fright, but this isn’t
the case. It affects your writing,
performing, and marketing efforts. In
this article, I’m going to address how
the fear of failure takes us out of a
creative flow.
How does worry of
failure affect your
writing?
If you’ve read any of my articles on
the importance of creativity in stand-
up comedy, you’ve been introduced to
the idea of “differentiation.” That is,
the ability to be different from all the
other comedians working today.
Without it, you’re set blends into the
20 other sets that an audience saw
the same night. But once you
differentiate yourself, fans start
seeking YOU out.
If differentiating yourself is
important, what does that imply? It
implies that you must be unique and
different. In short, you need to try new
ideas out that other comedians aren’t
doing. If you have a fear of failure,
you’re simply not going to take this
action. Unfortunately, the best way to
break through a fear of failure is by
blending into the crowd and doing
what everyone else is doing. If you
don’t stand out, there’s very little
chance of doing something “dumb” or
“embarrassing.” But there’s also ZERO
chance of doing something amazing,
which is exactly what the audience
remembers at the end of a show.
This same principle applies to your
actual performances . Are you scared
of moving off-script? I’ll tell you from
experience, the times I’ve improvised
on stage have been some of the most
memorable moments of my
performances.
But how does having a fear of failure
take you out of flow? First, you
continually destroy your
momentum . Would you be an
effective stand-up comedy writer if
someone busted into your room
every 2 minutes and asked “bros how far?” Of course not. But
most comedians do this to
themselves constantly. Every time
you break your momentum it takes
time to get back into it. When there’s
fear of failure (specifically, when you
continually ask yourself questions due
to fear) you interrupt your
momentum. In fact, it becomes
almost impossible to build
momentum because every time you
think of a new joke/line/etc. it
instantly gives you something new to
worry about, which stops your
momentum yet again. If creativity is
5 gear in your car then asking
yourself “worry questions” is like
jamming it into 1 gear on the
highway.
Second, these questions continually
distract yourself from your work. If
you’re asking yourself “worry
questions” than you’re not actually
thinking about comedy… you’re
thinking about fear. If you spend an
hour writing comedy and 45 minutes
of it worrying and analyzing yourself
then you didn’t spend an hour working
on comedy… you spent 15 minutes
(actually, it’s lower because you
interrupted your momentum and had
to keep rebuilding it).
Last, fear of failure makes the
process of writing NO FUN! If a
comedian doesn’t have fun writing
their comedy, what’s the chances that
the audience will actually enjoy it? It’s
extremely low. Isn’t it true that the
jokes and bits that you had the most
fun writing were also the ones that
the audience enjoys the most? It’s not
a coincidence. How can you have fun
while you’re continually second-
guessing yourself? Is there any
activity that you enjoy where you do
continually worry about failure?
Probably not. That’s because it’s
impossible to get into flow when
you’re worried about failure.