How to Find Your Passion When You’re Burnt Out, Stuck & Scared

If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your art — like creativity is something you used to know but can’t quite reach anymore — THIS IS FOR YOU (and you’re soooo not alone).

When it comes to how to find your passion, the first thing to know is that it actually never left.

Passion doesn’t just “go away.” You’re ALWAYS an artist, don’t worry!

Likely, probably, definitely you feel like you’re in survival mode because you’re literally trying to keep the lights on. Working a job to make sure you can pay rent. I GET IT.

And because of that, you feel stuck. Numb. Trying to care, but too tired to try.

So here, a post not as a checklist of what you should be doing, but some gentle nudges, soft reminders, and a bestie hug letting my artist bestie (you!) know

This post isn’t a checklist. It’s not a productivity plan. It’s a soft reminder.

A little love note I’m passing you in class because I’M HERE FOR YOU.

Why Passion Feels So Far Away Sometimes

Surviving Instead of Creating Is Exhausting

There’s a version of you that’s still an artist — she’s just trying to make rent right now. 😅

And when you’re in survival mode, that’s THE ONLY STORY YOUR BODY CAN TELL.

You’re in response mode. Fight or flight. You’re not thinking about color palettes or writing music or a new piece or your next big idea… you’re thinking, how do I get through this week?

And it makes sense. 👏 You can’t focus on making something beautiful when your nervous system is still ringing the alarm bells. You can’t multitask your way into peace.

Related: Why Artists Are Natural Leaders in Living a Life of Service

Hustle Culture Hijacks Your Inner Compass

Hustle culture is one giant “should storm.” ⛈️ It convinces you that success only counts if it looks a certain way: shiny, scalable, systemized.

But creativity isn’t any of those things.

Real art is weird and emotional and unplannable.

It’s whispy.

It’s inconsistent.

It won’t sit still sometimes, and other times it feels like it’s in hibernation.

And that’s okay — because it shouldn’t be organized. We can use systems to help wrangle in its beautiful chaos into something without FORCING “needs” or “shoulds” or “have-tos” or “you better do this or else you will fail.”

That’s just not how art works.

Needing to “Prove” Your Passion Is Valid… But a Myth

We were raised in the cult of achievement.

Straight A’s, honor rolls, extra credit.

We learned that being “good” meant being productive. Being valuable meant performing.

But that’s not what artistry asks of you.

Art doesn’t want your resume.

It wants your honesty.

It wants your guts, your gaze, your grief.

It wants you, eager and willing and excited and loving. There’s no principal, teacher, coach, parent looking over your shoulder making sure you’re doing it right, though your nervous system will say otherwise.

How to Find Your Passion When You’re Burnt Out, Stuck or Scared

What Lights You Up Is a Breadcrumb Trail

Joy doesn’t always announce itself with a drumroll, and not with something you’ll expect. If you’re a singer but you haven’t been feeling called to sing but instead watching New Girl, work with that.

There’s something about New Girl right now that’s scratching an itch for you. Maybe you want to invite more silliness and play into your life. Maybe you just need to freaking laugh.

THAT’S something that you can learn about in your own art. If you’re not feeling like you want to create, then there’s just something else you need right now.

Another meal — or an appetizer, or maybe a dessert.

NEW GIRL — or anything you’re doing and craving right now — are your “breadcrumbs” to your creativity. You don’t have to force yourself out of it, but notice what you’re craving and funnel that into how you see your art.

Remember, no “should-storms” here.

Listen for the Flutter Instead of the Formula

I define the “flutter” as that gasp you have when something makes you feel something in your heart. For me, it can be when I’m at an estate sale and see a gorgeous vintage piece. Or see a cute kitten or baby. Or hear an amazing chord for a song.

Flutters don’t just have to be happy. It could be when something touches you, like when you think of how much you love your sibling or best friend and would hate if they were gone.

Or when you think about someone whose passed on and miss them. Or when something makes you angry, frustrated, passionate.

The flutter is the thing that lights up inside of you and makes you want to reach towards it without even thinking.

The flutter is your artistic GPS.

Forget the 10-step plans on how to “find your genre” or the things you “need before becoming a full-time artist.”

Your heart KNOWS what moves you, and is a bigger part of your guiding light than you think.

Why You Absolutely Need to Follow Your Dreams of Being a Full-Time Artist… No Exceptions

The Universe Expands When You Follow What You Love

If you believe in the expansion of the universe, then you believe that one of the largest purposes of humans on this earth is the expand.

When you continue expanding your education, knowledge, experiences, relationships, higher self, you’re doing as the universe does. Tuning into what the universe has always wanted for you: to create, to be, to expand through joy.

And that joy doesn’t just change you — it shifts everything around you.

The more you create from an honest place, the more space you make for miracles. (I believe art is casting spells, and spells are damn miracles.)

You open timelines.

You ripple outward.

You become a node of permission in a web of possibility.

You don’t need to know the whole path.

You’re actually doing a service to not just yourself, but to the people around you and to the universe when you’re expanding your knowledge, pushing yourself and following your dreams.

Your Art Is a Spell — Even If It’s Messy or Unpaid

Speaking of art being a spell…

We’ve been sold this lie that if something isn’t making money, it isn’t meaningful. But art has never worked that way.

Art is not a product, but a portal.

It’s a spell you cast into the world — sometimes chaotic, sometimes unfinished, sometimes quiet and unseen — and it still shifts the field.

Your art, even the unfinished pieces living in your Notes app, even the doodles on receipts, even the poems you’ve never shared — they carry your frequency.

They’re living proof that you were here, that you felt, that you transmuted something that didn’t exist into something beautiful.

The sacredness of that doesn’t depend on whether someone claps or hears or sees it — although that’s a beautiful feeling, isn’t it?

It’s sacred because it came from your body, your knowing, your fingertips.

That’s enough.

Related: How to Not Stress Over an Overloaded Schedule: a Gentle Approach

Showing Up Joyfully Helps Others Do the Same

There is nothing more powerful than witnessing someone lit up by what they love. Right?!

Don’t you love listening to your friends talk about what they love?

I actually remember having a math teacher in high school that actually made me look forward to the class. If anybody knows me, they know I literally freeze up and get cold sweats when I have to think about anything to do with math. I even still count on my fingers.

But my math teacher’s passion was literally INFECTIOUS. That anxiety in me softened.

And I started to believe it was possible for me to not hate math. I actually saw why people like it!

Your art is a service not just because you’re giving others permission to feel, but because by following your dreams and doing something you absolutely love, you’re giving them permission to follow their dreams, too.

And heck, if everyone on this earth was doing exactly what they wanted in life? Wow. What a different world it would be.

That’s the ripple. That’s how we create culture — not through going viral or having a million fans, but through resonance.

When you follow your artistic dreams, your creativity, you’re giving someone else a map. A mirror.

A “maybe.”

And that might be the most powerful art of all.

Let’s Cast Your First Spell Today

Thank your inner artist right now — remembering that she’s always inside of you. You’re a spell-caster, and you absolutely don’t need to have it all figured out right now.

How to find your passion as an artist means having a best friend to be with you along the way.

I’m always here to remind you the beauty of who you are.