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.

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