Motivation

Where do your thoughts go when you look inside yourself for motivation?

What do you see on the blank canvas, notebook, spreadsheet or page just as you hover over it to begin? Where does your mind go when you are about to start?

This may sound a bit weird, but I see myself looking out across the ocean.
I’m an islander so you’ll have to see with me for a bit.

What I see is where I want to be when seeking peace. I’ve found the first step in creation is “setting” your mind in a neutral space. I use that term a lot in my classes; ‘Neutral.’

That word came about from me trying to describe a default setting the students may “see” when they begin to take their photos; even before they adjust whether in-camera or post. I described it as the point where your photograph displays nothing more than how things are before you and how the camera’s sensor is reading that information.

Just like that well-placed image above states, providing two definitions for the ‘neutral’, my next set of sentences gives two meanings when we talk about self and motivation.

To set yourself in a ‘Neutral Space’ I define neutral as:

1. Clearing your head of any expectations, aspirations, doubts and feedback before you begin.
2. Taking a moment to realise where you are physically and pausing to acknowledge that.

This moment is right before you start attempting anything, to begin doing everything.

It is a weird analogy, but it’s surprisingly comforting when you’ve practised it a few times. For example; I could be on an assignment and fidgeting with light placement. Checking back and forth between the time, the sun and the model getting ready. I’d have scribbled goals, the night before, of what I thought I would be doing today. However, the day has started, and I question should I have dragged all this equipment up here.

Then I stop. Close my eyes. Then see myself looking out on a long expanse of sand and waves in the early morning, just before sunrise. The neutral space before the fear consumes me, before the excitement bubbles over and before the moment, I question if this was a smart decision.

Now understand this is my imagined space. You may be one of those maniacs that see a cluttered desk with a cup of coffee to the side and say life is complete. No clear judgement here.

However, I just want you to pinpoint the moment your shoulders relaxed, and your thoughts go blank. That is what I’d like you to hold on to right before you begin your project. That would be the fresh start before you being. Because as you feel ready to lean forward and launch into what you’re doing, you remember the incremental steps you would have taken.

Maybe you were like me and wrote point forms of what you wanted before. Perhaps you didn’t know what you were doing up to this point. Maybe you’ve reached this place because you were following another to get here. Whatever the catalyse was that brought you there, the point I’d like to make is finding the motivation to start the task may come by first NOT thinking about the task at all.

Emptying your mind first may be a helpful tool in remembering why you started.
So, now that you have cleared all those thoughts; Ask yourself, what am I doing?

This is part 1 of a continuing series of shaping your creative process.