Why Is It Harder to Show Up for Yourself Than for Clients?

5 Ways to Show Up Fully for Your Own Creative Work

The photo is a still from a music video I directed this week.

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IN BRIEF:
What this letter covers:

- Why it’s harder to show up for your own creative work than for clients

- 5 tools to help course correct when you’re floundering

- How to build an inner authority figure who believes in you

Read Time: 7 minutes

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Dear friends,

I came into work on Thursday carrying a little hangover from two weeks packed with work.

I had this one-day oasis to catch up on my own projects before picking up the thread again.

The previous weeks had culminated in a music video for The Dark Tenor, where we flooded Mahalla with golden light spears, transforming the vast space into an industrial cathedral.

These moments — when you can step into another person’s story and are given the financial support to help bring their dreams to life — are holy to me.

And yet, when I arrived at my space, I found myself feeling creatively fragmented. It wasn’t a drama — just the thud of hitting your own life after a burst of energy and activity.

Why, I wondered, is it so much harder to show up for your own projects than for client work?

Here are five reasons why it’s so challenging — and five tools I’ve developed over the years to help overcome them. Each is grounded in the reality of a single day, to bring creative context instead of the modern tendency to bark advice without any.

1 / The Tempo You Have to Build Yourself

Walking into the office, I knew there was much on my plate and, while mulling it over, realised there was probably no way I’d get it all done.

The sun was high, the sky above a silky azure blue.

I felt no intention of either stressing or rushing — but equally, a determination not to fall short of my weekly basics.

Those basics include my Substack, a YouTube video, and working up a new song.

I couldn’t ignore that I was a little energy-drained, and rather than push too hard toward a goal, I made a mental note to simply try to enjoy the process.

It may seem counterintuitive, but there’s nothing that puts a straitjacket on creative work quicker than the decision to rush.

Yes, some goals are helpful. But the muse is curiously dismissive when you want something too much.

This tension — between letting it happen and going after it — is what I consider the magic balance.

Arriving at the office, I could feel this tension play out immediately in my own psyche.

I religiously try to do my own creative work in the first few hours of the morning, even when working on a heavy client project.

Today though, I felt myself drawn — almost compulsively — toward client work.

Why? I wondered.

I realised then: it just felt easier.

I had enjoyed stepping out of my own story these past weeks and into that of others.

Now that I had this little window for myself, I didn’t know quite where to begin.

I missed the constraints of a clear objective.
I missed the vigour of a deadline.
I missed the pressure of having to lead.

Simply put, stepping back into my own world felt like confronting the void. I don’t mean that negatively — I just felt a bit lost before the vastness.

My tempo was no longer being set for me.

Instead, it was up to me again.

What helped in that moment was to sit with it, before trying to push through it. It’s easy to want to run from feelings of isolation, overwhelm, or uncertainty — especially when a whole day is yours.

The pressure is that you feel you should be able to love every second — because a day for your creative life is a privilege.

And yet, it’s exactly this space that has sent so many off the edge: to despair, to madness, to worse.

What I’ve learned is that I have to accept my full self — that a conversation with my own insecurities, fears, and anxieties is allowed.

It’s this very conversation that has helped me develop from a 20-year-old assaulted by panic attacks into a man in his 40s with a rich creative life and career.

That growth came from welcoming the full Self — and to this day, I continue this. It’s not always comfortable, but it means I live a life where no stone is left unturned in me.

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TAKEAWAY 1:

Setting your own tempo doesn’t mean — contrary to the dictates of hustle culture — that you always try to force the pace. It means noticing yourself first: allowing for pauses, accepting how you feel, and surrendering. Because sometimes, what should feel like freedom instead feels like a void — and you need a moment of gentleness before you find your rhythm again. And then, equally, you need to know when it’s time to strap your boots on and get down to the business of making stuff.

2/ The Trickery of the Mind

For all my good intentions, when I arrived, I just couldn’t find my groove.

Usually, when I come into my creative space, I have a clear ritual.

• First, my earpods come out as I enter Mahalla — opening myself up to the communion of a shared space.

• Second, I make coffee in the collective kitchen, where either an easy morning conversation follows, or quietly observing as Mahalla busies for an event

• Third, on entering my studio, I always tidy up — putting away yesterday’s shoot or whatever chaos I’ve unleashed.

• Fourth, I write five clear goals on a fresh piece of paper in a marker pen.

• Fifth, beneath them, I write “Main Goal” — so that my day has a clear intention.

Today, however, I was a bit late.

And rather than trusting what works for me, I made the fateful error of just going with the flow.

So yes, I drifted into the morning, hoping what I needed to do would magically unfold.

It didn’t.

It was at that point I realised how hard I was finding it to context shift — from the clarity of client work to the fuzziness of my own projects.

In comparison, they felt itsy-bitsy, floundering, and opaque.

Simply put:

I had arrived.
But had no idea where to start.
Worse — I had no idea what it was I should start.

It’s shocking how time away from your rhythm can leave you feeling severed from your own creative life entirely.

God, I thought, am I really so fragile that I can’t get into my day unless I have the autocrat of a list to follow?

Here’s the point:

When you’re working on your own project, your mind can start playing games with you.

Your self-talk defines your reality — and it can drift away from you quickly and without warning.

By contrast, when I’m working with a client, this almost never happens.

I might feel uncertain or pressured, but I always know what the next step is.

And that, right there, is the paradox — and I caught it.

When we work on our own projects, we allow ourselves to drift into a lagoon of uncertainty.

Even more frustrating is that, somewhere inside, we do know what we’d like to get on with.

And yet, as we get into those muddy waters, we can’t seem to make our way.

Without the client, the deadline, and the budget to manage, you can quickly lose yourself in the grey.

When you’re working with a full crew, light rentals, and location costs — each hour burning thousands — there’s no choice. You do the thing. The only thing.

But on your own project, you can lose yourself in the blue — especially when starting something new or trying to pick up the thread after a break.

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TAKEAWAY 2:
Just as there’s wisdom in not forcing the process, there are also days when you need an inner father.

Just because you lost a few hours — or were justifiably tired — doesn’t mean you have to lose the day.

But you do need to course correct.

• Forgive yourself.

• Remember that drift is part of the process.

• Find an easy win to get back on track.

Or try the opposite — pause, reset, and begin again.

For me, that meant giving myself the gift of eating something tasty, conking out on the sofa, snoozing, getting up, making a strong coffee, accepting that it was just one of those mornings, and then starting again.

That included writing my five-point list, and giving myself some structure.

Because in the end — you are the client.

3/ What They Don’t Tell You About “Deep Work”

I am a proponent of Deep Work and lay out my thoughts about it in this podcast episode.

But what people don’t tell you about Deep Work is that it’s not just a way to “get in the zone.”

More important for me is this: it puts me in a state where I know something will happen.

My personal method includes:

• Setting a time for 1 hour

• Doing 3 back-to-back reps (3hrs)

• Setting my phone to flight mode

• Focusing on one single task

On the day in question, I’m writing this in the afternoon, having clawed my day back from the void.

The key?

My Deep Work ritual as laid out.

Simply put: I know that if I don’t write my Substack right now, it’s not going out this week.

Earlier, I felt complete resistance.

Now?

I’m in flow.

Not because I have to write.

But because I realised the exact pain point I needed to write about.

When I’m working with clients, I never have to cajole myself into action — I’m already plugged into an external energy.

But with my own projects, I have to bring that energy.

And given that inspiration is a visitor, not an inhabitant, in this creative office — the biggest gift I can give myself is the mantra:

I am doing this now.

They may seem like the simplest words in the world — but the greatest act of self-commitment is simply allowing yourself to do what you’re doing.

With client work — or any work you're being paid for — there's no need for permission. You just do it.

But your own work requires an internal green light.

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TAKEAWAY 3:
Can you give yourself the gift of getting out of your own way?

This is your life.

The sooner you realise you have every right to pursue your creative existence in the way that calls to you, the sooner you become the true occupant of your own being.

It’s incredible how many intruders you’ll find in there — inner critics, inherited fears, phantom deadlines.

It’s time to free yourself.

That means being your own boss, too: some days you’ll need encouragement. Others, discipline. But either way — the power is yours.

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4/ Be Your Own Authority Figure

In the afternoon, I cracked on with the edit for another video — this one featuring a cute little chihuahua named Gizmo (pictured above!)

I was making good inroads and planned to finish the edit, when a call came in.

It was from The Wall Street Journal.

Within minutes, I was on a conference call, then prepping my gear for filming over the weekend.

I was thrilled for the work and got everything together — but by then, it was late and I was getting tired.

I’ve really enjoyed working on my YouTube channel this year, and I realised: if I was going to get my weekly video out, I had precisely one hour to record it.

Again, I felt resistance.

But with it came a thought —
Why do I feel this resistance with my own work, when if it were for a client, I’d snap straight into gear?

It’s so curious, how we can awaken an entirely different part of ourselves as soon as there’s an authority figure in the room.

That thought helped me.
Okay — for one hour, I’m going into production mode.

Funny thing was, even looking at the camera, I still felt the resistance.

Then I remembered why I get booked for jobs — mostly because people know I’m the guy who’ll say: fuck it, try it.

So that’s what I did.

After a stretch of feeling stuck, and wondering if I was losing the thread on my wacky little YouTube journey, I packed one light and one camera — and just went out for an hour and shot.

No masterwork.

But damn, I had fun with it.
And sometimes, all you need is to reconnect with your capacity for joy — and that’s enough to set you back on your way.

I got it made! Click the picture to watch the video — just published!

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TAKEAWAY 4:
We can learn so much about our creative journeys by observing the mindset we bring to our professional lives.
What part of you shows up for others, but not for yourself?
Can you name it?
And can you begin to bring that same professionalism, can-do attitude, and never-say-die spirit to your own work?

It’s a reframe that really helps me.

Go into production mode.

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Thank you all so much for your support and for reading

There is a final section for my wondrous 24 paid subscribers.

It explores what to do when you sense something is missing in your own work, and how to gently name and work with that gap.

It is very personal and explores some of my own pain points such as the area in music I’m most struggling with this year.

Love Jim