Create Motivation – 10 Brilliant Ideas for Writers

How to Get Motivated & Stay That Way:

Before we dive into exactly how to get motivated, let’s explore motivation a bit more. It’s a complex yet integral piece of the human behavior puzzle. You can skip this little lecture. But the more you understand motivation, the better capable you will be in using to your advantage.

What exactly is motivation?

Motivation is a reason for actions, willingness, and goals. Motivation is derived from the word motive, or a need that requires satisfaction.

Wikipedia (Sorry, but they had the best quotable definition!)

Let’s break that down. Basically, motivation is why you do things. For example:

Why do you go to work or school every day?

It’s because there is a majorly motivating factor that drives you to do that action, to satisfy a need. You might be driven by fear of losing your job or because you actually love your job. Or you could be driven to go to school because you feel obligated or you want to go to learn things.

Flip that and the motivating factors would be money (financial security) and knowledge (education). Of course there are other motivating factors for going to work or school, but those are probably the main ones.

While there’s a difference between drive and motivation. The two are linked:

• Drive is the urge to reach a goal or satisfy a need.
• Motivation is the reason(s) a person has for acting or behaving in a certain way.

They work together in your subconscious or sometimes conscious mind to make your body do the actions necessary to satisfy a specific need (motivating factor).

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How does motivation work?

Remember when I said drive and motivation are linked? It’s deeper than at first glance. Your level of motivation is directly linked to its driving force. For example, if you’re really hungry (need to eat now or you will die), your drive to satisfy that need is pretty strong. You would probably be willing to do whatever is necessary to satisfy that need. Because if you don’t, you’ll die, right?

Well, that’s basically how motivation works. You are driven to do something because you either have to or you really want to. Depending on how motivated you are (or how strong your driving factor is), you will work as hard as you need to, as quickly as possibly or for as long as you need to, until that need or goal is met.

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How can you use motivation to achieve your goals?

So now that you know a bit more about motivation you can hopefully understand why you do the things you do, but also why you don’t do a lot of things you think you should do. It’s all about your drive, your willingness to put in the work that’s necessary.

What about your writing? How strong is your drive to write? You might think it’s as strong as it can be. But what if there were tools to help not only get yourself motivated, but keep that same level of drive and motivation throughout your writing process?

I’m not saying this is the ultimate solution to a lack of motivation, because it’s not. There isn’t one. Everyone gets demotivated* sometimes. But there are methods you can use to combat demotivation. These tools are how I stay motived as a writer. I hope they will help you stay motivated too.

*Demotivation is when your drive to achieve a goal or satisfy a need is neutralized by outside factors, or even your own self talk.

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Ten Motivational Ideas for Writers to Use Everyday

1. Create Clearly Defined S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Learn more about what SMART goals are here. Basically, SMART goals are ones with definite parameters that make them more achievable. “SMART” stands for: Specific. Measurable. Attainable/Actionable. Relevant. Timed/Time-bound.

The simple act of writing down your goals accomplishes several things:

• First, it allows you to see what’s currently just a fuzzy picture or vague outline in your mind. Writing things down clarifies them.
• Second, creating a list is an achievement by itself. You figured out what you want to do. That’s a major first step.
• Finally, and more to the point, writing down your goals can be super motivating.

This is especially true if you clearly define them with the SMART goals method. This allows you to know exactly what your goal is, when you need to complete it by, and the specific reasons why and methods you will use to accomplish that goal.

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2. Make a Vision Board

Vision boards, my friends, are so essential. I cannot stress enough how important these are. What is a vision board? Well it’s a board for your visions, duh. Actually, it’s a visual motivation tool. You can use a vision board to show yourself the goals you’re working towards.

Place it somewhere you will see it every single day. This way, every day, you are reminded of why you’re doing this. You’re motivated to work through the difficult times because one day that vision board will transform into an accomplishment board.

Some ideas for a writer’s vision board:

• Choose Your Format: A poster board, a page in your writer’s notebook, a whole mural. It’s up to you.
• Imagine Your Design: Create a mental image of how you want your vision board to look. Then manifest that design by creating a physical vision board that will motivate your every time you see.
• Pictures: Books you love. Authors you love. A book you’ve already published or plan to. Use anything that inspires you.
• Words: write them out yourself or print them on fancy paper, some words include “write” “writer” “author” “published,” etc.. What words inspire you to write?
• Quotes: They can be inspirational quotes. Or use quotes from your favorite books. Even better, quotes from your own work. Inspirational quotes from your favorite writers. Quotes about life. Quotes that make you laugh (like terrible, terrible Dad Jokes).
• Colors: There’s a science to colors and motivation. We all have a favorite color, too. Make sure your vision board has at least one of the motivational colors as well as lots of your favorite color(s). I know that sometimes, a big swatch of jungle green just makes me happy.

3. Discover What Motivates You – Find Your Why

This task sounds simple. But it’s not. At least, not if you do it write. Anyone can come up with a superficial motivating factor behind a goal. For example, I chose money as a motivating factor for going to work. But let’s take a deeper look. Because if was just about the money, the job you had wouldn’t matter.

Why do you go to work?

• Because you have to or you will get fired.
• Because it’s your source of income.
• Your income is how you pay for your home, obtain food, and purchase clothing.
• Without those necessities, you would not survive.
• So survival is at the root of why you go to work every day.

Now let’s look at writing. What motivates you to write?

Why do you do you write?

• Do you love writing?
• Is it your passion?
• Does it set your soul on fire?
• Are you writing to sell books?
• Is money your motivating factor?
• (Remember if that’s the case, then the root cause behind your drive to write should be basic human survival. That’s a pretty strong driving force.)
• Do you want to connect with other people?
• Is your writing about getting people to understand you?
• Does the world need to hear your message?
• Is it your art?

I could keep going, but I think you understand. There are many levels to motivation. Writing is no exceptiong. Think about the first that comes to mind when people ask, “Why do you write?” Your knee-jerk instinct reaction. Then go from there, dig deeper until you get to the root cause, that basic, most elementally pure driving force.

Once you have done this. You will have something others don’t, clarity. Clarity allows you to focus. It allows your to create clearly defined goals. It helps you understand what motivates you. That’s the most important things. If you know what really motivates you, you can do anything.

4. Build a Drive Design

Now that you understand what motivates you. You can build your drive design. This is not unlike a vision board. Same basic concept, completely different format and topic. It’s more like a mind map than a vision board.

The Steps:

1. Choose Your Format: A poster board, a page in your writer’s notebook, a whole mural. It’s up to you.
2. Imagine your drive design. Create a mental image of how you want your drive design to look. It doesn’t have to be anything more than organized chaos at this point. You can always write or draw it again if it doesn’t come out beautiful enough the first time.
3. Isolate your most basic and pure driving force for writing. Write that down in the center of your poster, notebook page, etc…
4. Next, it’s time to free-write. Quickly, and without too much thinking, come up with ideas about your goal.
5. Use the initial driving force you wrote to inspire you to find motivating factors that will help you achieve your goal. If you find yourself thinking of other driving forces, write those down too. List your why’s, too.
6. Walk away when you’re done. Then go back and review what you’ve written. Do you understand what it motivating you better?
7. I tried this exercise myself. The results was so profound that I took the page out of my notebook and placed it right next to my vision board.

My point is, having a firm grasp of what it motivating you to achieve your writing goals is essential. Once you understand it, you can kind of program yourself to be more motivated. You can do this with the little tricks listed in this article, or you can create your own methods. (If you do, please share! I’d love some new ideas.)

5. Set up a Reward System

This is a super fun way to motivate yourself. It’s pretty simple too. Define your goals. Break them down into projects (or tasks for smaller goals). If necessary, break your project down into tasks. For each task you complete, you give yourself a reward.

An example might be, every time your write 10,000 words, you get to have a chocolate bar, or whatever it is that you like. The more you like the reward, the more motivated you will be to complete that task. Choose your rewards wisely, and you’ll find yourself racing to achieve those goals. This is also an excellent method for practicing self care, which can also be super motivating.

6. Incorporate Self Care into Your Routine

You might know by now that I am staunch supporter of self love and self care. I incorporate this into as many posts as I can because it’s super important. Self care is becoming more trendy, which is great. But this wasn’t always the case.

Sometimes, it still isn’t. A lot of people have heard of self care or self love. But they don’t practice it. They don’t understand what it really means. Self care is putting yourself first. This may sound selfish but it’s not. If you don’t take care of yourself, you are not at your best. Therefore, whatever you’re trying to accomplish is not getting your full potential.

So make it a point to incorporate self care into your daily routine. That doesn’t mean you have to turn into a diva princess. What it does mean, however, is that for at least 5 minutes every day, take some time for yourself. Do something you want to do simply because you want to do it.

But 5 minutes a day is not enough. This is routine care. Make sure you also take some “time off” from life once in a while. It doesn’t have to be a month long vacation on the Bahamas. It could even be taking a hot bath, reading a book, going for a walk. Just once a week half an hour where everyone leaves you completely alone. Whatever time you can spare, choose to dedicate some of that to yourself.

If you really practice self care regularly, I promise that it will increase your motivation for everything. You will feel recharged, fresh, new, and ready to tackle anything that comes your way.

7. Chase Those Carrots

This is different than a reward system. That’s for small change. This is about the big picture. It’s the main reason why you need to create a vision board. I don’t want to assume, so I will explain. There’s an expression, “chasing carrots.”

It refers to a horse or donkey that’s motivated to walk forward because a rider dangles a carrot from a stick just out of the animal’s reach. The idea is that the animal will never reach it, just keep walking forever.

I don’t want you to do that exactly. But chasing the carrot is the main idea. Imagine your goal on the end of a stick. It is already just out of reach or you would have achieved it by now.

Now, you chase that goal until you catch it. Because you’re smarter than a horse. You can see the string. All you have to do is find a way to cut the string and the carrot is yours. How bad do you want your carrot? Is it worth the effort, or will you just keep walking forever? If your carrot is worth the effort, you will do what it takes to get to that goal and crush it.

8. Use a What If Journal – Failure Can Be Motivating

Depending on the size and quantity of your writing projects, you might need an entire journal, a single page, or several pages. Choose your medium and let your creativity flow.

The idea is to make a collection page in your writer’s notebook, or wherever you want it to be. This will be a collection of everything that would happen if you didn’t achieve your goal. Think about it for a minute. Then start writing. What would happen if your dreams to become a world renown author never come true? How would it make you feel?

There is also a more positive spin on this exercise. In fact, I highly suggest that you do both of them. Once you have a good understanding of how not achieving your goals could impact your life, don’t get overwhelmed. Flip the question and ask yourself what would happen if you actually achieved all of your goals?

Make a “What If” page for every major goal you have. Do the positive and the negative versions. Then decide which one is more motivating. Keep the one you choose near your drive design and vision board to stay motivated like a pro.

9. The Five Year Plan

Personal Anecdote: I first heard of this idea when I was in high school. I had won a scholarship and had to make a speech. One of the prompts was “Where do you see yourself in five year?” I made no preplanned answer. I was 17 and had no idea where I saw myself tomorrow, let alone in five year.

After I graduated college, I kept hearing that question. :Where do think you’ll be in five years? What does your like look like to you five years from now?”

Then one day, someone specifically said, “What is your five year plan?” That made something click in my head. ‘I need to have some type of plan. I understand now.” Maybe that’s just me, but it took me a while to understand that I need to create goals for myself and set up a plan to achieve them. My life dramatically changed for the better after I created and stuck to a legitimate Five Year Plan. End Personal Anecdote.

Creating a Five Year Plan should be pretty easy if you’ve done all the previous steps. But if you’re a free spirit like me, you probably skipped around. So here’s how to make a five year plan to help you stay motivated:

The Steps:

1. Take a moment and think about your future self. In five years, what do you want your life to look like? Picture your ideal five years from today. Write it down, describe it in detail. Draw a picture. Make it vivid and perfect.
2. Then get real. Use your vision of a perfect future life to create SMART goals to accomplish over the course of the next five years.
3. Then break those goals down into more manageable projects or tasks. Start with what you want to accomplish in the first year, then move on to later years.
4. Finally, break those projects down. Create a solid plan to help present you become your ideal future you. Just the simple act of creating this plan is so motivating.

You could have twelve “Five Year Plan Goals” a year, or four, or even just one. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are thinking about the future. That is so important.

Plan for your future and think of your future self often. Once you know what you want and how you’re going to do, write it down. Create a vision board for your five year plan, or just make a list in your notebook. Look at your Five Year Plan every three months to check your progress and get yourself motivated again.

10. Create a Gratitude Journal

Gratitude, like self care, is a common theme on this blog. That’s because it’s very important to every human being. Gratitude can literally change your life. When something upsets you, think about something you’re grateful for instead of focusing on the negative emotions. Gratitude has been shown to have actual physically healing effects.

How does this help with motivation? I’ll demonstrate with an example:

“This blog is not doing as well as I would like it to be doing. Instead of focusing on that, I choose instead to focus on how much better it’s gotten since I started. I am grateful for everything that I have learned, for the progress I have made (even though it’s small, it’s still progress), for the people I’ve been able to connect with, etc… With this new positive attitude, I am more motivated to keep going and transform this blog into something amazing.” -A Random Blogger

This is not a perfect system and you have to work at it. That’s why I suggest starting with a gratitude journal. You can even make one that’s specifically for your goals. Try to write down three things your grateful for every day for a week.

You can write about general events or things, or you can list why you’re grateful for things specifically related to your goals.. Then try doing this for a month, then two months, and so on. Once gratitude becomes a habit, you will have an automatic motivation tool.

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These are the InkWell Spills steps for how to stay motivated as a writer. I use them. You can too. Let me know if you try any of them and how it goes for you. I would love to hear any other ideas on how you stay motivated, too.

Please leave a comment with your ideas and feedback.

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You’ve learned how to stay motivated. Take the next step and learn how to make time to write.

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