By far, the most asked question I get as a writer/creative/blogger is "How?". How do you find the time? How do you stay inspired? How do you stay motivated? More or less, I always give the exact same response but I thought here I'd dive into it a little deeper. I know as creatives we all face the exact same struggles of not feeling inspired or motivated but those things are, in reality, excuses. I've come to learn that inspiration and other things that we find ourselves depending on are fickle and unreliable. If we dared to make the mistake of sitting around and waiting for such things, we would never get anything done. And that's the brutal truth. So, if we can't rely on that, what should we rely on? Well, I'm about to tell you.
But, before we jump into all that good stuff, welcome back, readers! If you're new here, this is my blog where I motivate, give guides and drop lots of advice about creativity, school and lifestyle! If you haven't, you should definitely subscribe so you can get notified every time I drop a new post and please, go click that little heart icon at the end of this post because I use likes as a self-worth counter like everyone else a part of Generation X. Thanks! Alright, now that I've received validation from strangers, let's get into: Finding Inspiration And Other Excuses.
The Myth Of Inspiration
It's all a lie. Everything you think you know, a lie.
For most of us, inspiration comes like a full moon. Rare, but beautiful. But it's the rare part of that sentence that's the problem. Creative work, cannot and should never be dependent on inspiration, time or motivation because the plain fact is those things won't ensure your project gets done. At all. Actually, I would go as far as to say that you shouldn't seek them out at all. If you have them, sure that's great, but always work despite them.
The idea that creatives live these interesting lives and see through rose-tinted glasses all the time just isn't true. More than anything, it's hard work, blood, sweat and tears that gets things going. Don't think that you should watch a sunset or listen to music to be qualified or charged up enough creatively to start creating. That's a lie. With and without those things, you are still a through and through artist and everything else is just fluff. Inspiration is overrated, anyway.
Powering Through
I once read somewhere that you have to work for yourself twice as hard than you would work for your boss. What this means is when work starts at 9 a.m. we all get ready and leave the house in time so we can get to work by 9, right? When you have homework to hand in the next day, you do the homework, right? And if these things aren't done, there are sanctions in place to keep us accountable. Yet, when it's time to write a new chapter, it takes us two weeks and lots of coffee.
The ugly truth behind being a creative is a lot of hard work and fight. Sometimes, all you need is to open your laptop and just slam nonsense onto the keyboard. Open your notebook and draw the most deformed stick man to have ever existed. It sounds cliche but, just do it. And hold yourself accountable! Give yourself deadlines, workloads, schedules incentives etc. Free balling your project is the worst idea. Have some structure and work with that.
The Gratification
But, here's the good thing, sometimes, your best work may just come from you powering through your slumps. I can testify that usually it's when I feel like I can't write the most and force myself is when I have the best epiphanies. Some of my best work came from me sitting up and forcing myself to think of something and write. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of hair-pulling and crying but you know what hey say about how diamonds are made.
So, don't feel bad! You can actually build and make your own inspiration. You'll be surprised of how much you can literally pull from within yourself to create. More often than not, we don't know our own strength. Give yourself that extra push.
Not to mention, after you've battled with yourself to churn out whatever draft you could muster up, you'll feel a lot better about your productivity. A sense of accomplishment and contentment will wash over you as you look at what you've made and go "Damn, I really did that." Well, it's either that, a sheepish feeling of assurance as you say "Well, it's better than nothing." Either way, you'll feel a whole lot better knowing you got something done than absolutely nothing at all.
Conclusion
So push through, readers. Whatever it is, just do it and keep going until it gets easier, because it will get easier! Use me for example, instead of writing this post today I wanted to sleep in, but I started and kept going and here you are reading it. See?
And, that's a wrap for this week, readers! If you found this post useful be sure to click that little heart icon below to let me know and drop a comment telling me if you agree with what I said!
If you want to read more stuff from me feel free to follow me on Wattpad and Medium so you can read all my works and Twitter and Instagram where I occasionally rant, share music and discuss the pains of being a creator. Oh, also, I share sneak peeks of my novel and new blog posts at times too, if you're into that. Have a great weekend, readers!
