Back in 1990, creativity researcher John Hayes from Carnegie Mellon University identified that the big factors between creatively productive people and those who were not, was motivational. He identified that strong motivation was needed to work hard, to work for an extended period to develop mastery in the chosen creative field, to have the discipline to revise extensively, and to find and pursue interesting problems to high standards. (If you would like to read his paper on this, the pdf can be downloaded here)
I found this interesting because most of the more recent material that I’ve been reading and studying on creativity doesn’t get into the issue of motivation except to mention that there is extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and creativity springs from intrinsic motivation. But then they stop and go on to other questions like whether creativity and IQ are correlated (they’re not) or whether one’s environment affects creativity (it does).
So how do you develop intrinsic motivation? I have come across many, many instances of people who want to be more creative, to increase their creative production, but simply find themselves unable to do so. And it one way or another, it comes down to the fact that the person does not have the intrinsic motivation to do the work.
Where does that intrinsic motivation come from, and how do you develop it? I think it comes from self-awareness, and that is, unfortunately, often uncomfortable to cultivate. First of all, you have to ask yourself why you want to do the work. Is it for the money, because you want to be famous? That’s really an extrinsic motivation, and won’t be enough to carry you through the years required to gain mastery at your art.
If, instead, you look closely at your own reasons for doing your creative work, and are doing it because some part of your soul will die if you don’t get it out, or because you need to add some small bit of beauty to the world, you might have a chance. If you are fine with forever working in obscurity, with no one ever recognizing any brilliance on your part, and never being appreciated beyond your own circle of friends and family, if you are willing to accept this and keep working, then perhaps you have sufficient intrinsic motivation to achieve greatness.
This isn’t very cheering, I know, but creative work is hard, and there’s a reason why so few people achieve greatness; it isn’t because few have sufficient IQ or a genetic gift, it’s because few have the motivation to keep working long enough and hard enough.
If greatness isn’t your goal, that’s fine, too, but that doesn’t change the need for self-awareness and knowing your whys. If you aren’t getting to creative work you want to do, look again at your reasons for doing it; re-thinking and changing your purpose may change everything, and you just might find the level of intrinsic motivation needed to reach greatness, after all.
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