Getting Your Creative Butt in Gear – A Creative Discussion #5 Wrap-up
When the month of November began, we posed another question to the creative community in order to discuss and share our means for getting our motivation moving through our veins, kick-starting us in to motion. We all have bouts with blocks of inspiration, but as we mentioned in the original discussion, here we are talking about finding that push to drive us onward in our creative journeys. And throughout the month we collected some truly inspired contributions to the dialog, offering some helpful advice that may just work for you. Read on for more…
Mood Music
For many, motivation comes as long as they have good music pumping through their headphones or speakers. It was an answer that came from so many, mentioning the melodies that make them get to work. Who knows why the connection exists, but it is an undeniable one, for many, their motivation is tied in to the music they play to set their mood.
Arthur Charles Van Wyk – I have to pop on a set of headphones (the big ones that go OVER your ears) and crank up Andrea Bocelli (the Romanza album works like a key in anignition) or Josh Groban.
A Change of Pace
Be it scenery, creative gears, or even the clothes on their backs to the hats on their heads, but some kind of a change of pace was another highly recommended motivational tool for many who responded to the post. This change breaks the mode that we are in and offers a kind of refresh, which can prove helpful for finding that spark to get us going. Switching things up seems to flip many a switch to help us begin working.
Alison Rowan – When I really need to persuade myself to sit down and get something done, I change into pajamas or even just something different than what I was wearing. The change of outfit signals a change in situation, to me. I’m the same way in the morning, always getting dressed before trying to work.
A Clean Start
Another recommendation that was offered is to get a clean start by actually cleaning. Be it our bodies, or our work or living spaces, there is obviously something resetting about these cleansing activities for helping us find that motion towards project progression. Almost like scrubbing bubbles for our workflow, cleaning can prove beneficial in this arena.
Larry Williamson – …and what I’ll do now is — wait for it — clean!
A clean environment and the “getting things done” inertia that I build *while* cleaning, usually pushes me in the right direction. I also have less things to look and and get distracted by when everything is tidy.
A Pinch of Passion
One of the more resonating responses that we received to this query was passion. When it comes to motivating us to get moving on a project, nothing is quite as effective as that fiery passion burning inside us when we are majorly excited about what it is we are working on. So with a pinch of passion, it seems hard for your butt to slip out of its creative gear.
AJ – Passion.
I’d have to say an idea or a cause that I feel really passionately about is the only thing that can get me going.
Other people can get me going by yelling and screaming and pressuring me but I don’t really consider that as getting me going. I try my hardest and perform my best when I am passionate about the work. The perfectionist in me shines out and I can never feel satisfied with my own work when I’m like that. I keep looking back at it and finding things to improve.
When it’s work that other people have gotten me going on and I’m not so passionate about, my perfectionism doesn’t really kick in, and neither does the workaholic in me. And so it gets done on time but not like something I’d do if I had passion.
A Matter of Momentum
Another response we got, that was equally inspired and unique was offered by EM. So wonderfully explained that we felt we would just let EM’s words speak for themselves. But this was an awesome idea that we had never considered so we knew it had to be included.
EM – What helps me with motivation? Momentum – just getting started . . . some action related to the work that I want to do. For me working daily is pretty important, if I stop, I have to climb over or push through the resistance.
Moving promotes momentum which engages motivation.
That Wraps the Up
So that wraps up this end of the discussion, but as always, the conversation continues as long as you all still have something to say on the subject. Just leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
Grab the Feed
thank for this great post
I always find it handy to write out a list of the things I need to accomplish in a day. Keeping a digital To-Do is great, but there’s something so cathartic and motivating about writing it down and breaking big things into tackle-able nuggets. Oh … and the act of crossing things OFF the list is bliss.
Thanks Anisa! I like the idea of keeping a non-digital list as well. I feel like it would aid in me actually actively keeping up with it. Appreciate the comments.
A good sight at your window or some sort of learnig-challenge make me go, thanks for the post
And thank you, Saul for your two cents as well.
One trick I have to never use the same format and method for making to do lists. The minute I start to dread “that list” I made, I just stop using it. So, sometimes I use Mac stickies, real stick it notes, scrap paper, and old bill (makes me feel the bill had some other use than taking my money), Backpackit.com, Google tasks, iPod Touch tasks, simple email marked “to-do”…essentially whatever is handy when I realize I need a to-do. That way the freshness of the desire to make a to do is not lost on the format and procedure a routine to do list method might make. I say things like “I don’t feel like logging in to that” or “I don’t feel like getting that notebook”, and then simply grab what is closest. Then that “to do” capsule lives in time on this or that scrap, this or that application, this or that corner of a magazine.
Also, keep a palette cleanser music shortlist on your iTunes or substitute. I listen from Jazz to Classical to Folk, but keep a benign 1 hour recording of a waterfall at hand, which is essentially a white noise generator that drowns out everything I can’t feel through my feet on the floor…give your brain a nice blank white sheet :).
Wow, Douglas, thanks for the thoughtful comments and shared ideas. I wish I had heard from you on the initial post, I think you would have really added more to the discussion. Not that you haven’t with your comments here, I just would have added them into the wrap-up for sure, so thanks again.