Why Do Adults Lose Confidence in Their Creativity? And How Can We Find It Again?

Give a young child some paper and paint and they probably won't ask:

“Am I creative enough to use this?”

They won't spend twenty minutes wondering whether the blue is the correct blue.

They probably won't compare their picture with something they saw on Instagram.

And they certainly won't ask whether painting is a productive use of their afternoon.

They simply begin.

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us lose some of that freedom.

We become more careful.

More self-conscious.

More interested in getting things right.

Eventually, some of us stop creating altogether.

Years later, we say:

“I'm just not a creative person.”

But is creativity really something we lose?

Or do we simply stop trusting it?

“I was creative as a child, but not anymore”

Many adults remember being naturally creative when they were younger.

We drew.

Made things.

Invented games.

Danced.

Wrote stories.

Built strange objects out of whatever we could find.

Then life became more serious.

School introduced comparison and assessment. Work brought responsibilities. There were bills to pay, relationships, children, deadlines and endless things that seemed more important than sitting down with some paint.

Creativity slowly became something we used to do.

When I look back at my own childhood, what strikes me is how little I actually needed in order to create.

I grew up in a small village in north-east Poland, surrounded by countryside and nature.

We didn't have endless art materials available to us. There wasn't a beautiful studio waiting for me.

So I painted on what I could find.

Cardboard.

Pieces of wood.

Old furniture.

Whatever surface was available could become somewhere to create.

I wasn't thinking about whether my materials were professional enough.

I wasn't wondering whether I had found my “artistic style”.

I certainly wasn't asking whether anyone would approve of what I was making.

I just wanted to create.

There is something important in that.

As children, our resources can be limited while our imagination feels enormous.

As adults, we can have an entire art shop available to us and still stand in front of a beautiful blank canvas thinking:

What if I ruin it?

What happens to our creative confidence?

Creative confidence doesn't mean believing that everything you make will be brilliant.

For me, it means something much simpler.

It is trusting yourself enough to try.

To have an idea and explore it.

To make something without already knowing whether it will work.

To change direction.

To begin again.

And to accept that sometimes the result won't be what you imagined.

Unfortunately, adulthood gives us plenty of opportunities to practise the opposite.

We become good at planning.

Predicting.

Evaluating.

Comparing.

Correcting.

Those abilities are useful. We need them.

But when we bring all of them into creativity at the same time, making the first mark can become surprisingly difficult.

The fear of getting it wrong

Imagine I put two canvases in front of you.

I tell you that the first one costs £1.

The second costs £100.

Which one would you feel freer to experiment on?

Probably the £1 canvas.

The physical act of painting hasn't changed.

What changed was the consequence you attached to making a mistake.

Adults often do something similar with creativity.

I want this painting to be beautiful.

I want to hang it in my house.

I want people to like it.

I paid for this canvas, so I don't want to waste it.

Suddenly, every decision carries weight.

A creative experiment becomes a performance.

Sometimes rebuilding creative confidence means lowering the stakes again.

Not everything you create needs to be beautiful.

Not everything needs to be shown.

And not everything needs to survive.

Some things can exist simply because you needed to discover what would happen if you tried.

Perfectionism can sound very sensible

Perfectionism doesn't always announce itself as perfectionism.

Sometimes it sounds completely reasonable.

“I'll start when I have more time.”

“I need better materials first.”

“I'll watch a few more tutorials.”

“I'll start when I know what I want to paint.”

And six months later, the paints are still in the cupboard.

Preparation can be useful.

But sometimes preparation becomes a very sophisticated way of avoiding the vulnerability of beginning.

Because the moment you begin, the perfect painting in your imagination has to meet the reality of paint.

And reality is messier.

The colour mixes differently than expected.

The line isn't straight.

The water travels somewhere you didn't invite it.

Something drips.

Something disappears.

The painting changes.

But that is also where creativity begins.

Comparing our beginning with someone else's experience

There is another challenge to creativity as an adult.

We can now see thousands of extraordinary artworks within minutes.

Open Instagram or Pinterest and there they are.

Beautiful studios.

Perfect sketchbooks.

Professional paintings.

Artists who appear to create effortlessly.

It can be wonderfully inspiring.

But it can also quietly change the question from:

“What do I want to create?”

to:

“Why can't I create like that?”

What we don't see in one beautiful photograph is everything behind it.

The years of practice.

The experiments.

The paintings that didn't work.

The abandoned ideas.

The layers underneath the final layer.

We compare our beginning with somebody else's developed practice and conclude that we don't have enough talent.

But creativity isn't a competition.

Sometimes protecting it means allowing yourself to be a beginner without constantly looking sideways to see how everybody else is doing.

When did talent become permission?

Imagine saying:

“I'm not a professional singer, so I'm never going to sing in the car.”

It sounds ridiculous.

Yet we do something very similar with visual art.

“I can't draw, so art isn't for me.”

Why?

Why does creativity require a qualification?

Why can't painting simply be something you enjoy?

Some people have natural abilities. Others spend years developing extraordinary technical skills.

That doesn't take anything away from your right to create.

I believe one of the most damaging ideas around art is that creativity belongs primarily to the talented.

It doesn't.

Art belongs to everyone.

The professional artist.

The complete beginner.

The person who hasn't painted for thirty years.

The person who doesn't know which brush to pick up.

All of them are allowed to create.

What does a creative block actually look like?

A creative block isn't always an absence of ideas.

Sometimes there are too many.

You want to paint.

You save fifty reference images.

You have six possible projects.

You buy the materials.

You imagine how each one might look.

And then you don't begin any of them.

That can be a creative block too.

Sometimes overthinking creates so many possible directions that choosing one feels impossible.

Other times, you begin but become stuck halfway through.

You look at the painting and think:

I've ruined it.

Or:

I don't know what it needs.

The temptation is to walk away.

But what if that uncomfortable stage isn't the end of the painting?

What if it is simply the point where the next decision hasn't appeared yet?

Experimentation changes the question

When we are trying to make something good, our mind asks:

“Will this work?”

Experimentation asks:

“What happens if...?”

Those are very different questions.

What happens if I add water?

What happens if I use my hand instead of a brush?

What happens if I turn the canvas upside down?

What happens if I cover the part I like?

What happens if I use the colour I normally avoid?

The first question wants certainty.

The second invites discovery.

Creativity needs some uncertainty.

If we already knew exactly what was going to happen, there wouldn't be very much to discover.

And this is where painting began teaching me something that reached far beyond the canvas.

The canvas became a safe place to practise the unknown

I have had to start again many times in my life.

There have been moments when the direction I thought my life was taking changed completely, and I had to find another way forward.

Starting again in real life can be frightening.

We want reassurance.

We want to know we're making the right decision.

We want to see the destination before taking the first step.

But life doesn't always give us that certainty.

Painting became a place where I could experience a little of that uncertainty safely.

On the canvas, I could make a bold mark without knowing whether I would like it.

I could choose a colour without knowing whether it would work.

I could add water and watch the paint travel somewhere I hadn't planned.

I could cover something I had spent hours creating.

I could take a small creative risk.

And then see what happened.

Sometimes it worked beautifully.

Sometimes my immediate reaction was:

Oh no. What have I done?

But then something interesting happened.

I had another choice.

I could add another layer.

Change direction.

Turn the canvas around.

Cover part of it.

Work with what was now in front of me instead of trying desperately to return to what had been there before.

On the canvas, the unknown began to feel less frightening.

It became something I could approach with curiosity.

What if the mistake is simply the next layer?

This has become one of my favourite metaphors for life.

Imagine making a large dark mark across a painting you really liked.

Your first reaction might be:

I've ruined it.

You want the painting back exactly as it was thirty seconds ago.

But you can't completely return to that moment.

So what now?

You can keep fighting against what happened.

Or you can become curious about what is possible from here.

Perhaps you soften the mark with water.

Perhaps you cover part of it.

Perhaps you introduce another colour.

Perhaps that dark mark becomes the beginning of something you couldn't have imagined before it happened.

Life isn't a canvas, of course.

Some experiences are painful. Some losses cannot simply be painted over, and I would never pretend otherwise.

But the metaphor has stayed with me.

I have experienced times in my own life when I wished I could return to an earlier version.

I couldn't.

I had to work with what was there.

Another layer.

Another decision.

Another beginning.

Eventually, I stopped seeing starting again only as losing something.

Sometimes a new beginning creates space for something we couldn't see from where we were standing before.

And the previous layers aren't wasted.

They are still there.

They are part of what comes next.

Creative confidence is also learning to trust yourself

Perhaps this is why my understanding of creative confidence has changed.

It isn't:

“I know this will work.”

It is:

“I don't know exactly what will happen, but I trust myself enough to begin.”

That is very different.

You make a decision.

You notice what happens.

You respond.

Then you make another decision.

There is no guarantee that every choice will work.

But eventually you discover something more useful than certainty:

You can trust yourself to respond.

For me, this is what “trusting the process” really means.

It isn't passive.

You don't sit back waiting for everything to magically fall into place.

You are participating.

Choosing.

Responding.

Changing things.

Sometimes starting again.

You simply stop demanding that you know the entire journey before you take the first step.

When I stopped forcing, things began to flow

For a long time, I thought feeling safe meant knowing what was going to happen.

Having a plan.

Being prepared.

Knowing the next step.

But some of the biggest changes in my life didn't arrive with instructions.

Painting gradually gave me another way of understanding that.

When I try to control every centimetre of a painting, I become tense.

I hesitate.

I overthink.

Every mark starts to feel too important.

But when I become curious, something changes.

I respond rather than control.

I notice rather than immediately judge.

I allow the painting to develop instead of constantly asking whether it matches the picture I originally had in my head.

And eventually, I relax.

For me, something similar happened in life.

Life didn't suddenly become predictable.

It didn't stop changing.

I simply became less afraid of not knowing.

I began to understand that changing direction doesn't always mean I have failed.

Starting again doesn't mean everything before it was wasted.

And uncertainty doesn't always need to be fought.

Sometimes we can meet it with curiosity.

Make the next mark.

See what happens.

Respond.

And make another.

Perhaps this is why the idea of flow means so much to me.

Water doesn't need a perfectly straight path in order to keep moving.

It changes direction when it meets something in its way.

Sometimes it moves gently.

Sometimes powerfully.

Sometimes the direction changes completely.

But it continues to flow.

Painting helped me understand that perhaps I could do the same.

I didn't need to know every turn in advance.

I needed to trust myself enough to meet the next one.

And somewhere in that acceptance, I found more peace.

How to become more creative again

If you're wondering how to become more creative, I wouldn't begin by trying to create your masterpiece.

Begin smaller.

Give yourself twenty minutes rather than an entire afternoon.

Use inexpensive materials so you're not frightened of wasting them.

Make something nobody else needs to see.

Try a material you've never used.

Choose a colour simply because you are drawn to it.

Turn your phone over or leave it in another room.

Try not to search immediately for somebody else's idea.

Give your own ideas a little space to arrive first.

And perhaps most importantly, occasionally create something with no purpose at all.

Not for Instagram.

Not for your house.

Not to sell.

Not to prove that you're talented.

Just to experience creating it.

Creativity grows when we use it.

Silence can help us hear our own ideas again

This is also one reason silence is important in my intuitive painting sessions.

Our lives contain so much outside input.

Music.

Podcasts.

Videos.

Messages.

Notifications.

Images.

Advice.

Opinions.

Sometimes, even when we want to be creative, our first instinct is to look outside ourselves for the answer.

What should I paint?

Which colours should I use?

What would look good?

During the intuitive painting process at Art & Wellness, we work intentionally in silence.

There is no background music.

You don't need to make conversation.

You don't need to explain what you're doing.

The intention is to reduce some of that outside input and create space to notice your own responses.

What colour are you drawn towards?

Where do your eyes keep returning?

Do you want movement or stillness?

Do you want to add something?

Or perhaps remove something?

At first, silence can feel unfamiliar.

Then, gradually, the outside noise becomes less important.

For me, reconnecting with creativity is partly about learning to hear your own creative voice again.

Your creative confidence doesn't need to return all at once

If you haven't created for years, you don't need to suddenly become fearless.

Maybe creative confidence begins with something much smaller.

Buying the paints.

Opening them.

Making one mark.

Coming to a class alone.

Trying a colour you wouldn't normally choose.

Allowing one painting not to work.

Coming back another day.

Confidence often develops after we begin, not before.

And gradually the blank canvas becomes less intimidating.

Your decisions become more instinctive.

The voice asking:

“Am I doing this right?”

becomes a little quieter.

And another question starts to appear:

“I wonder what will happen if I try?”

That is a much more interesting place to create from.

Reconnecting with creativity at Art & Wellness

My Intuitive Painting for Wellbeing sessions at Art & Wellness in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter are particularly suited to people who feel creatively stuck, tend to overthink, have lost confidence in their creativity or simply want to reconnect with a part of themselves they haven't used for a while.

You don't need to prove that you're creative before you arrive.

That would rather defeat the point.

I provide the space, materials, gentle guidance and intentional silence.

You bring yourself.

Then we begin.

One colour.

One mark.

One decision.

And then another.

Perhaps creativity isn't something you lost after all.

Perhaps it has simply been waiting for you to give it some space again.

Art belongs to everyone.

Relax. Explore. Create. Connect.