The Myth of Inspiration

Learn how to build processes that will sustain you when inspiration goes missing

Let’s be honest. Inspiration is a fickle thing. It comes, it goes. It’s not always there when we need it, and to add insult to injury, it often shows up when we can’t take advantage of it. It’s an unreliable partner, and banking on it for anything even remotely important seems foolhardy.

Yet every day, and from every direction, come voices exhorting us to get inspired. Get inspired to move faster, or slow down. Get inspired to change the world, or save it. Get inspired to invest, or save. Get inspired to change your career, or maintain it. Get inspired to learn something new, or rediscover something you forgot. If you listen long enough, you start to believe it takes inspiration just to get up in the morning.

This is all a myth. Not only is it a myth, it’s a potentially dangerous one.

“The more we come to believe we need inspiration to succeed, the more likely we are to fizzle out when we don’t feel inspired.”

Don’t get me wrong. Inspiration is great. When it comes, by all means, milk it for all its worth. Just don’t depend on it. Because we don’t need it. What we need, is process. Process is what gets you through, when inspiration abandons you.

All of the above is particularly important to understand when we’re talking about the work we do outside of our “day jobs,” or when our day jobs take place outside of structured environments.

When you’re in a structured environment, process comes with the territory, because deadlines and expectations are generally set for you by someone else, and the fact that you have to stay on track, makes it easier to stay on track. That’s not to say this scenario doesn’t have its own challenges when it comes to inspiration — it does. In a structured environment, it’s easy to lose your spark.

But if you work independently as a freelancer or sole proprietor, you have to create all that structure all by yourself. And if you’re engaged in a passion project outside of your day job — taking online courses, or prototyping a new product, or managing an online store, or working on a book/play/album/sculpture/painting, etc. — the same holds true; you have to create the structure yourself. That’s where process comes in.

“You can’t rely on inspiration to get you through.”

I’ve separated out these two use cases — structured vs. unstructured — for the sake of theoretical clarity, but in real life, lines blur. I can use myself as an example. I’m a professional writer. So I write every day. I have to. It’s how I feed my family and put a roof over our heads. How long would I last, if I only wrote when I felt inspired? I like to think I get a big idea every once in a while, but most days, I don’t. Most days, the muse is on sabbatical. The muse is surfing. Or sleeping off the champagne. And I’m alone with my typing fingers, and my uninspired brain, and I have to write.

That’s when process shows up. Kind, loyal, process. Always there, always a friend. When I enter the writing room with process, I check my emotions at the door, then it’s just me, and my process. Good ol’ process.

Writers and their processes can actually offer great examples of how to leverage process in the service of success.

Stephen King writes very every single day, and doesn’t quit until he reaches 2000 words. Graham Greene, on the other hand, wrote with a black pen in small notebooks, and stopped at 500 words; even, it is rumored, if he was in the middle of a sentence. Maya Angelou kept a hotel room in her hometown where she went to write every morning. Albert Camus wrote standing up. Alice Munro writes seven days a week, but only for three hours a day. Vladimir Nabokov wrote only on index cards. Alexandre Dumas wrote novels on blue paper, and poetry on yellow.

These kinds of rituals and processes are what make work happen. They’re what we can rely on when we don’t feel inspired. You can follow the lead of these writers to build the processes that will support your important work.

“If you have your sights set on success in any field or endeavor, you need to establish your processes if you want to achieve your goals.”

Do you work independently, or outside of a structured environment? Do you have outside projects you’re passionate about? Do you struggle to find the inspiration to stay on track? Stop struggling, forget inspiration, and embrace process. Here’s the secret sauce, distilled down to three essential ingredients: Time, Place, and Product.

Time

Important things take time. Success takes time. A little bit of time every day, or one big chunk of time. Mainly, you need time.

“Make time for yourself, and protect it.”

Treat your personal work time like it’s an expensive session of post-surgical physical therapy. You wouldn’t bail on that because you were sleepy, a friend called, or you just didn’t feel like it, would you? And if that friend called, and invited you to a movie, and you said, “I can’t, I’ve got physical therapy,” your friend wouldn’t try and cajole you into coming anyway, would they? The same should hold true about your personal work time. It’s precious, and it can’t be cancelled on a whim.

Place

Your environment is possibly the most important determinant of just how productive you’re going to be during any given work session. Your space can support you, and it can destroy you. At minimum, your space should at least be neutral — it shouldn’t affect you either way. But ideally, it should positively inform and influence your work experience. It should be comfortable, and distraction-free.

“The key to incorporating place into your process is to include place in your process.”

Make a ritual out of entering and setting up your space. Get things the way you want them, before you start. Whether it’s just a desk, or an entire room, make sure you have what you need, and that you don’t have what you don’t need. Set it up the same way, every day. Get in the habit of setting it up right, and then let that habit sustain you.

Product

Literally, what you produce. Your output. Your results. It’s all for naught if your personal work time doesn’t produce … something. And remember, effort counts as something. Stephen King doesn’t require that those daily 2000 words all go in the final novel. He just demands of himself that he produce them.

“Before you start your work session, set a realistic output goal. What are you going to produce during this period of time?”

Will you make 10 phone calls? Write 100 lines of code? Draw three new designs? Submit five new poems? Send 10 emails? Check in with three accounts? Pay two bills? Read 50 pages? The important thing, is that you plan for a result, and then you deliver that result.

Ray Bradbury famously once delivered a piece of writing advice that has since transformed into a sort of productivity challenge, known most commonly as “The Bradbury Challenge”:

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.”

The point being, is that it’s not about inspiration. It’s about work.

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This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer and Chief Words Officer, Udacity