The Creative Crunch: coping with year-end anxiety

With the year coming to a close, the festive spirit can easily turn to frantic state for many who are all too familiar with end-of-year anxiety. So why do many of us experience a sense of dread when a year ends? Certainly, the mounting holiday-related errands, busy social calendars, and gridlock that come along are big enough reasons. But add pending deadlines and unfinished projects and the last remaining weeks of the year can feel like a ticking clock ready to hand out judgment on how you’ve spent the past year. 

So how does one cope with year-end anxiety, particularly for creatives whose stalled or pending projects might prevent them from looking back at the past year with a positive mindset before moving forward? 

1. Let’s take a look—a year-end review

Looking back at our past is a good way to learn more about ourselves, from the choices we made to the tasks we chose not to do. But we get it. Sometimes, the past can remind us of everything we didn’t get to accomplish, particularly those big goals we made at the beginning of the year. 

If you take a closer look, though, especially if you have a journal to refer to, you can see that there are always tiny things to be grateful for. Take it from journaling enthusiast Nica Cosio, the mom and crafter makes it a habit to look through her journal at the end of the year, which shows her that “even if I didn’t meet all my goals, so many good things happened. My journal reminds me of that. That’s why I always feel I can end the year happy and grateful.”

If you haven’t been keeping a journal the past year, you can always take some time to sit down  and write about everything you’re grateful for. What progress have you made in that personal project of yours? Look closely at each month. Count your wins no matter how small. Writing it down will help you have a better grasp of how you’ve come along this year. (And should you decide you finally want to start journaling, here are some tips from Nica.)

2. Be honest with yourself, and be kind

A little reminder while you do the aforementioned task above: when you do self-evaluate, put a pause on the self-loathing and inner harsh critic. You can still acknowledge what went wrong—the project got too big for you, you lacked resources, you had to prioritize other matters? But as you do that, avoid thinking about it with shame or regret. 

We’ve cited many times in our blog here, the rebranding lessons artist Hannah Armada of Studio Haebi learned because it’s such a gem of an interview for anyone who creates art and finds themselves stalling or letting fear stop them from moving forward. It tackled the questions Hannah needed to answer about her brand, found what the real problem was, and what she needed to do first before she could begin again. 

When you do decide to begin again, when you do find yourself making new goals, remain honest with yourself. Graphic designer and illustrator Camille Santos of The Outland Creative and Sidequest Candles, knew at the start of the year that she was feeling “creatively drained.” In our recent YT episode on finding a support group to help achieve your goals, she knew she wasn’t going to push herself to create new pins. “I already knew it wasn’t going to be my goal, so I started small with Outland.”

For Elly Ang of Danger in Design, it means setting achievable goals. “And that’s not cheating, because you’re meant to achieve them that’s why you’re setting them,” she says in the same  YT episode. “If it doesn’t happen this year, it just means it will come out better next year.” 

3. Don't do it all

It might be tempting to squeeze all your to-dos for work and personal life in the last few weeks of the year. But rethink being everything for everyone. You don’t want to spend the holidays burnt out and upset. Think of your boundaries for work (no checking of emails on weekends?) and even your relationships and social calendar (do you have to say yes to all invites in December?). Doing so will allow you to have enough mental space for things that you do want to prioritize.

For tasks that can’t be postponed or abandoned, look into getting help. The Christmas season, for example, is a demanding time for creatives running a business. For Common Room co-founder Roma Agsunod, it’s the time they hire extra staff. “It’s when sales double, that means the work doubles as well and if you have the same number of staff, you’ll have a hard time,” she said in a previous interview on preparing their small business for the holidays. Even for other small business owners who may not have a store or even any staff, she suggests that the holidays would be the best time to consider getting part-time help. “[It’ll] help you take advantage of the biggest season of the year.”   

4. Have a support system

When you’re stuck on a project or something you’ve been working on, having a support system can be the one thing that will help you stay motivated—or at the very least not make you feel so alone. 

Elly finds it inspiring to have friends who persevere in their own creative pursuits. “It’s hard to be an artist, but when you see your friends going, ‘I still want to do this, I still want to make this,’ how can you not want to keep going,” she shares in this episode. 

Having a support system—”your own little village,” as Elly calls it—who gets to be excited for you, to celebrate your wins, bounce off ideas with, and even help pull you out from obsessing over what other people will think about your work is important every day of the year, and most especially when you’re inclined to feel pressure at the end of the year. 

5. Be present

While it’s important to be able to look to the past with kindness and to the future with hope, don’t lose sight of the present. A lot of year-end anxieties either stem from stressing over what we didn’t get to do most of the year or worrying about how we can squeeze so many things into the last remaining months to make it worth our 2024 goals and resolutions. We don’t have to do that. 

We can instead focus our energy on the present and being present. Allow yourself time to find something that brings you joy and clears your mind. For many of us, it’s creating, making something with your hands, or leaving your desk and taking yourself out for a walk in a park, a museum, around the block, or maybe a neighborhood you haven’t fully explored. Being present or living more mindfully can restore that inner calm, which is a gift you’ll want to take with you to move forward to the new year.