Motivating Yourself to Do Your Work: What works for you?

@Ralph Basui Watkins

I am involved in a three-year project documenting the transformation of Auburn Avenue in Atlanta Georgia.  I am nine months into the project.  At times it is hard to get excited about my work. I am trying to find new things to shoot, write about and people to connect with, week after week. Going down to Sweet Auburn every week for the next three years is my life now.  So the question becomes how do I keep myself excited about my work and what are those things that motivate me to keep going?

1. I am passionate about my work.  I care about the work I am doing and the people I am connecting with.  This is central to what I do. I have to care about what I do.  I can’t do it for a grade, money, tenure or some external reward.  My motivation is intrinsic.
2. I have to believe that my work has the potential to make the world a more just place.  My work has to make a difference that transcends the work and me. It isn’t about me but it is about the cause that I have been called to connect with in the process of doing the work.
3. I have to find a sense of joy in doing the hard work.  I have always said that the key to success (however you want to define success) is founded on good hard work.  Not just hard work but good hard work.  I have to make good pictures, tell quality stories, not just take pictures and tell stories.  At the root of this is getting up everyday and putting the work in. You can’t just talk the talk but you must get up and make the walk to that place where you put the work in. Discipline is as simple as doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, as well as it can be done.
4. Finally, to enter my work and creative space I have to read to open my mind up to that creative space.  I have to look at images, read and watch stories and while doing this I make mental and written notes / drawings that inform my work / creative process.

This week I am reading three books:

I am looking at the images of Charles “Teenie” Harris:

I am watching On The Road with Charles Kuralt:

1. What are you passionate about?
2. What can are or you doing that has the promise of making the world a better place?
3. What is that gives you a sense of joy?
4. What is it that puts in that creative space that starts you on the creative process?

These are my four questions.  What are yours? What are those things that move you to get it done?  What motivates you and moves you to do you?  When you identify these things and ignite them in your world your creative output will increase ten-fold!