If Creativity Isn't 'Coming' To You, Are You Failing As An Artist?
Last month we looked at What It Means to Be a Certified Studio.
This week I want to share a personal story about finding inspiration and motivation.
Earlier this year I decided to slow down a little bit. I paused my online series, took a vacation and gave myself time to rest. But when I was mentally ready to get back in the game, I just couldn’t find inspiration.
The constant flood of ideas and motivation I previously had were just gone. I thought perhaps I just needed more time to rest and eventually the inspiration would return.
In August, tired from our long teaching trip in Europe, I decided I’d give myself just a couple more weeks to recover and by then, surely, I’d be flooded with inspiration and could get back to my “old self”.
And yet…the motivation and inspiration never came. I starting to get a little worried and depressed.
I shared my concern with my partner and he recommended the book War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The War of Art is about the “war” between an artist and procrastination, also known as resistance to creating. While it’s not on my highly recommended list, there were two sections that spoke to me.
The first section was about the willingness to show up. It was such a great reminder that waiting around for motivation or inspiration isn’t the way to actually get motivated or inspired. The physical act of showing up, being consistent and basically “showing the universe” you are ready is what invites inspiration.
AH-HA!! Sitting around waiting for inspiration to hit without actually doing anything to invite it is like having a party that noone shows up to, but you never sent out invitations. Or you know, winning the lottery without ever buying a ticket.
The second section was focused on the WHY we create. Artists create because they can’t not do it. It's like not dancing when your favorite song comes on. You HAVE to do it. The urge is so strong that artists create for the sake of doing it regardless of if anyone likes it or not.
YES! That’s it! I was reminded that when I created (let’s say online monthly series) simply because I wanted to, inspiration would just keep flowing. I really didn’t care if I only had 5 people register, the handful of us were going to have a great time!
Inspiration and motivation used to come so fast I had to create Trello boards to organize them all.
But as soon as I put the pressure on myself to create something I hoped everyone would like, my inspiration started fading. The more I focused on finding inspiration outside of myself, the less of it I had.
In a recent Ted Talks Daily, Ethan Hawke said, “it’s not up to us whether what we do is any good.” I love this. It’s up to us to create what we feel we need to create, maybe it will resonate with someone else, maybe it won’t. But we shouldn’t look for inspiration for the sake of pleasing others.
In other words…
Your inspiration shows up for you when you are willing to show up for yourself.
So the last several days I’ve been showing up for myself. Creating videos I enjoy and planning workshops based on what I want to teach without worrying if anyone else will like the end result.
I missed this creative process and you know what? I can feel the shift.