SUMMARY
Creative Burnout and Anxiety: What Every Creative Business Owner Needs to Hear
I got emotional in the middle of a recording recently. My guest said one sentence, and it landed somewhere I wasn't expecting.
The sentence was this: anxiety is a misuse of your imagination.
My guest was Chalice Nelson, a licensed professional counselor who works specifically with creative professionals. She uses expressive arts therapy, and she has spent years sitting across from people whose identity is wrapped up in their work. If you own a creative business, that might be you. It is certainly many of the partners I serve at Chief Creative Partners.
Here is what stayed with me from our conversation.
Why Burnout Looks Different for Creative Business Owners
Chalice put it plainly. A traditional job comes with a clear process. You apply, you interview, you get hired. A creative path doesn't work that way.
You come up with an idea. You test it. It might fail. You evaluate it, and then you come back to it or move on to something new.
Along the way, your success depends on how other people respond to you. That response is tied directly to your income. When who you are and what you earn both hinge on how people receive your work, doubt isn't a character flaw. It's a predictable part of the job.
What Doubt Looks Like Day to Day
I asked Chalice what that paralysis looks like for a creative business owner. Her answer was the pressure to get every idea out at the same time. (She was quick to say she does it too.)
You push one idea out, and then you feel the urgency to start the next one before the first has your full attention. You keep going without checking whether it's working, or whether you still want it.
That is where her sentence matters. When you grow anxious about one outcome, you lose sight of the other ways it could come to life. Stunted creativity, creative block, and burnout are all ways of recognizing that you're paralyzed.
Margin Has to Be Planned
I shared something I tell my partners. Take a creative fuel day once a quarter. A full weekday, not a weekend, spent doing whatever refuels you. A movie, a concert, a good meal, a park bench with a journal. You know what resets you.
Chalice added the other half. Structure matters, and so does spontaneity. The light bulb moment doesn't show up when you're buried in tasks.
Her suggestion was to block two hours with nothing on the calendar. Whatever you feel like doing in that window is what you do. I added one rule of my own: stay out of your workspace.
I call that planned spontaneity. The planning is the block. The spontaneity is everything inside it. This is also where the Future You Framework earns its keep, because future you will be grateful that past you booked the time.
How to Set Creative Goals You Can Keep
Creatives are great at setting goals. Sticking with them is where we struggle.
Chalice runs a goal-setting workshop built around a journal she first created for herself. She looks at her strengths and her needs for the year, and she makes sure her goals reach beyond work to the life she wants to live. One of hers this year is visiting 12 new art galleries.
Her group reviews goals every few months. They decide which ones to let go of, because sometimes the attachment is the hard part. Then they ask whether the goal still fits.
I shared my take on the gallery goal. Set 12 and hit nine, and that is nine more galleries than you would have seen otherwise. That isn't a failure. Redefining success and failure is a big part of making goals last.
The Early Warning Signs of Overload
I asked Chalice how to tell when operational overload is turning into a wellness problem. Her first answer was lack of follow-through.
Emails pile up and it's hard to respond. A project was due and it wasn't even on your calendar. And it usually comes without any communication, when a quick "this is a busy season, expect a two to three day delay" would have changed everything.
Her second sign is when the creativity just isn't there. You know a solution exists, but it won't come. That is your cue to pause before it turns into six months of feeling stuck.
One Action You Can Take Today
Chalice offered two lenses for her answer.
Personally: do one thing that slows you down. Go for a walk. Take a day off. Watch a show you haven't seen in years.
In your business: go back to your values, your mission, and the reason you started. If the team is burnt out, ask whether the business has shifted and whether you are still operating on the old principles.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
⚡️ Anxiety narrows your options. When one project has you locked in, write down three other ways it could come to life before you push harder.
⚡️ Margin works best when it is planned. Block two open hours or a quarterly creative fuel day, and protect it like a client meeting.
⚡️ Missed follow-through is an early signal. Communicate before the delay happens, and check your values when the creativity stops coming.
Notable Quotes
💬 "Anxiety is a misuse of your imagination."
💬 "Structure is important and spontaneity is as well."
💬 "The lack of follow through is usually the number one sign."
Work With Chalice and Get the Tools
Chalice Nelson, LPC, offers one-on-one and group therapy, workshops, consulting for creative teams, and program evaluation for arts organizations. Find her at https://www.chalicenelsonlpc.com or @chalicecreates.
EPISODE RESOURCES
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to the Chief Creative Podcast. This show is for professional creatives who are struggling with the busyness of creativity, helping them run their business by design. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, founder and owner of Chief Creative Partners. For more information on how we can help your creative business, check out chiefcreativepartners.com. You create. We operate.
All right, today I'm sitting down with licensed professional counselor Chalice Nelson. Chalice runs her own practice specifically for creative professionals like you, and she helps them unlock wellness as a focus inside their creative business. She does this through one-on-one or group therapy using expressive.
I've got a feeling you're going to be hearing a lot more from and about Chalice on this platform moving forward. Let's dive right into the interview.
Joining us today on the podcast is Chalice Nelson. We were just talking before we hit record that we have so many intersecting interests. Chalice, I hope you, listener and watcher, will see by the end of this episode just the amazing person that she is, the amazing spirit that she carries, and the authenticity that she carries into every conversation.
I'm going to jump right in here, because I'm sure by this point we have a little intro about who you are. What I love, Chalice, is that you work specifically with creatives and entrepreneurs. So what's different about anxiety or burnout when it shows up in someone whose identity is wrapped up in their creative work, versus maybe some other corporate client?
I think the primary difference is that you are following your own path. Compare that to someone who may have a traditional job, where there's a clear process that you go through. You apply for the jobs, you do the interview, they like you, they hire you. That's not necessarily the experience when you are a creative. You come up with the idea, you test it out. It might fail. You take some time to evaluate what's going on with it. You might come back to it, or you might go on to a new one.
A lot of how you succeed as a creative is based on how other people are responding to you. That creates a lot of concern. How are people responding to me? Will they like this product? What happens if they don't? It's directly tied to your financial well-being, and that's one of the main ways we are able to survive in this world.
Right. So much of who you are is directly tied to how people will receive not just you, but your work. Tell me a little about your background. How did you end up in a place where you're merging creativity and mental wellness together? [F6] How did you get here? Tell us the story.
It's a very funny story, because even as a kid I swore I would not be here. For the most part, I grew up as an only child. My siblings on my dad's side lived out of state, and my mom did not have another child until I was getting ready to go to college.
Being the only child, I used to get in trouble quite a lot, because I'd say, "Oh, I'm so bored." For my mom, that was a curse word. You could not say that word in this household. So she found tons of art-based activities and programs for me to participate in. I remember being part of a girls' ensemble. I was in plays. She just had me in all types of stuff. I think I was in a vacation Bible school program where I had to sing and make art, and at the end I had to do a play. It really built my love for the arts.
My grandmother could sing. When I was about two, my family said, "We're going to get her a little... is it Little Tikes?" Yeah, Little Tikes. "We're going to get her a microphone." Since that day, I said I'm a performing artist. My parents would have family members and friends come over, and I would perform in the kitchen.
Once they realized I could actually sing, I went to a performing arts high school. But at that point I started thinking, I can't do this. I'm being told, "You want to get into Juilliard, but all y'all are not going to make it. You want to be successful, but all of you are not going to make it." And while I had wonderful opportunities, like dual enrollment at the music college in my hometown, and I was even able to take film classes while I was in high school, I just didn't know if this was for me. Even now, my friends from high school and I laugh, because they say, "You were never in a play." And I say, absolutely not. You mean to tell me y'all were at school until 11 PM? I wasn't going to do that.
I got to a point where I didn't know if this was going to be a sustainable career for me. My mom has worked in social services all of my life, and I thought, I don't want to do that type of work at all. Someone else can do it. So I actually went to school to become a pharmacist.
In my first year of undergrad, I didn't qualify for a true pharmacy internship. A social services organization in my hometown said, "You can come do the med rounds. You can walk with a nurse and see what medications we give the children who live here." And I hated it. I would see some kids isolated in a room by themselves, and the response would be, "They're acting this way, let's go give them medicine." I thought, that's going to be me. I'm going to be the one preparing this medication so these kids can be in isolation, or so they won't be a bother.
So I went back to school, and it took me quite some time to realize psychology was my thing. I took a psychology class, and all my classmates were struggling, and I thought, why is this so easy? I was putting it all together, and they were saying, "No, it's not that easy." So I just continued on from there.
But even at that point, I felt like my creative pathway was done. I used to crochet all the time. I would take clothes in my closet and cut them up and create something new. There was no time for that in college. What it actually helped me realize was that my creativity had shifted. I wasn't just doing things for me personally. I was the vice president of my sorority. I was curating events and developing concepts for our different outfits. It took me a couple of years after that to realize I had the creativity in another way.
When I became a therapist, I started working with kids. I could color with them and draw with them. But that was also really hard, because although you're supporting them in their growth, you're one hour out of all of the other adults in their lives, and those adults have to be in alignment with what you're encouraging them to do. At that point, you have more than one client.
Once I progressed in my clinical career and was working at a clinic, I started seeing clients on the side, because I was in an administrative role. I thought, there's something about these clients that I really enjoy, and I can't figure it out. I looked at everyone and realized everyone's a creative. That helped me define my niche when I went into private practice.
Then I felt like there was still something missing. I'm working with creatives, but what's the missing piece here? I had tried something similar to a dietitian or nutrition program, to see if it could be implemented into my practice, and I didn't necessarily see the future for it. But in doing my continuing education, I found out that expressive arts was a thing. I thought, how did I have a career of over ten years and never hear of expressive arts therapy? So I went and got my certification, and that felt like, okay, I'm back in my creative realm. Not only am I working with creatives, but I have a foundation to develop creative interventions, programs, and workshops to help me help other people.
That's so good. You're sitting squarely in your calling. You can see the story progress through all those years to where we are now. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Yes.
So when you sit down with a creative who's struggling with that attachment, identity, and the anxiety and burnout that come along with it, what's one of the first things you say to them? A first exercise, a first thought, a first question? Let's pretend for a second I'm that guy. What do you need to tell me? What's the first thing you're going to tell me?
It might not necessarily be the first thing I tell you. It might be the first thing you tell yourself.
There you go.
I do some form of a creative exercise in the first session, as a way for you to tell me a bit more about who you are and for us to figure out where we want to go from here. It's really about building the relationship and getting a sense of what's going on. The primary thing that's woven into the work I do with all of my clients is understanding where your values lie. That's such an important part of the process, because you may be awarded wonderful opportunities, but how are they going to make you feel in the long run?
Are you aligned with a company that has the same values as you? Are they asking you to complete a project where you're not going to be fairly compensated? Are they asking you to hide parts of yourself in order to attain this contract? Helping clients understand where their values lie is a very important part of figuring out what you want your path to look like as a creative.
Oh man, that's so good. I feel that in my bones when you're saying that, for sure. You talk, in some of the stuff I've read that you've put out there, about how doubt paralyzes people. In our business, the creative business, there's that vulnerability of putting yourself out there. It's an extension of you, something you've created, and you're hoping people appreciate it enough to pay for it, so you can sustain this and live to create another day. But what is that doubt? What does that paralysis from doubt look like day to day for a creative business owner, and what's usually underneath it?
I feel like hustle culture might be the main culprit. Having done my fair research, I've confirmed that. Particularly for creatives who live in the United States, there is such a big push for us to be able to take care of ourselves. So we come up with all these great ideas, but we feel this urgency that they all need to come out at the same time. I'm even a culprit of it. I'll say, "Okay, I'm going to do three groups, and then I'm going to do this workshop, and I'm going to do all these things, and it's going to work out." But the reality is that I can't give my full attention and intention to several projects at once.
What we find is that we come up with all these great ideas, we start to push one out, and then it's, "Okay, I need to start on the next one." But we haven't really ensured that we're operating with intention with the creative product we initially developed. I think it's important to recognize that when we're in that hustle state, we have a very, very hard time even recognizing what we need. So we keep pushing forward with something, not checking in to see if it's working for us, or if the product itself is working. Sometimes the conviction we have for it is so strong that we lose sight of our creativity.
That's something I tell clients often: anxiety is a misuse of your imagination, right? If you grow so anxious that this is the thing you want to do, you lose sight of the fact that there are so many different ways you can still bring it to life, even if it's not working right now. You've stunted your creativity. Stunted creativity, creative block, and burnout are all ways of us recognizing how we're paralyzed.
Oh my goodness. It literally brought tears to my eyes when you said anxiety is not a good use of your imagination. I'm going to use that for myself and for my parents. I feel that so deeply. Maybe today's episode is just for me, but I believe it's for a lot of people.
So you're saying that the hustle culture most creatives find themselves in, whether it's self-induced, industry-induced, or client-induced, is masking the underlying doubt and fear that they have. And they don't have time to process those things, to connect to the values of who they really are, what they really care about, what's most important to them. There's no time to process that. Is that what I'm hearing?
Yes.
Okay. I love it.
Yes, because it's, "I need to move on to the next thing." Do you even want to do that next thing? Is that next thing part of your journey, or is it part of what you saw other people do? Which then again, is that creativity, or are you leaning into a path that you think is going to get you somewhere?
That's really good. I encourage most of our partners in my business, because all of our partners are creative business owners, to do what I call a creative fuel day, quarterly. I'd like it to be more often than that, but realistically, can we commit to once a quarter, four times a year, to take a whole day, on a weekday, not a weekend, and go do something that refuels you creatively? It could be going to a movie, going to a concert, shopping, eating some good food somewhere. It could be sitting down in a park and journaling and drawing. It could be golfing. It doesn't matter what it is. Whatever you know intuitively refuels and resets you creatively, go do that.
What you're saying resonates so deeply, because unless we make time for it, it doesn't happen. I was just on a call yesterday with a partner, and we were talking about him having time on his calendar just to create. I said, "I'm willing to bet that you live and move and breathe by what's on your calendar." Like Ron Burgundy and the teleprompter. You'll just do whatever it says. I'm the same way. I'm here right now because I woke up this morning and saw that we had this on our calendar, and now I'm sitting here doing it because that's what my calendar told me to do. That's a healthy thing, to take that stuff out of our brains and put it out there for future us. When future us gets to it, we say, "Thank you, past me, for booking this so I can have this conversation with Chalice."
So I think it's important, and I'd love to hear your thoughts too, on being able to intentionally make space to reconnect with your why, to reconnect with your values, to reassess, to reset a bit creatively. How have you seen that with some of your clients you've sat across from?
I would also say it's important to just be. I think that's something creatives struggle with, because it's always, "I need to move on to whatever the next thing is." But when we think about the actual psychology of creativity, you have to get into your illumination states, where the idea comes to you, that spark, that light bulb moment. That can't come to you when you're constantly inundated with tasks and things to do. So structure is important, and spontaneity is as well.
Helping people figure out how to welcome in spontaneity in doses, because everything is good in moderation, is part of it. You've encouraged people to have their creative fuel day, a day full of creativity. It makes me think of The Artist's Way, where she encourages us to go on artist dates. You might not be able to have a full day off of work every week. I would love that, to tend to your creativity. But what is a practice you're implementing that may allow for spontaneity? It may require you to put it on your calendar. It may require you to say, "You know what, two hours on this day, there's nothing on the calendar. It's blocked off. Whatever comes to me that I want to do during that time, that's what I'll do."
Yes, it's planned spontaneity. The planned part is that I'm going to block it off. The spontaneity part is that whatever happens during those two hours happens. I just know I'm not going to go sit down on my laptop. You make the rules. I know I'm not going to re-enter whatever the workspace is for you, whether it's a desk or a laptop or a journal or a pad. I'm not going to re-engage there. Other than that, there are no rules for this open time.
I wanted to interrupt this episode for a second to ask you a question. You know that feeling when your business is growing faster than you can keep up with? You have more tasks than time. Your calendar looks like it belongs to four people, not one person. That's most creative owners we talk to, and that's why I started Chief Creative Partners. We step in as your operations team, not just another consultant handing you a PDF and then disappearing and telling you what you should do. No, no, no. We build it with you. If your projects are running you instead of the other way around, let's talk. Book a free discovery call at chiefcreativepartners.com. You create. We operate. All right, let's get back to the show.
I think being able to commit to that leads me into my next question. You've built an audience talking about creativity and wellness and how they intersect. Why do you think so many creatives treat caring for themselves as a luxury instead of a necessity? And when they do that, what's the cost?
When we look at our own experiences, sometimes the story is that self-care is a luxury. Think about a time you've been in business and you said, "You know what, I'm going to rest." And then you rest, and you recognize you don't have all the clientele you need to make ends meet this month. Or you say, "I'm going to pass up this project because I need to prioritize myself," and whoever you're contracting with decides, "I don't want to give you another opportunity again." So I think it's important to acknowledge what the reality is. The reality is that sometimes we are in circumstances where it feels like we're being punished for putting ourselves first.
This is where it's important to check in with your values, to understand what helps you continue to keep going. You had this opportunity. It may not have worked out the way you wanted, but what can you do to build the next opportunity, one that's probably a much better fit?
Man, that's so good. I want to shift gears a little bit, because you host a workshop on setting and achieving creative goals with intention and accountability. Every word of that sentence hits me right in my passion bucket. As you lead creatives through this, what tends to derail them the most? Is it the goal-setting part or the sticking-with-it part? Creatives are really great at setting goals. They struggle with sticking to them. They could come to me with the whole vision mapped out, but if I ask how they're going to get there, they have no idea. How do you help them through that?
I'll actually show you a version of the journal that comes from this exercise. This came from my own experiences. I started creating a birthday journal for myself, where each year I would take pictures. Getting my horoscope reading every year is beneficial for me, so I take that into consideration. I look at my strengths. (Some of my letters are falling off.) I look at what I need for the year and what I need to prioritize. I think about that from the lens of: when I focus on my needs, my need for creativity and my love for learning as a strength, how is that going to help me achieve my goals? So I'm trying to think about what may have been a goal I wanted to achieve that year.
One thing I think is also important is ensuring you have goals beyond just what you do for work, goals that cultivate the life you want to live. Work is one aspect of it. So I'm going to make one up, a goal that I've had. This year, one of my goals is that I want to visit 12 new art galleries.
Love it.
Being able to have this reflective process in the workshop, I help the participants develop their journal. We do a review. We check in. We decide which goals need to be let go of, because sometimes that attachment to the goal is really hard. We're pushing toward achieving something, and we have to evaluate whether we even want that. And we develop a system that helps you keep checking in with it. Goal setting and goal follow-through often feel like a task, and my intention is to make it enjoyable, something you look forward to, where you say, "I get to reflect on what this month was like for me, what worked, what didn't, what I achieved."
Another thing that happens is that as we get to the end of the year, or the end of a quarter, we say, "What did I do?" If you have a journal that helps you, you can actually see what you've been able to accomplish, versus pushing yourself toward, "I didn't get that done in Q2, so now I have eight million goals I'm going to try to achieve in Q3," which isn't realistic. It gives us an opportunity to evaluate how I felt at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and maybe I've decided I don't even want that anymore. I think that's a big thing for creatives, to give yourself permission to shift.
Man, that's so good. What I hear in there about the journal is a couple of things. One, the journal helps the creative brain stay connected to the vision, the goal-setting part that comes so naturally to creatives, throughout the process of seeing the goal through. You say you want to visit 12 new art galleries this year, and my brain immediately goes, there are 12 months in a year, so I'm going to research 12 I've never been to, and I'm going to put one a month on the calendar for the next 12 months. I try to be hard-nosed about not canceling any of those. And even if I only make it to nine, this is why I talk about goal setting a lot with my partners: if you set a goal for 12 and you only hit nine art galleries, was that a failure? No, it's nine more art galleries than you would have gone to if you hadn't done that. So I think redefining success and failure in our goals is a huge part of it too.
The other part is the accountability the journal brings to the goal. You sit down with your clients and do the journal, but then you're checking in. Talk to me about the checking-in part. How are you helping your clients stay accountable to these goals, from a wellness perspective, on a regular basis?
Give people permission to shift. Life gives you circumstances that don't always create the perfect conditions for the goal you set. So as a client in psychotherapy, we're going to review those goals every three months. We look at where you are now, look at where you were when you started these goals, and ask whether it still feels appropriate. Are there any shifts or adjustments we need to make to help you get there?
Well, actually, let's just do this right now. When is the next workshop? How can people get involved?
Yes. The next workshop is going to be in December. The date has not yet been fully confirmed, but this is going to be our celebration. For [Unblogged], we are celebrating what we've been able to accomplish for the year, reflecting on the growth we've been able to make, even if the goals we set at the beginning of the year aren't what was achieved. There are still things you were able to do, and we'll really talk about the importance of rest for creativity. So we're celebrating. We are not focused on new goals. That workshop isn't until February, because I believe winter is for hibernating. Give yourself some space to rest and relax. For most of us, December is crazy. We're closing out business things, projects need to be completed, there's marketing for whatever programs you may be offering. So we celebrate, we rest, we come back, and we set our intentions and goals in February.
I love that. I love that. Well, a lot of our audience, Chalice, is creative businesses that are trying to scale, but they're doing so without much time, energy, or even wellness margin left over. So from the therapeutic chair, what's an early warning sign that someone's operational chaos, if you will, is starting to become a mental health problem, not just necessarily a business problem?
The lack of follow-through is usually the number one sign that people start to realize. If you start to realize emails are piling up and it's hard for you to respond, or you missed the date when a project was due, that's your warning sign. Hey, I need to check in with myself and evaluate what's going on. Usually this comes without any communication. It's not, "I know this is going to be a busy season, so please expect it to take me an additional two to three days to respond to your email." It's just sudden. You realize, "Oh wow, they sent me that email a week ago and I didn't respond to it." Or, "Oh wow, that project was due, and it wasn't even on my calendar to get done." I think those are some of the early warning signs.
I think another warning sign that we often push off, thinking we need to do something about it, is when the creativity just isn't there. We've got a problem we're faced with, we know there's some type of solution we can come up with, but it's just not coming to us. That's a warning sign to pause before it becomes full-on creative block, where you're dealing with six-plus months of feeling stuck.
Okay. So let's say someone listening or watching this podcast right now is exactly where you just described. What's one action they can take today toward wellness and away from that? It doesn't have to be the most correct action. I'm sure it's different for everybody.
I would give a recommendation from two lenses. If we're thinking about it personally, with our wellness, I would say: what is one thing you can do that will slow you down? Do something out of your typical routine. Can you go for a walk? Can you take a day off? Can you watch a TV show you haven't watched in a couple of years? Give yourself something that helps you break up the monotony of your day.
When it comes to the business front, say you realize the team is burnt out. I would encourage leaders to go back to their values, their mission, and their drive, the reason for their business, and evaluate where we are with these things. You might recognize that you need a consultant to come in and help you shift some policies and practices and really ensure that creative wellness is implemented into your organization. You may realize, you know what, this business has shifted and we need to operate in a different way than where we started. That happens often, where you have a certain preferred audience you want to work with, and you realize they're not the ones reaching out to you to do this work. You really enjoy working with this population, but you haven't shifted your business focus. You're still operating on the previous principles. So I would say coming back to why you got started, from a business lens, would be helpful.
I love that. I love that. Well, as we wrap up, can you share how someone listening or watching could work with you, could sit under your wellness, your counseling? How can someone get involved?
Yes. If you're interested in psychotherapy or just one-on-one personal services, I have a boutique virtual practice for individual therapy, group therapy, and intensives. If you are a creative team or organization, I offer workshops. I offer consulting on ways to implement creative wellness practices into your business so that you and your team are able to be sustained. If you're an arts-based organization, I offer program evaluation, where I can look at some of the things you're intending to offer and support you in ensuring you've developed a system that not only helps achieve your goal, but also makes sure you are okay as well.
I also offer support with activations. Sometimes as a creator, we are doing amazing, powerful work, but we're not necessarily aware of how to ensure our work is treated with care. So I help curators and others develop art activations for the projects they're creating. Everything's at https://www.chalicenelsonlpc.com or you can find me on any social media platform at @chalicecreates.
I love it so much. Y'all get out there and support Chalice and what she's doing. I promise you'll be blessed because of it. Chalice, thank you so much for your time and for joining us today on the podcast. I really, really appreciate it.
Yes. Thank you, Dustin.