Instant Motivation: How Focus Influences Our Creativity

What you focus on determines how you feel. When you think about happy memories, you’ll naturally feel happier. When you think about the awful thing someone did to you in the past, before long you’ll start feeling that in your body. Your attention determines how you feel.

When we’re creating, our focus powerfully shapes our motivation. When we focus on how large a project is or how there are so many moving parts that something is bound to fail… whenever our focus is predominately on something negative then motivation goes down.

But the reverse is also true. When you focus on the task right in front of you then your motivation increases. And even more powerful motivator is to focus on how your work will help other people. Most people will do far more to help a friend of family member than they’d do for themselves. Humans are designed to help other humans. It’s in our DNA.

You have the power to boost or undermine your motivation at any moment. This is both inspiring and scary. It’s inspiring because you always have the last say. You can always choose to focus on empowering meanings that inspire you to keep taking action, even when something unfortunate happens to you.

But, it also means that you can shoot yourself in the foot. You can accidentally undermine yourself by focusing too long on the wrong thing. You can choose to turn on the news and focus on all the awful things that have happened this news cycle. As you undoubtedly know from personal experience, once you’re in a negative mood, it can be very difficult to shake it off.

Pay attention to where you’re placing your focus today. Do this for both your creative work and your off-time. When you relax, do you focus on things that energize you? How often is your focus taken up by things you have no control over? And, of course, the most important question… do the things you focus on serve you? If you had the choice, would you actually choose them? You can ask the same questions about your creative process. Do you focus on things that energize you or stress you out? Do you focus on the worst interpretation or the best one? If you had the choice, would you choose to focus on the things you typically focus on? You do have a choice. Focus on whatever serves you, whatever inspires you or energizes you.

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