You know the feeling, right?

You have an idea. Something you want to create, a vision, a little dream longing to be brought to life. It's tickling the back of your head, pulling you towards creating. You decide to do it. It's going to be brilliant. It's such a beautiful idea.

And then you just can't do it.

Let's talk about that frustration, of what we can do instead of throwing things across the room and give up on our projects.

When you ponder an idea.
When you sit down to create.
When you sketch out a project.
When you decide to share or not share.

When your heart beats with improbable dreams.

What whispers of restraint do you hear?
What lessons, doubts and rules to you follow?

Summer is a time we often want to do something creative, something we don't have the time or energy to focus on when we're stressed by work and in the middle of our every-day life. But it's also a time to relax and reload, and a too ambitious summer project can get in the way of slowing down.

If creativity is calling for you this summer, let these four questions help you choose a good summer project. 

I didn't know much about the Divergent trilogy when I started reading the first book, I just longed for an engaging read. But I soon discovered it was actually perfect books to read this year, the year I'm facing my creative fears.

The fears they face in these books are not the fears creativity bring. Their fears are the ones associated with survival, but different fears work pretty much the same at it's core. They come from the same part of our brain, from the same instinct of survival.

To live a creative life means we need to face those fears.
This is what the Divergent trilogy can teach us about that.

There's the limits of our physical reality, and then there's the limit we put upon ourselves. The petty, unnecessary and fear based limits. The ones holding you back from living up to your own potential. The limits that becomes reality, through us believing our doubtful voices. 

There's enough limits in the world without us adding to them. Let's bring them down instead.

Do you dare to show your own weird self in your creativity? Are you scared your art just blends in with everyone else's? Do you want what you make to stand out? Then you'll want to learn to tap into your unique weirdness, your quirks and whatever makes you you.

It'll strengthen your creative voice and style, and help you make things no one else can make. 

One of the unexpected paths that emerged when I decided to follow my fear this year was the fear of drawing. If you're not in the boat with me here, it may seem a bit silly. Seriously, how scary can it be to draw? That's something most of us have done since we were kids. Well, for me, that was the problem.

Today, I reveal the steps I took from scared with no self-confidence to calm and confident when I draw.

Imagine a meadow with a fence around it. It's warm and sunny, little bees and flowers moving slowly in a light breeze. Well walked trails go up and down through the grass, you stroll around on them. One of them eventually takes you to an edge of the meadow. You stop, look.

Beyond the fence is a forest. The forest is darker, filled with shadows and uncertainty. 

That's where we're going today. You coming?

A huge, beautiful library with a high ceiling and big windows. Rows and rows of bookcases. But no books.

The streets packed with people. Rushing from importance to serious. But no one is on their phone.

A meeting, with enthusiastic people sitting around a table. No one is speaking.

A world with no voices.

Our most important creative work often lies in the place where our fear and passion is strongest. Naturally, creating in that place is hard, very hard.

We care so much, we can barely touch it.

It’s so loaded with hopes and longing, we get scared of it. We get scared we can’t do it, that we’ll fail and all those hopes will come crashing down. If that dream disappears, we don’t know who we’d be.

Our dream gets trapped in a state of inaction.

But we can do it, with some manipulation of the situation. Let me present a model for doing that scary, passionate work.