How I Manufacture My Motivation to Write

I’m a motivational speaker, so I must have this whole motivation thing sussed, right?

Yeah, I don’t bounce out of bed each morning and let the words pour out. It might be a lovely image, but it’s not true.

What I’ve learned after years of standing on stages telling other people how to find their spark is that there’s no universal lightswitch that fires everyone up in the same way. If motivation worked like that, my job would be very easy (or, more likely, I’d be out of one) and this blog would be very short. One size doesn’t fit all because we’re all wired differently, and what gets me to the desk might do nothing for you at all.

So rather than handing you my formula and hoping it fits, I want to talk about how you find yours.

Motivation is the reason you do a thing. If you want something a bit more visual, it’s the engine that sits underneath your behaviour. Writing needs a particularly powerful engine, because it can be a long, old journey. You’re asking yourself to keep showing up for months – sometimes years – often with nobody but you to notice whether you turned up at all.

That first flush of excitement when you start a new project can take us quite far, but motivation is needed to help us keep going when the initial excitement wears off. It’s important to recognise that your motivation will fluctuate: everyone gets a mixed bag where sometimes it comes easily and sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s on the days where it doesn’t that we need to dig in deep and find that spark. The great news is that we can stop hoping that motivation will turn up like good weather and start manufacturing it.

This begins with a bit of self-detective work. When you understand what motivates you then you can create an environment that brings it out.

I’m motivated by the end result. When I picture holding the finished book and, most importantly, how I will feel when publication day rolls by I feel great. This image gives me a bit more purpose and pulls me forward on the days that writing feels like wading through mud.

I’m also motivated by craft work: I love jumping in, trying something new and seeing if I can find my voice. My drive to become better takes some of the pressure off because it becomes okay to throw down messy paragraphs and make mistakes. This is great fuel for me, because I’m learning from the process and having fun.

I’m motivated by competition. I always want to rise to a challenge, and I’ve found a healthy outlet for this. Rather than measuring myself against other writers (I got massive self-doubt falling down the comparison rabbit hole) I set myself mini milestones. This can be a number of words, a sentence a day or a writing for a certain timeframe.

And I’m motivated by reward. I will build in small treats, like a cup of tea, when I crank out a thousand words or focus for an hour.

These are mine. You can borrow the ones that fit, but there will be a heap of other things that motivate you. You might be driven by helping people, curiosity, or proving someone wrong.

I’ve spoken with people who are motivated by the sheer joy of writing or not letting your writing group down this month.
Once you know what motivates you, you can build it instead of relying on willpower.

Because I’m driven by the end result, I keep imagining the finished vision in front of me. Because I’m driven by competition, I set myself small challenges. Because I chase excellence, I’ve learned to let a rough first draft be rough, so that drive doesn’t strangle me before I’ve got anything down to polish.

You can do the same. Find your drivers, then design your writing life around them, building routines, rewards, people and little pressures that switch you on.
Motivation isn’t something you’re lucky enough to have or unlucky enough to lack. It’s something to be understood and, once you’ve cracked this, something you can build.