STOP Arguing with ROCKS!

Why Creativity Feels Heavy (and that's normal)

Louisiana, Georgia and California – that’s where I’ll be performing and teaching over the next two weeks…

I did that thing where I was thinking about California and randomly pulled up a bunch of old old photos of people PANNING FOR GOLD.
Have you ever seen it? It’s kinda wild.
(It’s also GOTTA BE the least glamorous way to become wealthy in human history.)

You stand in cold water. You scoop from a moving stream. Almost immediately, your pan fills with Sand. Pebbles. Mud. Weight. You know – stuff that ISN’T gold.
It’s 97% disappointment and 3% hope.

Creativity… writing… presenting… is about PANNING…
I’d argue it’s even more about PANNING than it is about finding the gold. (And if you do it right – it’s not even close to 97% disappointment.)

Finding gold is flashy. Panning is wet.

I pulled up some video of folks actually doing it – panning for gold – and noticed something important:
they are not surprised by the weight.
They don’t take it personally.
They don’t assume the process is broken just because the pan is full of useless material.

That IS the process.

~

The mistake most of us make (I’ve done this for years and years and still do it sometimes) is assuming that if creativity were working, it would feel lighter.
Clearer.
Cleaner.
More affirming.

Like a scented candle and a therapeutic breakthrough and a gold medal ceremony at the same time or something.

But listen to this:

Clarity doesn’t arrive before the sifting.
It arrives BECAUSE of it.

The pan is SUPPOSED to be heavy.
If it weren’t, nothing would ever stay long enough to be revealed.

Gold does not float up and introduce itself. You have to find it.

~

Here’s the framework I keep coming back to, and it’s simple enough to carry into any creative room…

Panning has three parts:

1. Put the pan in the stream.

2. Keep the pan moving.

3. Don’t argue with the rocks.

That’s it.

No mysticism. No optimization. Just physics.
(And a refusal to debate with sediment.)

PUTTING THE PAN IN THE STREAM

The first part is the one people romanticize: putting the pan in the stream.
Starting. Sharing. Opening yourself up.

Making the thing visible. That part feels vulnerable, so it gets all the attention.

It’s the “brave artist in the wild” moment or whatever.
We talked about strategies to keep that happening a lot in the January Workshop.

KEEPING THE PAN MOVING

But the second part is where many people get stuck, I’ve found.
Keeping the pan moving means allowing a lot of material to pass through
without stopping to interrogate it.

Bad ideas. Distracting thoughts. Cynical commentary.
“What if this never works?” “What if I’m behind?”
“What if everyone else figured this out already?”
“What if I don’t mail this kinda cool idea to myself right now so it’s ‘copyrighted’ and someone else has this idea and then I can’t use it?”

Those aren’t insights. Friend, they’re just rocks.
Very loud, sometimes, and generally obnoxious rocks. They’re rocks.

LISTEN TO ME HERE: rocks show up BECAUSE the stream is moving.
Still water doesn’t give you gold.
You know what still water gives you? Mosquitoes.

DON’T ARGUE WITH THE ROCKS

What wears people down isn’t the presence of those thoughts.

It’s the belief that they deserve a response.

So we pause. As the pan gets heavier. We analyze. As the pan gets heavier. We argue.
We literally start explaining ourselves to pebbles!

Pebbles don’t even have a LinkedIn profile. No credentials. They’re just vibes we waste time and energy negotiating with.

And the pan gets heavier and heavier until we decide the whole activity is the problem.

We’re panning for GOLD, remember.

The ROCKS aren’t USEFUL, and they certainly don’t deserve your justification, resume, or mission statement.

Panning requires motion.

Your hardest work is sometimes just committing to letting the water do its job.

Water is very good at being water.

Let me say this outside of the extended metaphor:

You do not need to engage with everything that enters your awareness.

You do not need to engage with everything that enters your awareness!

Don’t try to defeat your doubts in debate.
Don’t attempt to fix your pessimism FIRST before you’re allowed to proceed.
And CERTAINLY don’t try to solve every “what if” before you keep going.

(That is how you end up writing a thesis for a small damp rock.)

You can let them pass.
You know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT GOLD.
Most thoughts aren’t.
That’s not an insult. That’s just… math.

Gold is rare. If every thought were gold, nothing would be a treasure.

~

When creativity feels overwhelming, it’s almost never because you lack ideas.
I’ve yet to meet someone in workshops, coaching or going to classrooms all over the US where a “lack of ideas” is the actual problem.

It’s because you’ve mistaken volume for signal.
Noise for value.
Pebble for prophecy.

The framework helps here. When things feel heavy, ask yourself:

Is my pan in the stream?
Am I keeping it moving? Or am I trying to make meaning out of every rock?

If it’s the third one, no wonder you’re exhausted.
You’ve been in a debate with gravel.

THE PAN IS SUPPOSED TO GET HEAVY

The shift that has changed everything for me:
Stop taking the weight… the difficulty… personally.

The weight just means you’re doing it.
The weight just means you’re doing it!

It means you’re actually in the stream, doing the work creativity requires.
It means you didn’t quit when it got cold.

Gold is rare… by definition.
That’s what makes it valuable.

Expecting it to appear without debris is like expecting the cuteness of babies without diapers.

Cuteness is real. So is reality.

Hard Accountability. Soft Guidance.

One of the questions I got asked by 4 separate people in late January (which is actually what led to the February Workshop) – “Where do you come up with your ideas?”

This metaphor… the Creativity Panning thing – came up while I was working with someone in coaching.

One of the most helpful pieces of feedback I keep getting from people I work with is this strange pairing:

Hard accountability. Soft guidance.

There is a date. There is a time.
And because of that YOU MAKE THE TIME to show up with the thing.

When I’m coaching someone, I am not trying to shove anyone into my system and sand off their edges until they sound like me.

I have thoughts. I have frameworks.
I have been known to diagram a feeling on a whiteboard.
But I’m not here to clone you.

I’m here to help you MAKE the time, SAVE you time, and MAKE THE THING you actually want to make.

Deadlines are firm. Identity is non-negotiable. You are you making things.

And I know the immediate reactions some people have:

“I should be able to do this by myself.”
You absolutely can.

But being capable of lifting something alone and actually lifting it alone are two different choices.

Gold miners worked in teams for a reason.
Cold water is colder when you’re the only one standing in it.

If you’re in the stream and it’s moving… beautiful. Keep panning!

But if you’re stuck arguing with gravel and calling it productivity…
sometimes it’s useful to have someone standing next to you saying

“Friend… that’s a rock.”

If you’d like help with your creative process you can book a 15 minute Discovery Call with me.

~

These thoughts have really helped me recently… so I just want to offer them to you:

You don’t need more courage, or confidence or whatever.
You need motion and consistency.

FIND where the water is moving, stand where the water is moving, and trust the motion of the water…

And for the sake of the beautiful things you’re going to create

LET THE ROCKS GO.

Make sure the pan is in the stream.
Make sure you’re keeping the pan moving.
And never forget – you don’t need to argue with rocks.

Paul Strickland is a full-time professional performance storyteller and coach who helps writers, performers and artists of all kind sharpen their skills, turn art into opportunity, and center creativity so it can grow into every part of their lives.
He is available for coaching, consultation and performance booking.
Performance: www.AintTrue.com
Coaching/Workshops: www.TellStoriesBetter.com