Why You Feel Stuck — And How to Finally Move Forward (For Real)

Valerie:
Mak is here with his fancy headphones on, looking all very legit for our podcast today.

Mak:
Why are you digging on my headphones?

Valerie:
No, it’s great. You asked me if I wanted a pair of headphones and I don’t feel ready for the whole get-up yet.

Mak:
Well, it’s so funny because I see videos of people’s podcasts and no one wears headphones. And as a guy who’s been in broadcasting for 30 years, it blows my mind. I can’t imagine not hearing myself in my ears when I’m doing something like this.

Valerie:
Well, that’s what’s so funny. I’m here with a professional broadcaster, like the headphones, the whole get-up. I don’t know. I’ll get the hang of it.

Mak:
You’ll be fine. We’ll get you the headphones.

Valerie:
We’re so excited to be back with you guys. I’m Valerie McKeehan. This is my husband, Mak McKeehan. This is the second episode of our new podcast, The Unbound Creative, which was formerly The Peaceful Creative, but we had just so much more we needed to get out.

Mak:
First of all, let me say you put out this reel the other day promoting the podcast. We got a ton of great response from that. But just the number of downloads we had on the first episode—like, through the roof—one of the biggest episodes in the two-year history so far. So if you listened and you tuned in—thank you so much for listening and supporting because, if you can’t tell, we’re really stoked about this podcast. It’s feeling like we’re a little unleashed.

Valerie:
Yes, which needed to happen. And you know we’re enjoying it because we’re recording this right now after our girls have gone to bed, so we’re normally so exhausted and just ready for Frasier and lights out.

Mak:
Yeah.

Valerie:
But we’re recording this really excited—that’s how you know we’re into it.

Mak:
True, true. So, thank you so much for being here.

Valerie:
I think the unleashed feeling that we’re feeling, like that freedom sense and unedited and just wanting to talk about this stuff, I think is how so many creatives feel. But we have all of this stuff that gets heaped on us from the very beginning. From school, we have right or wrong and we have this sense of—you have to kind of bottle it up, like don’t be too much. And I think there are so many creatives who are resonating with this idea of being unbound and being unleashed and just being that fullest version of themselves, without apologizing.

Mak:
Well, I think it’s true. I mean, I know we’re focused on creatives here, but I think it’s almost everybody. But here’s a secret: I think everybody is creative in one way or another, but somewhere along the line, you were told you weren’t. So you tamped it down. Thus, why this unleashing and this somewhat rebellious feeling is coming to the surface—because we are told through all of our lives “don’t do.” It’s basically like you’re told what not to do. There are all these restrictions. You’re put in this prison of your life so that you can be—you’ve become a responsible adult.

Valerie:
Right.

Mak:
Just become the perfect individual who doesn’t make anybody mad and keeps themselves quiet and falls in line and follows the rules and does all this stuff. And if you look at the world, all the people who have achieved all the great success, they don’t do any of those things.

Valerie:
And they got messy. That’s the thing—we’re so afraid of messy. We’re so afraid of a little undone, possibly a little unhinged. And so we avoid that for the safety and no risk. But yet, the lives that are lived out loud and lived unleashed—they somehow are able to be in the mess and actually enjoy the mess. Because it’s in doing that—it’s in unleashing themselves and being that expression of themselves, even though the journey is going to be messy—that feeling alone, of that open-hearted, like you’re doing this creative work that you feel so called to do, I think that that drives you forward when you taste that. But it’s a really kind of scary ledge to stand on.

Mak:
Well, the world has taught us to be outcome-focused, and I think that is one of the biggest problems. Because this all starts in school, when you’re as little as first grade, maybe, when you’re taught it’s about getting all the answers right on the quiz or on the test. And so your whole life becomes outcome-focused. It’s ingrained in us to focus on the outcome instead of enjoying the process of learning, enjoying the process of getting there.

And so the difference between what is accepted widely and where we’re headed with this and our philosophy is—we’re like no, focus on loving the building, loving the mess, loving the process. Don’t even worry about the outcome. Steve Jobs and all these great leaders and thinkers—they weren’t obsessed with the outcome. They got obsessed with the process, and they loved the process.

Valerie:
They loved going to work every day. They loved creating every single day because it was the process that they were in love with, not the end result. You know what? I’m even thinking—in school, definitely with tests and everything, it always is outcome-focused. And I do think it gives us a real fear, especially for those who are like model students, like me.

Mak:
That’s not you. No, I was a solid D student.

Valerie:
I was like totally straight-A student. And I do. I have fought that in my creative life because there are those perfectionist tendencies and there’s that fear of, “I can’t get it wrong,” or that it’s so black and white—there’s a right answer, there’s a wrong answer. And so it feels debilitating to make a decision. But I’ve had to learn that making any decision is actually the right decision.

Mak:
Definitely.

Valerie:
And I think that is so true in creativity and really even in life. It’s like that stuck place is so much worse than doing a thing—even failing at a thing.

Mak:
Oh, definitely failing.

Valerie:
Because you’re moving forward. It’s all a flashlight. It’s all crumbs on the path. When you’re moving, it’s like being a jazz musician—you can’t play, even if you make a wrong note. What do they say? There are no wrong notes in jazz. It’s like, even if you play an off note, well then you just respond to that off note. But you’re moving—it’s in motion.

Mak:
That’s why we talk a lot about in some of the programs that we do, and the coaching that I do, about failing fast and iterating. Because people get decision fatigue because they sit and worry so much about making the right decision. And I’m saying, look—make a hundred wrong decisions. Because each wrong decision is going to be a little lesson that you can learn.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is Thomas Edison saying, “I didn’t fail a thousand times making a light bulb. I figured out 999 ways not to make a light bulb.” And that is so true—that made him who he was.

And there isn’t a single person who has achieved any level of major success who didn’t fail a hundred times, 500 times, a thousand times on their way up the ladder. The ones who achieve it and make it, especially in creativity, are the ones who embrace failure and just make the decision to move. They take action, and they go in unabashedly, full-hearted, and say, “I’m going to give this my all. And if it doesn’t work, fine, I will learn. I will iterate. I will do it again.”

And when you learn to enjoy that process, and that process is so much fun, that’s when everything takes off.

Valerie:
A hundred percent. And that’s the thing, I think, why we are so jazzed up, because this feels rebellious. It feels actually rebellious to say, no, I’m going to love my life today in the process, regardless of the outcome—living that full-hearted, open-hearted way, like you said. Because that is actually the juice that we want. Without that, if all you’re doing is putting it off—putting off feeling that way until an external circumstance happens—you’re essentially just practicing feeling like crap every day. And then the more you practice that, the more you’re going to get.

So some outcome might happen, and it’s not even going to give you that feeling you think you’re going to get. It’s kind of like, if you’re not living that now in the process, it’s actually not going to come. But we hold on so tightly to that because we are taught that—and just culturally, messaging-wise.

I’m even thinking back to school. It’s like, how much of it is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and “Where do you want to go to college?” It’s never about the moment—ever. It’s always about looking to what is that next step, what is that next milestone, where are you going to go to school, what are you going to major in.

And how kind of crazy is that to ask a 17 or 18-year-old, “What do you want to do for the whole rest of your life? Where do you want to be when you’re 40?” It’s like, whoa.

But we are so focused on that. So it is—it’s like we put off doing the things we want to do or feeling the way that we want to feel because we think we need to wait for the permission or the validation—especially, I think, when it comes to creative pursuits. Because this is another act of rebellion.

Because this is another messaging: we hear all of these demeaning, belittling, and sort of downplaying terms when it comes to creativity. It’s like, “Oh, your little hobby,” “Oh, isn’t that cute,” “Oh, a little thing for you,” “A little side hustle.” It just feels very downplayed.

So we think that we need to wait for some form of legitimizing—something to make it quote-unquote “worth it.” But why don’t we ever ask the question: It’s your life—what is worth your life that you are living today?

Instead of trying to live “the dream” in the future, why aren’t we just trying to have a good day? A good, creatively lit-up, filled-up day, where you are in your element, having a good day. That needs to be the priority.

Mak:
That’s the thing—everybody always kicks the ball down the road. And what they do—now, look, hear me out—there’s nothing wrong with having a vision for the future. There’s nothing wrong with having some goals for where you want to be. I actually think that’s great. We all need that. You need something to look forward to in life, and that’s fine.

But there is a big difference between having a goal and then also committing your life to something, because that’s what everybody tells you you should, based on what your parents did, what your friends think, how much money you think you need to make. That’s not being true to yourself.

And the other thing that you do when you do that is you kick your happiness down the road, too. Because what happens is you tie your own personal joy and happiness to achieving that thing. And that thing could be 10, 20, 30 years down the road—or it may never actually happen. Because if you’ve lived life for any brief period of time, things change constantly.

So the trick is to learn to be happy right now. Be joyous where you are, in your space right now, and live into who you are and what lights you up right now.

And so often people want to shut those lights out because, especially in creative pursuits, it’s called frivolous or stupid or dumb, or because they’re being judged or they’re afraid that people will think they’re crazy, or whatever the case might be. So we lock ourselves into positions in our lives that are socially acceptable or accepted by our parents or accepted by our family, and we live that out. And in the back of our minds, we’re left saying, “What if? What if I had done this? What if I had done that?”

But we shut the creative pursuit down—or the dream business or whatever it is you want to do—because that’s not quote-unquote “reasonable thinking.”

Valerie:
Right. And this is something we can really even rabbit trail on, and I know we’ll talk a lot about this in upcoming episodes too, but we are actually addicted to feeling bad. That is another part of it. There is an actual bodily nervous system component here that has wired us into feeling constantly bad.

Mak:
This is science, too, by the way. This is not just conjecture or woo-woo thinking.

Valerie:
So to untether ourselves, focus on “What is my good day like? What am I creatively lit up about here and now without needing anything to happen?” But it is also untethering from the emotional addictions of feeling bad and feeling like crap.

And that’s a real passion of mine, too, especially with artists, because there’s this whole “suffering, struggling artist” type of vibe going on. Like you can only create if you’re dying for your art.

Mak:
Right.

Valerie:
Come on. But also, so much of us, just generally—we are addicted to feeling bad. And actually opening up to those feelings of joy and letting your creativity fuel you in those ways—delight—at first can actually feel unsafe at a bodily level because we are addicted to the stress. Because it almost signals a control there, like if you’re feeling bad, somehow you’re controlling it. It’s a really crazy thing.

There’s a lot to dive in there, but there’s definitely a nervous system component. We have to teach ourselves how to feel good creating, and in that moment, because so many of us are just wired the other way—to feel bad.

Mak:
And if what we’re saying right now is making you feel a little uncomfortable, or if you’re hearing this and you’re like, “Ah, I don’t know if I believe that”—here’s what I need you to do. Put a pin in that and think about it.

If the very idea that we’re suggesting—that you should actually take time in your day to do something that feels good and makes you happy—if that makes you uncomfortable, if that doesn’t prove the point, I don’t know what will.

So if this very idea of what we’re suggesting right now is making you feel uncomfortable, chances are you’re already caught in this mess.

Valerie:
Yes! And how often—this is another point to prove it—how often do we sabotage those things? Like, we know the things that are actually going to make us feel good. But what do we do instead? We doom-scroll instead. Or we watch that next episode on Netflix when we know we should be doing something else that’s actually going to make us feel better.

We do this all the time. We are in this mode of sabotaging ourselves because we’re used to being in those low places.

To get us out of that, it’s going to take some discomfort—and that’s a little bit of a paradox with this idea. Because it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first, in order to get to a place that feels good.

Mak:
And that’s why we wanted to do this episode. Because, look, we get it. We’re speaking from experience. We’ve lived this way, we’ve changed it. We know how uncomfortable it can feel to pivot. But we also know how much is waiting on the other side.

Valerie:
Yeah. And that’s what we want for you.