Every single day will be a battle. Every single day you will have to fight the resistance. Every single day you will have to push through your comfort zone. Every single day you will have to break through another wall.
Every single day there will be an obstacle between you and creating, but as you continue to push through every single day, you will eventually live for these obstacles. As your daily battles continue, they will present new opportunities and rewards.
It’s not easy doing these things every day—reading, writing, creating. So it’s important to recognize that with this struggle, your subconscious will do whatever it takes to retreat to safety. It will always search for the easy way out.
So you must prepare yourself for battle. Give yourself the tools and resources necessary to defeat complacency. If you do not fight, you will succumb to stagnation.
The most deceptive (and arguably nonexistent) tool people wish to arm themselves with is inspiration or motivation. Too often we wish we were equipped with inspiration because only then would we be able to create. If only we had some motivation, then we surely would read every day. The easiest way to lose the battle is by hoping inspiration will sweep in to save the day. Inspiration will leave you dead.
Here’s the truth, wanting to create is rare. It’s just so much easier not to. I say that it’s rare because there are very few individuals that are so overtaken by their inspiration to create that they must. For the majority of us, the motivation follows the act of initiation because inspiration can only stem from creating.
I very rarely feel inspired to create. Most people assume it comes easy to me, but every single day is a battle. Over the years I have learned something very important, I am most inspired to create once I’ve already started. That’s what most people don’t tell you.
Creativity and the motivation/inspiration to create is best fueled by the act of starting. If you wait around hoping inspiration will strike you on the head then you may as well be playing the lottery—the odds are massively stacked against you.
So prepare yourself for battle because there will be a fight today, and there will be a fight tomorrow. Understand the tactics and patterns of your enemy—the resistance.
Arm Yourself:
Your will power is a resource, and it is at its highest amount in the morning. The resistance will urge you to push things back because that’s when your will power is the weakest. Don’t be fooled, always work early.
Wake up an hour early so you can write, even if it’s just self talk. By giving yourself specific time in the morning for this, habit will form and the battle will become a welcomed part of the routine.
Find a mediocre sketchbook to draw in and learn to draw anything in it. It’s important that you are comfortable with your tools and to never feel intimidated by them. A sword too pretty to be swung isn’t a sword at all.
Create a trigger. For example, always read a few pages of a book after lunch. This will help you to form another habit. Rather than it being a scheduled out time, it’ll be triggered by a fixed part of your day. So long as you eat lunch every day, you will also read.
Every single day there will be a battle, but every day you choose to stand up and fight, you will come out stronger. You mustn’t rely on inspiration, but rather, find strength in habit and discipline. Arm yourself and prepare for battle, the resistance waits for no one and will always strike first.