Why Creative People Feel Like They're Always Falling Behind | Jada and David

Why Creative People Feel Like They're Always Falling Behind

Blog by Jada Parrish | Article| 07/20/26

I have this bad habit of believing that if I'm not making progress everywhere, I'm falling behind somewhere.

Like no matter how much David and I accomplish in one area, I can't seem to stop looking at all the other places where we aren't making progress. While we're building, I wish we were editing. While we're editing, I wish we were sharing. While we're sharing, I'm already thinking about the next thing I want to create. Somewhere along the way, I started believing that a creative life was supposed to happen all at once.

I want to be building new ideas while editing old ones. I want to answer emails, write blog posts, photograph, film YouTube videos, post on Instagram, grow a business, and somehow still be fully present with the people I love. Somewhere in my mind I've created this impossible version of a productive day where everything moves forward at once. And every time reality doesn't look like that, I convince myself I'm falling behind.

That feeling followed me through almost the entire Attic Series.

Earlier this year, David and I decided to turn our tiny attic into a photo studio and build 25 completely different sets in 100 days. The project was intentionally ambitious. We had very little space, a very small budget to produce all of the shoots, and just enough optimism to believe we could somehow pull it off.

For one hundred days our world became plywood, paint, sawdust, lighting, and photographs. We were exhausted most nights, but we also felt incredibly alive because we were spending every day doing the two things we love most: building impossible little worlds and photographing them.

Our goal was to create and share in real time.

Why Creative People Feel Like They're Always Falling Behind - Jada And David Parrish

For weeks, we kept trying to make reality fit the plan we had written down before the project ever started. We would spend all day building a set, photograph late into the evening, and then look at the growing pile of edits, YouTube footage, blog drafts, and unanswered emails waiting for us afterward. Every night ended with the same feeling that we were somehow behind.

Instead of ending each day feeling proud, I felt guilty.

The strange thing was that I never questioned the quality of the work we were making. I loved the sets. I loved the photographs. I loved the feeling of spending every day creating with David. The guilt came from all the invisible work that wasn't getting done. It was as if I couldn't let myself enjoy what we were accomplishing because I couldn't stop thinking about everything we weren't.

After a few weeks of pushing ourselves to our breaking points, trying to simultaneously hold all the pieces at once, life did its thing. My grandmother died. Our dog died. Client projects happened. Work deadlines needed to be met. We were getting our house ready to put on the market. And we couldn't keep up.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized I wasn't actually frustrated because we were working too hard. I was frustrated because I was measuring this season against a completely different one.

Eventually, we stopped asking ourselves how we could work harder and started asking a different question.

What if creativity has seasons...and our biggest mistake is expecting ourselves to live in all of them at once?

Instead of trying to become faster...we changed our expectations.

We gave ourselves permission to do one thing really well. And for this particular season, that meant build sets and photograph.

Why Creative People Feel Like They're Always Falling Behind - Jada And David Parrish

That didn't make us less productive. It made us present. It made me enjoy the creative process more because I had a clearer understanding of what phase I was in.

We stopped trying to create and share at the exact same pace. We gave ourselves permission to let this be a season of building. A season of making. The editing would come later. The videos would come later. The storytelling would come later. None of those things disappeared. They simply belonged to a different season.

Somewhere along the way, I created this impossible definition of what a productive day was supposed to look like. In my mind, I should be creating, promoting, organizing, answering emails, planning the next project, growing a business, and somehow finding time to rest. I expected myself to plant the seed, water it, harvest it, package it, and share it...all before dinner.

The more I've sat with all of this, the more I keep coming back to the way nature works. Nothing in nature is trying to do everything all at once. A flower doesn't bloom the same day the seed is planted. Trees don't spend the winter wondering why they don't have leaves. Every season has a different purpose, and somehow each one seems content to simply do the job it was designed to do before making room for the next. And it can’t be rushed. Just because you get tired of the cold mid-way through winter, doesn’t mean it can instantly be summer.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this extends far beyond creativity. Maybe every season of life asks something different from us. Some seasons leave room to build businesses. Others ask us to care for family. Some invite us to dream, while others quietly teach us patience. None of those seasons are wrong. They're just different.

In our own life, David and I are in a deep season of transition. We just put our house on the market. It still hasn't sold. So much is uncertain. We’re living with my parents with no studio or place to build. Our season has changed.

We’re spending hours behind computer screens with hard drives in a makeshift office at my parents house with spreadsheets trying our best to stay organized and on schedule with our edits and youtube videos.

We’re no longer in a season of deep creation. We’re in a season of sharing. Of Harvest. Of long days at the computer editing all the photos we took during the attic series. On a mission to edit 25 full youtube videos, one from every shoot.

I've realized lately that I'm always longing for the next season.

Why Creative People Feel Like They're Always Falling Behind - Jada And David Parrish

Looking back, I can almost see those seasons inside every project we've ever made. There's the dreaming, when ideas begin to take shape. Then the building, where imagination slowly becomes something you can touch. Eventually comes the quieter work of editing, writing, publishing, and sharing it with the world. And if you're lucky, there comes a moment when the work finds the people it was meant to find before the whole cycle quietly begins again.

When I'm building, I wish I had more time to edit. When I'm editing, I wish I were making something new. When I'm creating, I wish more people could see it. The balance of it all feels close to impossible.

But maybe peace isn't found in finally achieving balance. Maybe it's found in recognizing the season you're in...and allowing it to be enough.

Just like the sky can't snow and cast the sweet warmth of summertime simultaneously, neither can you.

So if you've been feeling behind lately, maybe the answer isn't to work harder. Maybe it's simply to stop asking this season to become another one.