Creativity is often treated as a mythic creature that may or may not arrive on any given day, as something we mortals have no control over. But, in my experience, creativity comes from discipline. It is discipline. It is showing up and doing the work. Over and over again.
That doesn’t mean that creativity is or should be drudgery. It is simply consistency.
Here are some quotes about creativity and discipline I’ve come across recently:
“The practice demands that we approach our process with commitment. It acknowledges that creativity is not an event, it’s simply what we do, whether or not we’re in the mood.”
The Practice, by Seth Godin via Ali Abdaal’s Sunday Snippets
Putting yourself in a position for success is simple. Doing it day in and day out is hard.
Extraordinary results come from ordinary people with uncommon consistency.
Uncommon Discipline, by Shane Parrish at Farnam Street
I’m driven to get the things I’m excited about out of my head. …
I can be in opposition to my inherent laziness, and build a discipline around, not even the work of writing, but the work of joyful extraction. And to present it like that, and to put it like that, offers me a better runway to it.
Hanif Abdurraqib on The Stephen Shatterfield Show via Austin Kleon
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Getting into Print, by Jack London
The discipline for me is coming back to my creative notebook again and again.
Textual Play 