Have you ever thought, “That looks fun,” only to immediately tell yourself you’d look ridiculous, wouldn’t be any good, or have something more useful to do?
Welcome to Reports from the Creative Closet! In this dispatch, I explore play, the third area of practice in my Restorative Creativity Framework™—and my favorite. How did something that once came naturally become something we stop ourselves from doing?
If you’ve been missing the part of yourself that could experiment, be silly, or try something without needing to be good at it, this episode is an invitation to get curious about what happened—and what might still be possible.
In this episode, I discuss:
- “I’d Look Ridiculous”: How do we learn to shut down our playful impulses before we give them a chance?
- The People We Love to Watch Play: What draws us to Robin Williams and David Tennant—and what might we recognize in them?
- Play and the Restorative Creativity Framework™: What could following a seemingly silly impulse help you discover about yourself?
Chapters:
0:00 – “That looks fun—but I’d look ridiculous”
3:19 – How we learn to hold ourselves back
9:38 – Perfection, productivity, and the myth of one right way
13:13 – Being willing to look foolish
18:53 – Bad poems, self-trust, and one playful impulse
I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor and creator of the Restorative Creativity Framework™. I specialize in using creativity to reconnect people with themselves, so you can make room for things that interest and delight you and feel like you’re actually alive again.
Resources and Community:
- Send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour: Join the Creativity Circle here.
- Have a question for the Curiosity Clinic? Submit it here.
- Grab your free printable Daily Credit Report and Bingo Card here.
- Catch up on earlier Reports from the Creative Closet here.
Get in Touch
I’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Instagram, or Bluesky.
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Why You Stop Yourself from Playing | Report from the Creative Closet #13
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. You didn’t lose your creative spark. You were taught to leave it behind. I’m creativity expert, Nancy Norbeck, and I’m here to help you get it back. Let’s go. Welcome back to this week’s Report from the Creative Closet where I am wondering if you’ve had that experience of saying, oh, oh, that thing looks fun. Maybe I’ll try that. And immediately, that second thought pops in your head that says, I look ridiculous.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:38]:
I wouldn’t be any good. And also I have something more useful to do, so I’m just gonna go do that. Where you’ve stopped yourself before you even had a chance to start. Yes. Yes. You know this feeling? Funny. I thought you might. This week’s episode is all about play, which is the third part of the restorative creativity framework.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:02]:
And I’m not gonna lie to you and you probably won’t be surprised. It’s my favorite. And I think it’s the most important. Without it, I don’t think we would have a restorative creativity framework. And originally, I called this area of practice creativity, and then I thought, first of all, that’s kind of redundant. And second, it doesn’t fully encompass the the sense of fun and adventure and aliveness and joy that comes with play. And the sense that in play as in creativity, truly. A lot of people miss that part if we call it that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:44]:
But when we talk about play, there is no grade. There’s no gold star. There is no right way. Right? It’s just play. Play is practice. Play is learning. And at the risk of sounding like Ted Lasso’s Donut… Danny Rojas, play is life.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:04]:
Play is life. So what happened to play? I mean, most of us… And, unfortunately, there are exceptions. But most of us remember play as a part of childhood. It’s comes before all of the second guessing. And, you know, I like to say that kids know who they are because who they are hasn’t been taken from them yet. They are still allowed to go out and play and try new things and spend hours giggling and doing silly things like building houses out of mud. And nobody looks at them funny for it because they’re kids.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:44]:
That’s what kids are supposed to do. Everybody knows that. And for the most part, except in really unfortunate situations, nobody gets in their way because we recognize that that’s part of being a kid. It’s part of being, you know, of growing up. It’s part of how kids learn. And in fact, you learn a whole lot faster through play than you do by sitting down at a desk and staring at a teacher all day long. And I say this with all due respect for teachers, I used to be one. Play is a much faster way to incorporate information.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:19]:
It’s why we have the ability to play. It’s a thing called neoteny, different conversation for a different day. But it’s something that adults retain, which is why people who say that play is creativity or just for kids, if that were true, we wouldn’t still have it. But there, there is a book that I’ll bet you haven’t heard of unless you are into theatrical improvisation by a man named Keith Johnstone. The book is called Impro, and it is basically the Bible of improv. The people who know it and have read it, love it. I finally sat down and read it a couple years ago. And I really believe now I will admit I have not read every single book on creativity because there are too many, but I genuinely believe that this might be the greatest book on creativity ever written.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:11]:
If you wanna hear more about that, I did a whole episode about it with my friend Nina Hart a couple years ago, and you can go check that out. But there are two things that really stand out in my memory from that book. And here’s the first one. He talks about how the same child who is praised for telling a really imaginative story at age eight will get serious, serious side eye for telling that same imaginative story at age 14. So somewhere between age eight and age 14 in those six years, everyone in the world around that child has changed their view of what’s acceptable form of creativity for a 14 year old rather than an eight year old. The story hasn’t changed. The child hasn’t changed except for the passage of those six years. But now society is saying that’s not okay anymore, even though it was fine when you were eight.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:15]:
That’s the only difference. And we start to say, where did the play go and where did the creativity go? It happened in that gap. And I have come to realize that it’s not just that we are saying this isn’t allowed anymore, though we definitely do say that, but that we have started in that period to install caution into our children and into ourselves because we begin to anticipate that kind of correction. We begin to anticipate the embarrassment that comes when we realize that the story that we would have been able to tell to great acclaim not that long ago suddenly gets us in trouble. We anticipate that disapproval, And, eventually, nobody else needs to be in the room with us to say, no. No. Sorry, Johnny. You’re too old for that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:16]:
You’re not allowed to do that anymore. We start to do it to ourselves. That’s that second guessing at the beginning that we talked about. And then the next thing that follows is that line that drives me crazy. Oh, no. I’m not creative. Yeah. You are.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:37]:
You are. You are, and you always have been. But now you’ve been trained to believe that you aren’t or that you shouldn’t be because it’s safer for you to reject your own ideas than to share them with others and maybe even to pretend that you don’t have them. And eventually, we become people who believe that we are not ready for anything and that we have to be ready for everything, which means that we don’t do anything because, oh, no. No. No. No. I’m not ready.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:08]:
I’m not ready. I’m not creative. I can’t do this thing. My very favorite quote about this comes from actor Hugh Laurie. I’m gonna read it to you. He says… And I did a pep talk about this several years ago. He says, “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:26]:
I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now.” I can’t tell you how many times since I encountered that quote. I have thought of it when it was time for me to do something, and I found myself trying to talk myself into, oh, no. No. I’m not ready. And hearing those words, there is no such thing as ready, has encouraged me to say, you’re not ever gonna be ready.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:57]:
Just do the thing. Just do the thing. Because the overabundance of caution will keep you stuck forever if you let it. You may have heard me talk before about how fear and curiosity can’t exist at the same time. I’ve talked about it with Lisa Townsend. I’ve talked about it with Kelly Flanagan. I’ve talked about it with others. And as Kelly pointed out, it’s because fear pulls you away from something.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:22]:
Curiosity brings you toward it. Caution is just another word for fear. It’s slightly less scary than fear. Right? It pulls you away. Play and curiosity are very similar things, and they push you towards something. So if somebody has installed caution in you, it’s pulling you away from the play. These two things can’t move in the same direction at the same time. And if you are stuck in between, you will just sit in the middle.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:50]:
Play is always taking you closer to something, and a lot of the time, that thing is you. Now if you’re terrified of finding out who you are, I can understand why you might want to avoid play. But if you’re not, and if you’re really itching to get back to yourself, play is a really, really good way to get there. If you know me at all, you know that I talk a lot about the culture being part of how we got here, and I really think that’s true because where did these rules come from? These rules are passed down to us through the culture. Nobody is sitting with that eight year old as they grow into that 14 year old and spontaneously saying, oh, nope. I’m sorry. You know, I made these rules and these rules say you’re not allowed to do this anymore. No.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:38]:
We get them through the ether, through the culture. And those rules include the idea that, you know, there’s a possibility of things ever being perfect. There’s very little in life that can ever be perfect. I mean, yes. If I’m having neurosurgery, I want it to be done perfectly. Right? If I’m flying on a plane, I would like that pilot to do his job as close to perfectly as possible. But if I’m working on a creative project, especially if I’m trying something new, it’s never gonna be perfect. Ask any book author, and they will tell you that they will look at their books a week after they’re published.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:18]:
And they’ll find typos, they will find things that they wish they had done differently, and it continues for months and years afterwards. And at some point, you have to take that book and you have to put it to bed and say, it is done. I need to let it go because it’s time to move on to the next thing. And you you just have to be willing to do that, or you will never ever stop working on that thing and you will drive yourself absolutely mad with it. The same is true of the idea that there’s one right way to do things. I have said over and over again on this podcast and in other places, there is no one right way. There’s only your way. The way that works for you is the way you should do the thing.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:01]:
Because if you are trying to do it somebody else’s way and it’s not working for you, what’s the point of that? If it’s not working, you’re not gonna get anything done. You’re gonna make yourself absolutely crazy with it. You’re gonna convince yourself that you’re no good at it, which is very likely not true. What good comes of this? None. Absolutely none. And I don’t think that any good comes of the idea that adults have to be serious or overly productive or even in many cases, respectable. I I just don’t think that it does, and I’m about to give you a couple examples of that. I think, though, that these rules come from the same societal ills that make all of us miserable, the same patriarchy, misogyny, racism, all of that stuff that makes all of us miserable except for a few very rarefied people.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:54]:
You know, they harm everybody. And yet for some reason, we cling to them, especially, unfortunately, people who look a lot like me. But play is about experimenting. It’s about finding more one… Than one possibility. It’s about finding the possibility that works really, really well for you and running with it and finding the joy and the adventure and the excitement and the wonder that comes from this exciting new thing that you’re trying, the new experience, the curiosity, and where it takes you, and say, oh, this thing is fun. This is lighting me up. I feel alive when I do this, and I’m getting so much joy and excitement from it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:39]:
It makes it worth getting up in the morning, and I want more. If that’s not what life is about, I have no idea what else it might be. And I really think we see that when we watch other people play. We see it when we watch kids play. How many of us watch kids play and don’t think, boy, I wish I could go back to when I was their age. On some level, I think most of us think that because we remember. We remember and we’re envious because we’re not allowed to do that anymore. But then there are the larger examples.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:13]:
And the one that always comes to mind for me is Robin Williams. When you watched Robin Williams and missus Doubtfire playing air guitar with a vacuum cleaner, Robin Williams was willing to do whatever it took for the part even if he looked foolish doing it. And the fact that he was willing to look like an idiot doing it is part of what made him a genius. It’s part of what made it work on screen. And the same thing is true with David Tennant. In fact, I realized this when I heard someone say this about him. He was willing to do whatever it takes on screen no matter how foolish it might have made him look, and that’s why it works. There’s a great sketch that I think of where he’s with Catherine Tate as her Nan character, and he’s one of the Christmas ghosts.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:07]:
And he’s absolutely over the top and completely hilarious, and it works because it’s so over the top. I mean, he’s… His Christmas ghost is worried about making risotto in the kitchen, and it’s a stitch because he’s willing to go that far with it. Most of us would hold ourselves back from it, and that’s the biggest challenge that anybody has when they try improv for the first time is that they’re holding back even though they wanna go and do the wild thing. And is that, you know, you gotta run with your first thought. You gotta you gotta do the thing that you’re tempted to hold yourself back from. That’s what makes them so brilliant. And David Tennant also doesn’t take himself seriously.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:55]:
You know? He once put a sign on his trailer that said, mister Twinkle Toes, where his name should have been, which invited everyone else not to take him as seriously either and to totally relax. And I think when we watch these people do the things that we used to do as kids even though they’re as adults now, I think part of the reason that we enjoy them so much is that there is something in us even if we aren’t consciously articulating it in that moment that it was recognizes the kid in them, and it speaks to the kid in us. And we are sitting there thinking, I remember that, and I miss that part of me too. I miss that part of me, and I want that. And I strongly suspect, because I’m not a therapist and I have never studied this, but I strongly, strongly suspect that the people like Robin Williams and David Tennant who are willing to play on that level as adults and be that in touch with their inner kid have a greater depth of wisdom than a lot of people who don’t. Because I know Robin Williams was a very deep and wise guy, and so is David Tennant. And I don’t think they’re the only ones. I don’t think they just have to be actors or comedians either.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:17]:
I think that the adults that we may know who are more comfortable being in touch with that part of themselves in any field have a much greater sense of what this life is about. And sometimes we just have to play the game even if we think we’re gonna look like an idiot. I mean, in my own story that I told back in curiosity clinic episode number two, my friend Paula convinced me to write my own Dayglow disco post, which on its own… Okay. Fine. I can do that. And then she convinced me to send it to Sam Neill because it was his fictional disco. Right? That’s the part that I was like, oh, wait.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:04]:
Hang on. I don’t know about this. And she convinced me to do it. I played with the idea, and he played back when he replied and said, you look good in the day glow. And that’s where it became even more fun because it became a two way street very briefly, but it became a two way street because that’s how little bits of play work. It was just a little moment, but a little moment is sometimes all it takes. If you want the full story of all of that, curiosity clinic number two is where you’ll find it. But if you wanna find you, I really recommend that you try play.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:49]:
And I’ll tell you, the other thing that stands out from Keith Johnstone’s book for me is that he tells a story about a study that was done with a group of, I think it was bankers. And they were asked to do a creative exercise as themselves. And when they were doing it as themselves and thought of themselves as bankers, they got pretty average, not particularly astonishing results. But when they were asked to do it again and imagine that they were hippies, this book came out in 1975. So around that era, their results changed dramatically. These were the same people, but with different permission and a different identity that they were stepping into. And they came up with far more creative ideas, far more divergent ideas just because they imagined that they were somebody else. You don’t have to be somebody else.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:53]:
So when you think about putting on that ridiculous voice to read the book to your kids or singing the wrong lyrics or writing the wrong lyrics or writing that terrible private poem, what’s to stop you? It’s play. It’s just play. And sometimes doing it badly on purpose is the whole idea. Last year, this time of year, I was doing 30 bad poems in thirty days on YouTube, and we had a great time and learned a lot from it. And I had people responding to those poems in the comments with their own poems, which was the whole idea, and it was amazing to see what people did Just because I gave them permission to do a bad poem every day or whenever they could for the same period of time that I was doing it, because nobody had ever given them that kind of permission before. But you can give that permission to yourself. You can follow an impulse and just see what happens. And if it is truly terrible, nobody has to know about it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:56]:
But a lot of the time when you do something badly, it is not truly terrible. And even if the overall thing isn’t what you want, there’s probably something in there that you can pull out of it and say, oh, but this bit is pretty good. I think I can use this somewhere else. And when you do that, you get to notice what delights you. You get to notice, oh, I like this part and I wanna do more of that. Or you get to say, this part didn’t quite work, but I think if I play with it a little more, there’s potential there. I can make something out of that. And you start to learn to trust yourself and trust what you do, trust what you’re capable of and trust what you can make of it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:41]:
And that opens up a whole new world for you and a whole new sense of who you are, which, oddly enough, is exactly how you start to reconnect to who you really are, which is the whole point of my restorative creativity framework. Funny how that works. I would love it if you would take all of this and just in the next couple of days, notice one playful impulse that you have and then notice that second thought. Notice that immediate impulse to stifle it because we all do it. I guarantee you. We all do it. I do it too. Right? Everybody does it because we’ve been trained to do it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:21:31]:
But when you notice that second thought, you can push it gently out of the way and give that impulse a little bit of room to come out and introduce itself and see what it wants to be and play a little bit. And you can play with it and remember that there is no need to be any good at it. There isn’t even a need to finish it much less to share it with the world. You get to decide what you do with it, who sees it. If you wanna do more with it, or if just little five minutes of play is plenty. It’s entirely up to you. There are no rules for this except what feels comfortable to you. What might you enjoy? That’s it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:15]:
That’s it. That’s your North Star. What might you enjoy? And be okay with doing it badly while you get used to it, while you start with it, and maybe forever. We all start somewhere, and pretty much nobody ever does something well the first time, maybe not even the first hundred and first times. It’s okay. So if you like this little corner of the Internet here in the Creative Closet, I invite you to stick around. You can subscribe either on your podcast app or here on YouTube on the subscribe button so that you will always know when I have something new for you without having to go and hunt it down. And you’re welcome to come back anytime.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:00]:
Even when there isn’t something new, there’s plenty of stuff here for you to check out, and I hope that you will. Also, if you need a little confidence buddy sort of situation to help you dig into whatever it is that you decide you wanna play with, the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle meets once a month, usually around the fourth Saturday of the month, just to be exactly that. We get together for an hour, and we do our thing in company, get to know each other a little bit. But mostly, it’s a dedicated time to spend on that thing because it can be hard to find the time if you don’t put it on your calendar. And we’re a very friendly group. We would love to have you. I usually have two prompts that are completely optional. You can use one, both, or neither, and it’s totally free.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:51]:
And those links are in the podcast app or on YouTube too. And I am Nancy. I am your Messy Muse mentor, creator of the restorative creativity framework, and I’m here to help you reconnect with yourself through creativity because I really do believe that creativity is the fastest path back to yourself. And I thank you for joining me here this week, and I hope to see you next time. If you’re tired of being productive and just want to feel alive again, come join us in the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle. It’s a free hour each month to stop over thinking, make something just because you want to, and reconnect with the part of you that remembers how good it feels to play. You can find it at the link in your podcast app. See you there, and see you next week.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:44]:
Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks so much, and see you next week.