How to Create When You Don’t Feel Inspired

One of the most important things I’ve learned as a creative person is how to keep creating things even when I don’t “feel” like it.

I used to wait for inspiration to strike. Then I would bow my head over the keyboard and write feverishly, sometimes for hours, days. I would be pulled to my laptop, propelled forward by uncontainable creative momentum. When that happens, it feels amazing! 

The problem is, that kind of inspiration doesn’t come around very often. Sometimes, I would wait for that energized, magnetic feeling to come around for a whole year.  

Create Anyway

There’s nothing wrong with creating slowly or occasionally. But when I started showing up more regularly, even without any ideas, it showed me that the creative process was more of a choice than I thought.

I’ve learned that inspiration isn’t something I have to wait around for. It’s something I can find my way into, often by doing the simple, unglamorous work of just starting. 

Maybe I write a few lines, which jogs a memory I hadn’t thought of in a while, which creates an unexpected connection. All of sudden, I’m in a kind of flow. When I choose to sit down and create, even when I feel like nothing will happen, I am often surprised by how much material my uninspired self has to work with. 

Will the spark come back?

The spark always comes back! I have been writing and creating for years. The magic still comes. Those alive, electric moments still find me. 

But more often, creativity shows up through slow accumulation: small steps, stray ideas, glimmers that build into something big, and rich, and breathtaking over time.

Getting over the threshold of resistance and apathy is the hardest part. But once I begin, inspiration has a way of finding me.

Eventually, I’ve realized that just trying is its own kind of magic.

XO,
Mollie

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