Guest Author - Elsa Neal
It can be hard to understand why we lose motivation to do something we’ve always loved doing. Do you have artwork or craft projects standing half complete? Or a novel you’ve started but not worked on in months?
Sometimes lack of time is the issue, and one of the solutions you attempt is getting up earlier to make that extra time for your creative pursuits. But what do you do if you just can’t get out of bed, and the lure of your creative reward is just not enough motivation? What do you do if you’re procrastinating yourself further and further from your easel, manuscript, crafting board, or music studio?
What causes demotivation?
Think back to your childhood and school days. Do you remember most the days you got to school early or on time, or the days you got detention for being late? Do you remember more occasions of being rewarded for doing or getting things right, or being corrected for getting it wrong?
Society seems to focus on correcting and punishing incorrect behaviour far more often than rewarding the everyday expected successes. It’s hardly surprising, then, that we tend to focus as individuals on what we can’t seem to get right – and when the consequences of our small “failures” are bearable or non-existent, there’s not much negative motivation to change the problem.
Positive rewards and motivation
Does it seem strange to you to reward yourself for being creative? Do you usually use your creative pursuits as a reward, or see them as leisure activities? If you no longer feel like being creative, perhaps it’s time to alter your perspective.
Think of a daily or weekly reward that you could use – it works better if your reward is something you might choose over your creative arts if you had to choose between the two. For me, it’s getting stuck into a really good reading book – for others it might be a favourite TV programme, watching DVDs, sports, etc. Avoid using food, snacks, or alcohol as a recurring reward.
Over-reward yourself to begin with. If you do something creative for just a few minutes, allow yourself your reward. The more immediate the reward, and the connection to the creative activity, the better the “bribe” works. Allow yourself to become comfortable with being rewarded for creativity, but expect yourself to honour your commitment to a certain amount of creativity before you claim your reward. After a few weeks, slightly increase the amount of creativity you expect from yourself.
If you're battling just to get out of bed in the mornings, here are some tips for getting up earlier you can try.
If you'd like to understand the power of motivation a bit better, try Why We Do What We Do : Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward L. Deci. This book prefers the concept of training yourself to achieve your goals for their own sake, rather than using the reward or correction response.
The Midnight Disease : The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice Weaver Flaherty is a look at the physiology of creativity.
