Making a Career in the Creative Industries

Self Motivation – Making a Career in the Creative Industries

Extract from an article by lilrivkah.

I have always believed that one of the most important aspects of making a career in comics (or writing, or art, or music, or really, any sort of creative endeavor) is the ability to be self motivated. Can you get yourself up in the morning without lounging around for hours? Are you able to sit yourself down at a desk even with all the distractions of home around you? Are you able to work at said desk without staring out the window eternally, days slipping by as you admire the way the light hits off the leaves on the trees and the rain sparkling by?

For while, yes, the rain and the trees are beautiful, staring at them for hours on end doesn’t make a book. Look at them. Be in awe of them. Admire them and meditate even. But then get back to work, otherwise you’ll never get anything done.

Sadly, not everybody is born with the ability to be self motivated. If anything, our schools do their damndest to train it out of us, saying, “Do this,” “Do that,” and never “What are you going to do about it?” Do they allow us to figure things out for ourselves? No. We’re taught not to think or to pursue a course under our own volition, but rather to follow blindly in the wake of those before us, under a proscribed set of rules, laws, and abundant amounts of homework–metric tons of paper that weigh us down and leave no room to move. Or even to wave a finger for help.

So what do we do about this? How does one find the steam to run a business, write a book, or make a painting when we’re so bogged down by what we ought to do that we’re left blind to what we want to do?

The answer is to ignore them. Everyone.

Full article/journal via lilrivkah.