Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art is a must-read if you’re trying to overcome the inner battles that most artists and writers grapple with.

There’s a couple of lines in particular which get right to the nub of why creative pursuits can sometimes feel like wading through treacle.

From the book:

“At a big New York ad agency, our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure.

Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder.

These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys.

Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did”

When I joined Tony Robbins’s personal development jamboree Unleash The Power Within, we spent A LOT of the 4 days “getting in state”. This meant jumping up & down, posing like Superman, fist-pumping the air and dancing to various chart toppers.

The problem, according to Big Tony, was that most people lack the right “Emotional State” to achieve their goals. And the cure, also according to Big Tony, were these state-building exercises (at events like his – fancy that).

But I daresay Big Tony’s “Emotional State” is no different to ADD or the double dose of SAD which the ad agency marketers cooked up in their New York Office.

In fact, I’m going to go one step further.

The way it looks to me is that ALL so-called “problems” with fancy names are just everyday human feelings repackaged as something that needs to be fixed.

I’m not talking about physical ailments like Carpal Tunnel, Runner’s Knee or Daily Email Elbow.

I’m talking about psychological ailments.

Take FOMO. 

FOMO’s just a bundle of envy, anxiety and regret. All normal emotions.

Take Imposter Syndrome. That used to be called on-the-job-learning. But now it’s snugly nestled into the global mental health market as its own standalone niche, complete with workshops and five-step programs to help you conquer it once and for all.

Take the Sunday Scaries and that icky feeling when your mind wanders into the office (something I knew all too well). Nothing wrong with a weekend wobble of course. But nowadays the Sunday Scaries has become an unmistakeable sign that you’ve wasted your potential, lost your purpose and that you need to quit your job, move to Bali and re-train as a yoga teacher.

I could go on.

Analysis Paralysis, Decision Fatigue, Post-Holiday Blues, Toxic Positivity, Toxic Productivity…

They’re all the same. They’re all normal human feelings marketed as problems that need fixing.

But there is an alternative:

Stop trying to fix your feelings. Stop looking for a cure.

You're not broken. You're human.

And being human sometimes means feeling anxious, envious, restless, bored, uncertain, lonely, overwhelmed….and 101 other feelings too.

But none of these are signs that something’s gone wrong. They're actually signs that your system is working perfectly.

This is obvious in other parts of life.

Take hunger. Isn’t it handy that my body can tell me when it’s time to grab a prawn mayo sandwich?

Well, what if it works the same way for emotions like stress, anxiety, anger – or even bundles of these emotions like imposter syndrome and FOMO? If physical feelings give us signals about the state of our bodies, what if psychological feelings are giving us signals about the state of our minds?

Social Anxiety was always a big one for me (or "Social Anxiety Disorder" as the ad agency marketers would call it).

I thought it meant there was something wrong with me.

But Social Anxiety is really no different to Imposter Syndrome, FOMO, ADD, Toxic Positivity and all the rest of them.

That’s not me saying Social Anxiety doesn’t exist.

It does exist. They all exist.

But when you pin a label on Social Anxiety then set out on a self-improvement quest to try to fix it, it’s like diagnosing humanity itself as the problem.

Truth be told, there were times in the office or at a party when I found it difficult to even look someone in the eye. My lips would tremble and my cheeks would flush red. 

So I avoided social situations or chatting to people wherever I could.

But all that changed after a coaching session where I came away with the remarkable insight that even when I’m feeling socially anxious, my body and mind are looking out for me. They’re sending me a signal that my state of mind is low, that I’ve jumped on some unhelpful thoughts and that, if I want to, it might be time to let those thoughts go.

What a helpful, kind and caring signal to receive!

As it happens, once I realised that Social Anxiety was a sign my body was working perfectly, it started to fade away all by itself.

Some people might roll their eyes at this and say I‘m downplaying real problems.

That’s fair enough. You’ve got to make your own mind up about this.

What I do know is that there are a steady stream of marketers and coaches making a good living by turning normal feelings into beasts and monsters that need taming.

I have no interest in that.

I’m kind of lucky in the sense that I have my banking job. So I have no reason to turn your weather into a storm just to sell you an umbrella. I don’t need to drum up business by spinning you a yarn.

I coach and write because I've been so impacted by the understanding I now teach that sharing it feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

But I only promote what I truly, deeply believe in, based on my own experience and the experience of my clients.

When it came to my Social Anxiety, the calming teas, reed diffusers and CBD oils did nothing for me. Nor did journaling, breathwork exercises or trying to heal my “inner child”.

All because there was never anything wrong with me and thus there was nothing to fix.

The same goes for you too.

Whatever feelings you’re wrestling with right now are signs that your system is working perfectly, just as intended.

If you’d like to explore what this means for you, I’d love to jump on a free Zoom call with you.

If that sounds like something you might be interested in, hit reply. And we’ll take it from there.

To fulfilment,

Tom