The myth about Inspiration!
As an artist, I used to believe that creative inspiration is something that comes to you when you least expect it. It strikes like lightning, that perfect idea, you have to wait in anticipation for it, it is fleeting, like a ghost, a mystery. You just have to wait in ideal meditation for it to finally grace your mind with its presence.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The problem with such an approach is that it is unreliable.
You never know anything for sure when you consider inspiration to be like that, it is undependable. This is also a sluggish approach and can open doors to creative lethargy and sloth, and it took me a long time to realize this. It wasn’t until I read “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield that, I could finally shift my perspective and come to rely more on routine, discipline, and consistency instead of inspiration to foster creativity.
And this change in perspective has helped me so much in my creative pursuits. There really is no secret recipe. Here is an excerpt from the “The War of Art.”
“The professional is sly. Everyone knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.”
When we focus on perfecting our skills, when we keep trying, we are readying ourselves for the moment that inspiration strikes. When we sharpen our tools and sit down to work, we are inviting inspiration to overcome us. It is this mere boring act of rolling up your sleeves and sitting down to work that sets it all in motion. That very act of overcoming your laziness and setting out to create, that mundane act then becomes a mighty act. You are sending out the message that “Yes, I am here. I have arrived, and I will create.”
And to be honest, when you have acquired such resolve, there really is no stopping you. You will get to your destination one way or the other. The challenge is to keep doing that every day.
Even if your work sucks, even if you fail, move forward every day. Giving yourself permission to be ordinary or below average is crucial. There is no room for perfectionism when it comes to this, but that is another topic altogether.
Like Jocko Willink said “Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.”
Discipline is like that best friend who says it to your face and doesn’t hold back. Still, at the same time cares for your well-being, the problem is, we are usually on an adventure hanging out with our other friend called Comfort. But come on, Is he really even your friend? Comfort may be part of the cool kids, but he isn’t your friend. He doesn’t care. Discipline and comfort rarely get along. Choose your tribe wisely.
And one cannot talk about discipline without mentioning its ultimate ambassador, Immanuel Kant. Here’s an excerpt about him from “Everything is fcked a book about hope” – Mark Manson
“For forty years he woke up every morning at five o’clock and wrote for exactly three hours. He would be the lecture at the same university for exactly four hours, and then eat lunch at the same restaurant every day. Then, in the afternoon, They would go on an extended walk through the same park, on the same route, leaving and returning home at the exact same time. He did this for forty years. Every. Single. Day.”
Of course, I do not mean that you should subject yourself to literal tyranny in the name of discipline and inspiration. But you get the idea.
Keywords:
art, artist, artists, attitude, creativity, discipline, hard work, inspiration, mentality, mindset, motivation, positivity, work