If You’re Relying on Inspiration, You’re Doing It Wrong

Read this when you’re stuck in a rut.

Anthony Moore
7 min readFeb 12, 2021

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“A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.” -Tchaikovsky

Here’s how I used to think inspiration works:

Inspiration > Motivation > Action

So, I would wait to get inspired.

Maybe I would watch Gladiator again, or I would see some before/after pictures on that home-workout fitness Instagram page I follow.

This surge of inspiration would create enormous motivation and drive for me to write and do work.

So, I would grit my teeth in a surge of inspiration and publish an article every day for like, eight days straight.

But then I’d lose motivation and publish nothing for four months.

After a while, I might watch Gladiator again. Get inspired. Get back on the horse. Experience an intense surge of writing energy and publish another month’s worth of articles by next Wednesday.

…You can probably guess what would happen next.

Again — I would get discouraged from lack of attention to my work. Lose motivation. Then I’d quit again.

Because here’s the truth:

Inspiration doesn’t work.

Not in the long term, anyway.

Let me explain.

The following is how most people approach completing goals: They wait for inspiration, then they act — they go to the gym, clean the entire house to surprise their partner when they get home, they start writing chapter one of their novel.

And yet, despite these surges of inspiration that happen every day…

Gyms are rarely frequented.

Houses remain cluttered messes.

That book is still a (mostly) empty Word document on the computer.

That’s because this strategy doesn’t work. Most people don’t stay inspired for long, and since their action relies on inspiration, action doesn’t get done.

Right Action Precedes Right Thinking

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Anthony Moore

Writer for CNBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, Thought Catalog, Yahoo! Finance, and you.