How To Stay Motivated

Determination + Desire = Motivated!

Back when I first started working with oils, I didn’t produce anything that was really impressive.

Some folk may have thought so, but I knew deep down that my work wasn’t that good.

In other words, I didn’t feel like I was showing much talent with my oil paintings – and knowing this could well have been enough to lose complete motivation as an artist.

But I had a real determination to one day produce work that I could look at and appreciate. I also had a desire to make art that could one day be sold.

I achieved both.

If you have a true hunger to be good at what you do, then you’ll discover that you’ll never really suffer from a lack of motivation.

If you have a real desire… a real fire in your stomach, then you’ll always be ready to move ahead.

The idea is to try and remove some of the unnecessary crap we tend to think about too much and simplify what we actually want.

Here are a few simple concepts I plant in my head and things I do to stay motivated with each new project:

1. Define the result I want
2. If I am a little apprehensive about how to go about it I have a couple of other pieces of work (physical or photo) on hand to refer to in order to maintain those “Ah-ha” moments I require now and then.
3. Have a working schedule. I have a set time for doing certain tasks. I sometimes almost yawn my head off when it comes to this kind of organising. But I really tend to slack off if I don’t have a system for doing things.
4. The whole time I am working I keep thinking about how good it will look when it is finished. Confident? Arrogant? Perhaps, but it sure as heck helps me to stay motivated (wink).
5. Play loud music that I really love.
6. Keep my studio modestly clean. Some artists are not fussed with messy studios. The problem I have is that if I walk into my studio and it is messy, I have tendency to walk right back out again and no work gets done.

All you really need to do in order to get or stay motivated is to define what it is you want. Then put a basic plan together to achieve it. Create a deadline and then simply go for it. It need not be any more complicated than that.

When I first started out I lacked motivation because I kept comparing what I was doing with other artists who had become quite successful. All this does is make you jaded. So what I recommend is work with your own purpose – it’s a great source of motivation.

Nobody can do what you do the way you do it.

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