How Taking Risks Elevates Your Creativity

What I learned from performing comedy every week

Failure creates the drive to succeed.

The first time I tried stand-up comedy I was in a state of such incomparable dread that I tried meditating for the first time.

My friend assured me that it would help me calm down. Indeed, it was an astounding transition to feel terrified with my eyes closed instead of open.

Having achieved nothing, and with my total inability to back or blackout, I took to the stage for the first time and effortlessly failed like a true chump.

After awkwardly moving through poorly written jokes and demonstrating the limits of my memory (there is no experience quite like forgetting your jokes on stage), I walked off stage floating in the aftermath of adrenaline.

Thus began my commitment to one of the most difficult sensations I have ever encountered: performance anxiety.

Our commitment to our craft emboldens our naturally-present creativity.

Desperately hoping that my performance anxiety was a short-lived symptom of having no experience, I devoted myself to performing stand-up at least once every week.

This put me in a state of constant creativity.

Knowing I was always just days away from performing live in front of an entire room of people, I had to generate material regularly to meet the commitment I had set for myself.

As I did this, I met many disappointments. The most pressing of which was that my anxiety over performing did not improve. Indeed, I quickly settled into crappy performance habits that were mostly manifestations of my inexperience and anxiety.

Still, week after week, I would hobble over to local comedy shows to perform, regularly meeting levels of anxiety I had not previously believed in.

Beyond just the mental worrying, the anticipation of being minutes from performing filled me with palpable, physical distress. Suddenly I felt an inexplicable trifecta of needing to shit, piss, and blot myself from existence.

Like prayer, meditation, or going to Mecca, going to the shitter was my ritual of choice to prepare for performing which my body assumed was the very annihilation of itself.

And, even as I finally heard the piercing words, “Zach Klebaner, come to the stage!” I’d still stumble as I searched my mind for that perfect opener; the one that would allow me to comfortably coast through the performance like a hilarious God who had finally solidified his status.

Eventually, I learned that my discomfort never disappeared, but I had built the grit to withstand it and achieve small victories. With such regular practice, better jokes emerged and I found the freedom to experiment more and more.

My commitment to performing regularly led me to find community, purpose, and ideas I would’ve never otherwise encountered.

Had I not chosen to perform regularly, I easily would have stopped writing material as I wouldn’t have had an outlet for it.

By committing to performing regularly, I had a clear, tangible purpose and space for all of my writing.

As a result, I began to live directly within my creativity. Whether I was in class, hanging out with friends, or doing homework, the knowledge that I was X amount of days from performing never left me.

This fact drove me towards a state of near-constant creativity.

And interestingly enough, I noticed that my creativity multiplied when I was just minutes from performing. The anxiety of giving a poor performance propelled me towards a state of comedic hypnosis in which I felt more open to new ideas and techniques.

So, if you're in a creative rut, start taking some risks.

You will feel your heart accelerate, your palms get sweaty, and your muscles tense up.

Do it anyway.

Because when we bathe in the excitement of our fear, we learn to fly with it towards a widening of our everything.

And that kind of shake-up is invaluable because it creates results that you simply couldn’t have envisioned beforehand.

So, what kind of risks have you taken? And where have they led you?

Zach Klebaner is a writer based in Tamarac, FL whose work has been featured in a wide variety of literary journals such as Crossways Literary Magazine, Oddball Magazine, and Wax Poetry and Art. He’s on Twitter @ZKlebaner where you can find him investigating the idiosyncrasies of our society.