Resolving my issues with motivation
I’m a little OCD. Ok, a lot.
I analyse everything with the (possibly slightly unhealthy) belief I can apply a system to it, tidy it up, organize it, control it.
And then maybe blog about it a little…
The good news this time, dear reader?
I believe I have finally figured out what, for me at least, causes a major motivation crisis.
Aha!
And, maybe, just maybe, forewarned is forearmed. And I can avoid pounding the desk with my forehead.
It’s all about motivational equilibrium!
‘How so?’, you ask ‘What the devil are you talking about, my OCD friend? And why do you wash your hands so frequently? Do you really number your socks?’
Well, I’ve observed in myself that there are two types of important motivation for me.
Internal motivation
External motivation
Let’s start with internal motivation.
Internal motivation
Internal motivation is the motivation that comes from one’s self.
It’s abstract.
It’s the feeling of personal inspiration.
It’s self satisfaction at a job well done.
Internal motivation is all about how we feel, and seeking out positive feelings of accomplishment, self confidence and satisfaction.
It’s the sort of motivation that you experience when you push yourself to do the best painting you’ve ever done, not so that other people will tell you it’s the best painting you’ve ever done, but so that you personally can enjoy the feeling of growth and achievement.
External motivation
External motivation is the motivation that comes from outside one’s self.
It’s tangible.
It’s a fat paycheck.
It’s a pat on the back.
It’s the sound of applause and praise for your work.
External motivation is about what we acquire. Status, financial benefits, increased work, big name clients.
It’s the sort of motivation you experience when you have bills due, and you need money to pay them. Or you want to buy some super cool thing you found online, or you want a particular company to hire you.
The misery of imbalance
Looking back over periods of time when I felt least motivated, I realise that what I was experiencing was actually a serious imbalance of motivations.
For instance, I found that jobs that provided the external motivation of high pay, and yet lacked any opportunity for me to feel any internal motivation of growth or accomplishment at the end, made me feel miserable and uninspired.
I asked myself: “Am I turning into a sell-out? Do I only care about money now? What happened to my love of painting?”
I felt not only uninspired to paint, but bad about myself both as an artist and as a person.
When the reverse was true, and I had internal motivation and no external motivation, I felt just as bad.
“Why am I excited and doing my best work, and yet struggling to pay bills? Why do I bother when it’s getting me nowhere financially, and yet other artists around me are making a good living? Does nobody else understand or appreciate what I do? If I feel this confident about my work right now, and I’m STILL not making ends meet, is there any future for me?”
The rewards of equilibrium
Once I started to suspect that the imbalance of these two types of motivations was what was making me so uninspired to do anything, I experimented with trying to correct it.
This in itself wasn’t easy, but once I knew what I was dealing with, I was at least able to make some tweaks in projects I took on and when in order to best balance the results I needed.
In practical terms, this meant a few things.
Sometimes it meant setting personal challenges for myself in paid artworks, so I’d not only feel motivated to complete the image for the money I was being paid, but so that I’d also feel motivated to get to work to see if I could meet the challenge.
Other times it’d mean seeking out ways of selling the image when it was done, so I could feel that my artwork wasn’t only for me and that I was actually getting somewhere not only as an artist, but as somebody trying to make a living from art.
I also found that, when the reward of sales weren’t an option, the external reward of a day off, the purchase of a long lusted after book or the watching of a movie worked wonders too.
When each project (or at least, each day of work, or even each week of work) offered potential for both internal and external rewards, I started to feel genuine excitement about my work again.
I also started to feel good about myself not only as an artist, but as a person.
My work offers me personal satisfaction!
My work yeilds real world results!
This is wonderful! I want to do it again!
My motivational issues were, on some level, resolved.
While I have no doubt in future that I’ll experience other types of problems in completing work (I haven’t experienced much artist’s block in the past, so perhaps it’s coming to me in the future?), I feel reasonably confident that through keeping a balance of both internal and external motivations, I’ve given my artistic life a serious boost of longevity.
Thus I can number my socks and arrange my pens exactly 10cm from the edge of my desk in peace and happiness.
What about you? Do you try to keep your motivations balance?
What do you do to keep yourself happily moving forward?
Tags: art, Art and illustration, Motivation, work
