How to Stay Motivated to Create Tomorrow — No Matter What Happens Today
A lesson for creatives who need to produce work consistently to make a living
Creatives have a unique vocation. We can’t shuffle our way through our work — mindlessly pushing paper until the quitting bell rings. We can’t hide behind bureaucracy, keeping a non-essential job and hoping no one notices.
We use our brains. And with cerebral work come many motivational hurdles.
Whether we write, sing, paint, post, film, sculpt, weld, or sew — if we don’t produce we don’t eat. And some days just about everything looks more appealing than our chosen vocation.
One thing I’ve learned is willpower is the weakest tool in the creative’s arsenal. If we rely on willpower we’ll fail before we start. Willpower is a finite resource. We use it only when the main chute won’t deploy. Willpower should be the creative’s last resort for motivation, not the go-to.
So, if willpower isn’t the go-to, how do we stay motivated to keep creating?
We build habits. We build unbreakable, never-ending, daily habits. No matter how small or how large the production, if we can wire our brains to perform our work no matter how we feel that day, we’ve got something stronger than any willpower we can muster.
Why are creative habits important?
When we do the work daily we literally re-wire our brains to perform a task whether we like it or not — whether we feel like it or not — and whether we want to or not.
Daily, automatic habits will save your creative work from self-sabotage.
No one’s coming to motivate us to do our best work. We’ve got to show up and self-motivate. This can be really hard. I feel the draw away from my writing just when I need to stay motivated most. Right when I’m close to publishing does everything in my mind fight against me.
But once I developed a daily writing habit, I became more worried about the production (the daily word count) than the end goal (the book). As creatives we’ve got to produce.
We own our businesses. We’re the boss. There’s no one else to blame. Everything is on us. If the widgets don’t get widgeted, we don’t get paid.
It’s not just about the hustle or working harder (although hard work is a large component). Creative motivation is about the discipline to overcome yourself.
As creatives we can’t fake our way through our work. If we’re having a rough day the motivation to do the work is diminished. But we’ve got to keep producing if we want our creative business to thrive.
If we don’t want the daily bumps and stumbles to influence our do-ing, we’ve got to implement the automatic habits that get us started.
The key is accepting the work for work’s sake
When we stop worrying about the sale or the end goal we stop self-editing. When we stop self editing we worry more about the daily production than whether or not the work is any good.
There’s no room for imposter syndrome and self-editing. Our opinions of our work don’t matter as much as the opinions of our audience.
Sure, we’re our worst critics, but most of that extra baggage gets in the way. When we take a step back — to see the work for work’s sake — the daily task of getting our little piece of creativity finished — the cumulative result will be much greater.
If I want to finish a book and all I do is worry about the final product before the book is written, I’ll never finish it. I’ll talk myself out of the project before it’s done.
Instead, if I focus on writing every day, hitting a certain word-count, and give myself annual publishing goals, the work focus changes. My sights are now set on the daily task instead of the quality of the whole. I can break the project into manageable chunks. I now no longer worry about finishing a book, but rather writing 2,000 words before bed.
The quality will take care of itself.
You can’t do anything every day and NOT get better unless you try to be bad. Sure, you can practice a craft the wrong way, but if you’re a professional you’ll want to do better. With a daily, automatic work habit, craftsmanship is baked-in the process.
How to stay motivated to make creative work
There are four parts to building a habit that sticks, thanks to the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
To build a permanent habit we need:
- A cue (a permanent habit we already perform without thinking, like making coffee in the morning)
- A craving (we’ve got to want to perform the behavior)
- A response (the new habit you want to perform once you experience the cue)
- A reward (an immediate prize for performing the task you want to make permanent)
Let’s start with something we all do. For this example our cue is getting out of bed. We want to develop a daily writing habit, let’s say.
Every time we get out of bed we think about all the benefits of daily writing in order to boost our craving for the work. We respond by writing a single word. This is our daily goal to build the habit. If we write one word (or take one photo, or paint one stroke) we won the day.
It’s all about winning the day.
If we win today we can win tomorrow. If we win the day before it starts, it will be much easier to maintain the habit. Versus trying to perform the habit before we go to bed — after the baggage of the day has weighed-down on us.
Once we win the day by performing the desired creative habit, we reward the behavior immediately. Your reward can be as big or small as you wish, but you’ve got to be able to repeat the reward every time you perform your intended behavior.
It was never about the motivation
No one’s coming. We’ve got to make our work no matter what. If we wait for motivation we’ll be waiting until we’re dead. We build daily habits. We get to work.
Some days we create magic other days we create less-so.
We get to work no matter what. We build upon yesterday’s work and the day before that. The cumulative effort compounds. We don’t have to work frantically. We produce consistently.
We treat our craft as a vocation, not some fancy piece of art than needs a muse. We work like professionals.
Now’s your turn.
We’re waiting for you.
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August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
