Are you the type of person that has a get-up-and-go attitude? Can you be persistent with your work and progress? Are you able to act on motivation and inspiration at a whim? Or do you struggle to find that drive to begin with?
Inspiration means nothing if you don’t act on it.
Even if you have that drive to begin with, can you persist with it long enough to see your long-term goals through? eventually, you’re going to burn out. It will happen, so prepare for it and be mindful.
Circumstances and expectations change, new idea’s form, and this takes your mind off your main goal, and you begin to question your motive for beginning, which is also a good thing. You need to keep checking how your goals and reality are aligning, and if your truly enjoying the direction your going in. Focus on what is most important to you.
The tendency now is to get caught up in an immediate gratification of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ online. A Short term solution to a long-term problem. Sharing half-finished work on Facebook and Instagram without the willingness to shut in and start, progress and finish a full project without stopping and checking what people think of your half-finished concept-work. You will grow quicker, with more of a reception to a full piece of finished work.
Create a drive by constraining yourself, set limits on our work, a time limit, use certain instruments, certain colours or techniques. Use this to generate drive, to think outside the box. Thinking outside the box is creativity.
You can’t solely rely on a creative spark, that rush you get when creating something new, something your just trying out for the first time, the excitement of a new venture and different process. When the spark runs out (which is will), regardless if this is your passion or not, exercising limitations is a good technique to get your mind flowing in your work.
You need to get into a mindset of, “This is what I do”, so you need to show up and do it. If you start off driven, you’re eventually going to run into a wall. You will reach a point where you haven’t got that spark and pure energy and enthusiasm to draw from to fuel your drive for this particular field.
An accountability partner is good for developing a drive to start and finish a project or piece of work. It’s someone who is going motivate you to show up, do the work and finish it. Otherwise is to let not just you down, but them too, as they have invested their time and effort in showing up to help you. They are useful for both people who have drive, and those who do not.
Curate your social feeds. who you follow online is just as important as the people who surround you in your real life. There has never been more noise in the world, in both physical and digital, as there is at this moment in time. If you’re looking for drive, start here. Unfollow everything that creates noise, everything that isn’t generating value to you, everything that isn’t going to motivate and inspire you.
Start a fresh slate of Twitter and Instagram. Ask yourself if this person or brand is worth your time and attention? Ask yourself if it’s going to motivate you to create?
Even in real life, who are you surrounding yourself with? Are they creatives? Are they interesting? Do they create good, valuable content? Your close friends. Do they inspire and push you, do they challenge you?
You may find that you are just in a passing season of your work where you’re feeling unsure. So embrace it, ask questions about your motives, keep checking in on yourself and reevaluate your goals to see if you are still going in the direction you want to be.
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