If you need motivation or inspiration to be creative, you’ve lost.

The reason is simple.

You can’t be motivated or inspired all the time.

And if inspiration is what drives your art, what are you going to do on the days when you’re not inspired?

How are you going to still be productive on days when you feel like crap?

I don’t know about you guys but motivation and inspiration is not as common for me as you’d think.

I’m not always pumped or jacked about what I’m making.

Rather, those moments are like short bursts of energy, and when I have them, I make good use of them.

But they’re the cherry on top of the cake - the other 99% of my creativity comes elsewhere.

So if you feel like you can’t be creative without motivation or inspiration, understand this.

You just haven’t learned how to.

Discipline, work ethic, habits, are all skills.

They are things you need and can get better at to be more productive.

Plus, there are plenty of successful artists who’ve proven their ability to be creative without motivation or inspiration.

I’ve taken and learned many things from them - and they work.

And that’s what we’re going over today.

Lets get started.

Stephen King’s Writing Quota

If you don’t know who Stephen King is, he’s a writer well known for having over 65 novels published.

Which, if you’ve never written a book before, is insane.

Many writers would struggle to get one book out a year.

And to do that consistently and sustainably for so long - there must be something here.

Well, in a famous talk between Stephen King and George RR Martin (the writer of game of thrones), Martin asks King how he writes so damn much.

And in this interview he breaks down his secret quite simply.

Stephen King says he writes a minimum of 6 pages a day.

That’s it.

It’s that simple.

He writes 6 pages each and every day - and he doesn’t fuss about the quality or refinement of each word.

He just gets words out onto paper.

And over the course of a few months, the book completes itself.

If you do the math, 6 pages for 50 days is 300 pages.

That’s a novel in itself.

So what’s the secret here?

The secret is a consistent quota.

Give yourself a baseline on how much to get done every single day and stick to it.

Start small with just 15 minutes a day and work your way up.

I do this everyday in my creative work.

I have established work hours, meaning I’ll work everyday from waking up until about 1 pm.

I also have a weekly quota of one YouTube video a week.

And having that minimum requirement keeps me accountable and makes sure progress is happening on its own - and I don’t have to worry about it.

So that’s something for you to consider and apply to your work.

Find your main input, your priority task.

It could be drawing, taking photos, making music.

Then, establish a sustainable baseline (15, 30, 45 minutes).

Raise that baseline up over time as you become more capable.

And stick to it.

If you’re able to stick to that quota each and every day, your projects will be done soon before you know it.

This will allow us to begin to make creativity a muscle.

Something we’re able to flex and access regardless of how we feel.

Which allows us to do the work without the need for motivation or inspiration - it’s just our daily quota.

Next, lets talk about prioritization.

Mark Twain’s “Eating the Frog”

To prioritize properly we need to first understand a well known concept coined by the writer Mark Twain, called “eating the frog”.

He said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

Whether or not that he actually said that, I have no idea.

But it gets the point across.

Right here, right now, there is some work you are putting off and avoiding.

It’s there, you have to do it eventually, but you don’t want to.

However, procrastinating on that thing is only going to make you suffer more in the long run.

Because instead of doing it, getting it out of the way, and going on with the rest of your day, you’ll spend hours annoyed by the fact that you’ll have to do it later.

However, if you can “eat the frog” as soon as possible, the rest of your day will be great in comparison.

So start small with that 15 minute quota we established earlier, and eat the frog.

Your “frog” may vary based on what you do.

But I’d encourage you to find the “most important” task and prioritize that.

The thing that pushes all the levers and drives all outcomes.

The thing that actually makes a difference in what you do.

For me, that would be writing.

Every morning I wake up and write - that’s my “frog”.

Why?

Because it’s not only the most important task, but also the most challenging.

Writing is tedious, monotonous, boring, with a few flashes of excitement every now and then.

But for the most part, it sucks.

And that’s why I have to do it.

I’d also recommend to not have coffee or any sort of reward until after you’ve eaten the frog.

That way, you allow your body’s hormones to regulate from waking up and you condition your mind to earn it’s reward.

This is a very important step in becoming independent of motivation or inspiration.

If you need a coffee to start your work, that’s not much different than needing motivation or inspiration.

But if you’re able to eat the frog without even having coffee, think about how competent that makes you in your creativity.

And as you do this more and more, it actually becomes easier.

You’ll notice something interesting happening to your brain.

You brain will begin to think in a creative manner at that specific time during the day.

Because you’ve primed it to.

You spent that time, 9AM or whatever, eating the frog, and now your brain is conditioned to be creative at that time every day.

And sometimes, it’s creative without even being asked.

That’s the benefit of building our creative muscle.

You see, most people think of creativity as a sporadic thing.

It comes in waves, it comes spontaneously, it’s all over the place.

And it can certainly be like that.

But in my opinion, creativity is spontaneous and inconsistent because we’ve trained it to be that way.

We’ve never sat down and tried to be consistent with our creativity because we always assumed it to be an inconsistent thing.

But when you establish this daily flexing of creative muscle, you’re teaching your brain to be consistently creative.

And that’s the secret to stop being so dependent on motivation and inspiration.

You’ll be able to get your work done, and in moments when you are motivated or inspired, you flow with it.

It becomes extra fuel, the cherry on top, a boost or surge.

But it’s not required - and that’s the key.

So that’s Mark Twain’s eating the frog.

Let’s move on to boredom.

Seinfeld’s Boredom Tactic

This is perhaps one of the most useful creativity “hacks” that I find myself coming back to all the time.

I’ve mentioned it before and it seems to get tossed around a lot - because it works.

In an interview, Seinfeld is asked about his creative writing process.

In his response he talks about how his trick is to create a time in which he doesn’t have to write but he also can’t do anything else.

The birds may be chirping outside, there may be plenty of other things he could do, but he’s not allowed to.

He’s given himself only two options: write or sit there in boredom.

And it works every time.

Because your brain would rather be do the work than be bored.

You see, over time you’ll realize that your mind is quite crafty with how it avoids work.

It’ll come up with all these excuses like:

“Oh well if I’m not gonna do work anyways, I might as well make some coffee, go on a nice walk, etc.”

“If today’s gonna be a wash, why not just scroll on my phone, lie back down in bed, do something else.”

And you have to recognize this as your mind playing tricks on you and ignore it.

The only options are: do the work or sit there bored.

Nothing else.

No phone use, no browsing, no scrolling, no checking emails, no “pretend productive” tasks.

And when you’re resolved in this, you’re committed, something interesting happens.

Your brain will cave.

Think of it like a tug of war between you and your brain.

One that you can win if you persist for longer.

You’re brain is impatient and won’t last long, but you’ve got all day.

The moment you’re resolved, your brain will recognize that you’re serious.

This guy is serious about getting this done.

And then your mind will actually reverse.

When there are only two options (the work or boredom), your brain will start to think,

“Well if I’m just gonna sit here anyways I might as well get to work.”

“If I have to do this work anyways I might as well get it over with so I can go do something else.”

And that’s how you win the battle with your mind.

If you can understand and apply this, you can get your mind to do just about anything.

So lets sum this up.

If you need motivation or inspiration to be creative, you’ve lost.

Why?

Because motivation and inspiration is finite, comes in waves, and is unsustainable.

However, if we can learn to work without it, any amount of motivation we get is an extra boost to our creativity.

So how do we do this?

One. Start with Stephen King’s writing quota.

Establish a minimum baseline of creative work to do every day.

It could be 15 minutes, it could be one page of writing.

Stick to it and slowly build as you get better.

Two. Apply Mark Twain’s “eating the frog”.

Meaning, do the thing you’re avoiding that is the most important task, first thing every morning.

That way you get it out of the way and won’t have to worry about it later.

That’s also how we learn to prioritize better.

Three. Use Seinfeld’s boredom tactic.

Your brain will make all sorts of excuses to try and get out of doing the work.

Don’t trust it.

Give yourself that time period to either do the work or sit there - and don’t compromise.

It’s a tug of war battle and you need to be committed in order to win.

When your brain recognizes that you’re 100% committed to wasting the whole day, it’ll actually begin to work for you.

Apply any one of those three things and you’ll be able to be productive and creative without motivation or inspiration.

If you get all three, you’ll be unstoppable.

So I hope you found this useful, please share this with a friend if you did.

And check out my latest photobook “The Sinking Sun” if you haven’t yet.

Plus, grab a free 4x6 print while you’re at it.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!