My Friend Kenji Crosland was gracious enough to offer his talents and I was most happy to share them with you here.
This post is part of the Guest Post Giveaway at the blog Unready and Willing. If you think articles about writing or personal development (or personal development for writers) sounds like a good fit for your blog, please take a look at the Guest Post Giveaway page and see if any of the articles spark your interest.
Why can finding motivation to write be so difficult? One of the main factors is the fear that you can’t survive as a writer. After all, doesn’t everyone tell you that it’s just as hard to become successful in writing as it is to become a successful athlete?
This myth, which I didn’t bother trying to debunk on my own, was enough to make me seriously consider the alternatives to a writing career, despite the fact that writing was what I really wanted to do. Eventually the fear that I couldn’t make it led me to put my writing on hold and I went to teach English in Tokyo. For five years the fear misled me, and I continued to consider the alternatives to writing instead of exploring the ways I could make a writing career work.
Another reason why writers tend to have trouble finding motivation is apathy. Apathy generally sets in after you’ve abandoned writing and have gone on to do something else. As an English teacher (and later as a corporate headhunter), I could have pursued writing in my free time but instead I went to parties, relaxed at home, and traveled, telling myself that if I wrote I wouldn’t be able to release the stress that came from work. Over five years, I continued to manufacture reasons why I shouldn’t write. Once in a month or two, pressured by self-imposed guilt, I did open up my unfinished novel and stare at it for two hours, but that hardly counts as writing.
And finally, finding motivation is tough simply because writing is hard work. Many people become writers because they like the feeling of being in the flow, of watching their creation as it takes shape on the page. But is the “rush” of being in the flow of the creative process a good enough motivator to sustain a career? No matter how many times we feel creative there will always be other times that we feel we’re squeezing out the dregs and that our work isn’t particularly inspired. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to be able to get past the laborious parts. If you don’t have this discipline, it’s going to be extremely hard to keep it up when you’re beset by bills and people nagging you to get a “real job.”
Fear, apathy, and lack of discipline are the main reasons why writers have trouble finding motivation, and I had succumbed to all three. During my five year hiatus, I continued to blame myself and wondered why I didn’t have the courage, energy and discipline I needed to succeed as a writer. It was only recently that I realized that these qualities could be developed just like any other skill. I have found that the consideration of two things: (1) my core strength and (2) my purpose, has been vital in helping me gain the power I needed to push forward.
Your Core Strength
According to his book “Is your Genius at Work?” Dick Richards argues that everyone has a core talent or strength, a “Genius” that’s unique to each individual. It’s the one thing that you can do better than anyone else can. As a writer, you’ll find that your Genius is often closely related to your writing skills, and zeroing in on the one thing that you do best will definitely take your writing to the next level. Consider the aspects of your writing that seem to “stand out” from all the other writing out there. Also, it may be good to consider whether this unique aspect of your writing represents a core talent that can be applied to any other area of your life. For more on this idea of genius, you can find my review of Richards’ book here.
Examining your core strengths and talents is a good first step toward the 2nd fundamental of finding motivation: determining your purpose. Once you’ve determined your talents finding your purpose is simply finding the best answer to this question: what is the best possible application of my talents?
Your Purpose
It’s my firm belief that whatever artistic talents and skills we’re given, they are to be used toward a greater purpose. To simply write stories and novels that other people think are good so they’ll praise you is a bad reason to get into writing. To paint paintings or write songs so you can get rich is not a good enough motivator to get you through the hard times. You must have an underlying purpose. Once you determine your purpose you’ll often find that your talents as a writer will serve you well toward fulfilling it
There are many people in the field of personal development who argue that you have a life mission, a specific purpose that remains unchanged throughout your life. Obstacles will mean nothing to you because all you have in mind is your mission. I believe I have an intuitive grasp of what this means. However, I have a feeling that the way I phrase my purpose will probably change over time as I continue to have life experiences. The more experiences I have, the more possibilities open up for the application of my talents. My current life purpose is to “Find that which is meaningful and useful and convey it to other people.” I’m not married to it yet, but at the moment it serves well to motivate me and keep me working. The way I serve this purpose now is through this website, a place where I can help writers find motivation, purpose, and a successful career.
I had not developed any notion of my purpose when I had graduated college because I simply didn’t see the need. I had to go out in the world, make my mistakes, and gain fresh perspectives. The two years I had spent as a headhunter in Tokyo were like business boot camp for me. During this time I gained a significant amount of personal power. I began to understand how businesses were run, and I realized that I could impart this knowledge to creative people who sorely needed the kind of discipline, business know-how, and marketing vision to be able to realize their dreams. This purpose has helped me develop the discipline to keep going even when I didn’t feel like it. Discipline, after all, is motivation when you’re not motivated. And everyone at one time or another has suffered from lack of motivation.
Continuous Improvement
Finding your purpose and core strength is not something most can easily do overnight, but the pursuit itself can be extremely beneficial. There are times even now where I feel I’m beset by the same fear and apathy that caused me to abandon writing in the first place. Understanding my purpose and strengths, however, have helped immensely to keep these negative emotions at bay. Whenever I have trouble finding motivation I just look to my purpose and strengths and the fear and apathy is gone.Finding motivation is essential if you want to become a productive writer. I used to only write once every two months and now I write every day. I believe I can attribute 90 percent of this change to understanding my purpose and strengths, and tapping into the motivation that comes from doing so. Furthermore, since my understanding of what my true purpose and talents may be is still incomplete, the more I work to determine what they are, the less trouble I’ll have finding motivation to write.
Kenji Crosland is a creative writing major who, scared of becoming a starving artist, became a corporate headhunter in Tokyo. Since then he’s regained his sanity, quit his job, and now blogs about creating an ideal career at unreadyandwilling.com. He is also developing a web application that just might change the internet. Follow him on Twitter: @KenjiCrosland.
Again, I thank Kenji for this motivational piece and certainly know that his talents will serve him well. I hope that you enjoyed reading this and that it motivates you to keep pushing ahead toward your dreams.
Keep Blogging!
