How to Get Motivated
How to Get Motivated
Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining goals—and research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control. So figure out what you want, power through the pain period, and start being who you want to be.
5 Keys to Unlock Your Creative Motivation
Motivation is a much more complex process than just "wanting" to do something. When you're working on a creative project and the going gets tough, if you're not motivated enough, you'll quit. And it always gets tough, whether you're a novelist, artist, musician, or even a creative entrepreneur. In my own research with highly experienced writers, I found that motivators are often combined for best effect.
Here, then, are 5 ways to raise your motivation level:
1. Increase the challenge of your project.
Try something you've never done before. When I interviewed bestselling novelist Diana Gabaldon, she told me that she once gave herself the challenge of writing a "triple-nested flashback." For many of us, concocting an ordinary flashback is challenge enough, but those are a snap for her.
2. Change your creative method for the stimulation of a fresh approach.
If you typically write with an outline, try not to. Or begin writing without an ending in mind. If you never write with a plan, see what happens if you plan ahead. Even if it doesn't work, you'll learn something. Here's Wells Tower, author of a volume of short stories, Everything Ravaged Everything Burned:
I can never coldly write a story; it doesn't work. I've tried it where I have an outline, and I'll think this is going to be so easy, but when I sit down of course it's not. You have to get into a state of autohypnosis and let the story be what it wants to be.
3. Create from a different point of view.
Do you always write in first-person? Do you
Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining goals—and research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control. So figure out what you want, power through the pain period, and start being who you want to be.
5 Keys to Unlock Your Creative Motivation
Motivation is a much more complex process than just "wanting" to do something. When you're working on a creative project and the going gets tough, if you're not motivated enough, you'll quit. And it always gets tough, whether you're a novelist, artist, musician, or even a creative entrepreneur. In my own research with highly experienced writers, I found that motivators are often combined for best effect.
Here, then, are 5 ways to raise your motivation level:
1. Increase the challenge of your project.
Try something you've never done before. When I interviewed bestselling novelist Diana Gabaldon, she told me that she once gave herself the challenge of writing a "triple-nested flashback." For many of us, concocting an ordinary flashback is challenge enough, but those are a snap for her.
2. Change your creative method for the stimulation of a fresh approach.
If you typically write with an outline, try not to. Or begin writing without an ending in mind. If you never write with a plan, see what happens if you plan ahead. Even if it doesn't work, you'll learn something. Here's Wells Tower, author of a volume of short stories, Everything Ravaged Everything Burned:
I can never coldly write a story; it doesn't work. I've tried it where I have an outline, and I'll think this is going to be so easy, but when I sit down of course it's not. You have to get into a state of autohypnosis and let the story be what it wants to be.
3. Create from a different point of view.
Do you always write in first-person? Do you