Pixar Director Pete Docter's Advice for When Everything Is Going Wrong

When it rains, it pours. At least, that’s the mindset we tend to get in when things start to go south. Oscar-winning director Pete Docter has a tip that can help make those rock-bottom moments less upsetting.

Everyone has moments when they feel like nothing is going right, even award-winning directors. In the book Creativity, Inc., Docter explained his process of handling times like that to Pixar Animation and Disney Animation president Ed Catmull:

When this happens, it’s usually because I feel like the world is crashing down and all is lost. One trick I’ve learned is to force myself to make a list of what’s actually wrong. Usually, soon into making the list, I find I can group most of the issues into two or three larger all-encompassing problems. So it’s really not all that bad. Having a finite list of problems is much better than having an illogical feeling that everything is wrong.

Things probably aren’t as bad as they seem. Or at the very least, a great deal of your problems probably all relate to a few larger problems you can work on. It’s hard to find the desire to fight back when you don’t know what you’re fighting. Take a deep breath, sit down, and lay it all out on the table.