Help! I Talked the Idea to Death Before It Even Started

Take It or Leave It creative advice

This week, we’re exploring three moments that show up again and again in the life of a creative:

We’ll start with the disorienting feeling of awakening displacement—what to do when you’ve outgrown your old life but haven’t yet stepped into the new one.

Then we’ll talk about how to protect your ideas without smothering them—especially when you’re excited to share your creative work, but worry you might be saying too much too soon.

And finally, we’ll get tactical with a full breakdown of how I think about content strategy—what I’ve learned from years of working at places like BuzzFeed, what I’ve had to unlearn, and how I approach making content that’s both authentic and scalable.

Plus, my mood board this week is a little different, but if you’re a graphic designer or into brand identity, I think you’ll like it.

Let’s get into it.

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Hey Ethan,

This is such an important question, and I’m really glad you asked.

From what I understand, awakening displacement is the disorienting space between an internal shift and an external reality that hasn’t caught up yet. It can come after a spiritual awakening, a major life event, or just a slow, quiet realization that the person you’ve been isn’t quite who you are anymore.

You feel like something cracked open inside you, but everything around you looks the same. You’ve changed, but your world hasn’t. And that gap between the two can be unsettling.

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I’ve gone through it. For me, it hit hardest between the ages of 28 and 30. I had been chasing the same version of success for most of my 20s—grinding, performing, doing what I thought would move me forward. But during that stretch, the path I’d been walking suddenly stopped making sense. I wasn’t sure if I had outgrown it or if it had outgrown me. All I knew was that I felt disconnected from my work, my identity, and even my ambition.

It was one of the most creatively dry seasons of my life. I couldn’t make anything that felt like me, because I wasn’t sure who “me” even was anymore.

And to be honest, it was terrifying. I felt like I had lost the thing that made me who I was. I kept trying to go back to what used to work with old routines, old styles, and old ways of thinking, but none of it fit. It was like putting on pants I’d outgrown but couldn’t admit didn’t fit anymore.

That stretch lasted over two years. And I wish I could say I journaled my way out of it, or read the perfect book, or had some grand realization that changed everything. But it wasn’t that clean. The turning point came slowly and quietly, when I stopped treating the confusion as a problem to fix and started treating it as a phase to move through. When I stopped asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and started asking, “What is this season trying to teach me?”

I gave myself permission to be curious. I paid attention to what was pulling me, even if it didn’t look “productive.” I went on long walks. I sat with boredom. I let go of timelines. I started noticing which people gave me energy and which drained it.

I let myself be a beginner again.

One of the hardest parts of this kind of awakening is that it can feel invisible to everyone else. From the outside, you might look fine. You might even look successful. But internally, you feel like a stranger to your own life. That’s why this experience can feel so lonely. It’s a deeply internal shift. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real or that it’s not leading somewhere.

If you’re in that place, I want you to know it won’t last forever. The ground will settle. Your voice will come back. But it won’t sound exactly like it did before, and that’s a good thing. That’s how you know you’ve grown.

This isn’t the season to force output. It’s the season to build your inner world. And trust me, the work you do here, the quiet and invisible kind, is going to shape the next decade of your creative life.

When I was 28, I thought I was on track to become a full-time comedian. That was the story I’d been telling myself for years. Now I’m a designer, a writer, a creative director—none of which I planned for, but all of which feel more aligned with who I am today.

I didn’t pivot because of strategy, I pivoted because I changed. And I let myself change.

You don’t have to figure out the whole path right now. Just keep paying attention. Stay curious. Stay open. Follow what feels alive, even if it makes no sense yet.

You’re not stuck. You’re just in the middle of becoming.

Hope this helps.

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Hi Lizzie,

I’m going to start by quoting one of the great poets of our time: Lil Wayne.

“Real Gs move in silence like lasagna.”

I’ve mentioned this line before, and for anyone who doesn’t get the reference, he’s playing with the silent “G” in the word lasagna. Classic Weezy.

I could do an entire TED Talk on his wordplay, but that’s for another day.