Smiling Sundays - #316 November 12th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast

I Put In The Time

I was watching a documentary on Netflix called Abstract, and the first episode of the series was about an artist named Christoph Niemann. He’s an artist and they showed his work and ideas behind illustrating things like covers for the New Yorker Magazine.

The curtain was pulled back to hear his thoughts on how he created his masterpieces. He said that, “everything that happens between 9 and 6 is about work.” Christoph goes on to quote something from painter Chuck Close about how, "Inspiration Is for Amateurs—The Rest of Us Just Show Up and Get to Work"

We look for inspiration to give us that million-dollar idea in our work, we look for motivation to move us towards writing a New York Times Best Seller, or we look for a blessing from the gods to hand us what we feel we deserve.

And it’s not that you don’t deserve great things, but there really are not free lunches. The people we look up to and admire…we don’t always see the hard work they put in. The people that we envy, and wish we had their luck instead of ours, is us secretly wanting to have that persons accolades without doing they work they did.

Every great author, artist, marketer, scientist, doctor, lawyer, or any other respectable or creative profession you can think of…they didn’t fall at the top of the mountain. They put in the work, they put in the time to master themselves and the craft they wanted to tackle.

In the documentary—Christoph went on to say that, “for anything decent that I’ve ever done, I distinctly remember being in a tense, grumpy mood. Worse than that, I get suspicious when having too good of a time working, since I know this doesn’t bode well for the outcome.”

And that’s why inspiration can be a dangerous idea. People are sold on the notion to follow your passions and leave your day job because something better is on the horizon, people are told that your craft should be something that you make money at and if you can’t…then go get a real job, or people are sold on the idea of it’s either black or white. It’s either all conformity of the accountant who is always dressed the exact same way in the exact same routine every day, or it’s either chaos and total lunacy of being the nutty artist who runs around the garden naked doing really strange things to be inspired for their art. No offense to accountants or artists, I love both of you, I was just trying to make a point.

Inspiration isn’t what you think it is. It’s an idea we’ve latched onto that the answer of all answers will fall into our lap to save our behinds when needed. Coming back to the quote of—inspiration is for amateurs, Christoph says, “The one thing I really love about that quote is it relieves you of a lot of pressure. It’s not about waiting for hours for this moment where inspiration strikes. It’s just about showing up and getting started and then something amazing happens or it doesn’t happen. All that matters is you enable the chance for something to happen. For that you have to sit at your desk and you have to draw and do and make decisions and hope for the best.”

So what do you dream of doing or what do you dream of being??? Sit in the chair at your desk and be willing to do the work, be willing to do the unglamorous things to get your so called inspiration. When people will ask you where you got your inspiration from…as you’ll laugh inside your head while saying “I don’t believe in inspiration…I believe in getting started by sitting down hour after hour, day after day, year after year and enable the chance for something amazing to happen.”

And when you do this, you won’t have to hope for the best, you will be creating a mastery in yourself, you will be creating a great patience within yourself, and you will be creating a resilience to keep going and to keep creating your authentic amazing gifts to share with the world. Inspiration happens in the routine.

Today’s Personal Commitment:
What’s your number one goal right now…and are you putting in the time? For me writing a book was important, but I spent years floundering by working only when I was inspired. And so I would step away, get bored, or look at the difficulties and give up. So what’s your book…what’s your thing that you’ve been stuck on??? Is it going back to school, is it creating a better relationship with your spouse, is it having a better relationship with your kids, is it volunteering and making your community better? You can’t change anything if you don’t sit in your proverbial chair to do the work. It’s not going to be perfect at first, but by you putting in the time you’ll get better and enjoy what you are creating.

The people and the works that we admire…didn’t happen overnight. They took time, and it took a willingness from their creators to sit in their chairs. So write down your goals and choose the number one goal that you want to put the time in and make a commitment to do something towards it every day. For me and my book, in the beginning it was to get up early and write at least an hour every morning. What will put you out of your comfort zone a little bit and get you in your chair to begin creating what is truly important to you?

I Put In The Time

 

 

Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn

Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247

 

 

Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
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