Creativity Is a Muscle, Not a Muse

ByJowi Witt

How often do you hear:
​“I don’t know what to write about.”​
​“I don’t know what to film.”​
​“I don’t know what to paint.”

How often have you used those excuses yourself when you came up to the creative task?

In the beginning, I was also stressing out about not feeling creative.

There are big gaps in my YouTube career.
Those were times when I felt like I didn’t have any creative ideas.

It all felt overwhelming.
Other times, I felt the muse strike —
and I had way too many ideas.

Now I know:

Creativity is not about waiting for inspiration.
It’s about training the muscle.

I heard about Van Gogh.
He painted 800 paintings in 10 years.
That’s 80 paintings per year – almost two per week.

I also remember an interview with Eminem.
He said he writes a line or a song every day.
We don’t hear a song from him daily —
but he writes daily.

There’s something interesting that happens when you create daily:
​You start to train your creative muscle.

Sure, it might be hard to start.
But once you’re a few weeks in,
​you’ll find yourself having plenty of ideas.

There’s another author (I can’t remember his name).
He said that inspiration strikes him every morning at 8 a.m.

When asked why, he replied:

Because that’s the time I sit down to write.

It’s easy to believe the romantic idea of creativity when your muse strikes.
It’s harder—but more real—to become the artist who makes creativity a habit and trains the creative muscle.

Keep Reading

  • It All Comes Back to Communication

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Over the weekend I had a few chats with a friend on the effects of AI. We will be in for a ride. Sure the opportunities are endless. It will get stronger and better, but it also feels like we’re losing more and more the human touch. I’m trying to figure out how to talk about business without touching the subject of AI. The development is just so much faster than I anticipated. I’ve been in this space now since the launch of GPT 3,5. And it’s been a wild ride. I can promise…

  • The Three Models That Help You Move Fast

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Last night I spoke with a lot of Founders at a local event. There is one pattern that kept coming up. I’m planning this. I’m waiting on this. I haven’t gotten the feedback yet. All those statements are holding your business back. They will lock and keep you stuck, because you gave the power to act away. Over the past years I’ve tried to study the greed and there are three models that help you move fast. Urgency is the mover. Urgency means to just close the gap between…

  • The Fight Between Persuasion and Manipulation

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Recently I did a deep dive into the world of communication. There are generally two different skillsets to communication. One is the personal communication. Your journal to your dinner table conversation. When we enter the arena of public communications we have a lot of traditions. We have the historic school of the Orator – aka. Speaker. Over the centuries we have seen a specialization. The speaker was trained in propaganda. The Art of public persuasion. After the second…

  • The Hidden Truth Behind Consistency (not many know)

    ByJowi Witt

    The first advice people will hear is to be consistent. Post daily. Stick to your schedule. Be consistent. Most give this advice without giving you the understanding of why it matters. “When everybody is consistent, I’m not able to stand out.” That’s what I often hear as a response. “I need to focus on my quality, since everybody is focused on quantity.” This is also a false belief. Since you don’t even know what quantity is. So back to the advice to be consistent. Most people that try…

  • The Hidden Truth Behind Consistency (not many know)

    ByJowi Witt

    The first advice people will hear is to be consistent. Post daily. Stick to your schedule. Be consistent. Most give this advice without giving you the understanding of why it matters. “When everybody is consistent, I’m not able to stand out.” That’s what I often hear as a response. “I need to focus on my quality, since everybody is focused on quantity.” This is also a false belief. Since you don’t even know what quantity is. So back to the advice to be consistent. Most people that try…

  • You Won’t Have Time “Someday”

    ByJowi Witt

    I’ve thought about this a lot. We often take our life and the time we have for granted. How often do I catch myself with a thought of:“Someday I’ll do this” or“When I have time, I’ll get to it.” Those are statements that make us feel good because we didn’t say no to it — and we still believe that we will get there. But the reality is: We don’t magically get more time. And we also don’t know how much time we have left in our life. My mom dreamed of retirement. Yet God has called her home by…