On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift up.

Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

Hey, you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey.

I'm your host, Andy J. P. Tess. I'm an illustrator for clients like Xbox, Lego, and The New York Times.

I make this show because as someone with ADHD who is neurodivergent, I know that for some of us, creative practice and carving out our own path isn't just a nice to have, but a must for survival.

When you are born into a world that was not built with you in mind, you have to rebuild the world. I get that, so that's what this show is all about.

So you probably have a sense that getting opportunities within your passion, what you want to be doing, means doing that before the opportunities come your way.

But it's really, really hard to be motivated to do things that nobody is asking you to do. Nobody wants you or has explicitly told you they want you to do these things.

It's hard to be motivated to do those things. So how do you find the motivation to create the portfolio, to create the body of work, to put in the work before anybody has said, hey, you really should do that.

It's hard to find that kind of motivation. So you might feel like I need the tools to dig up this kind of precious resource that is motivation within myself.

But this episode is all about how you already have the tool. You already have the tool you need to dig up that motivation.

But the problem is that you may think that tool is the treasure. Now that doesn't make any sense and explain what I mean by that in just a second. If you stick around, and if you stick around all the way to the end of the episode, I'm going to share an exercise that helped me find what feels like infinite renewable motivation for my creative work and for my personal work as well as clues to the most important aspect of your creative work.

Which is who you are as a person and as an artist. And if that's what you're looking for, let's get into it.

Step one to finding a deep well of motivation and inspiration and energy and discipline to show up and do the work before anybody else is even suggestive.

Step one to finding a deep well of motivation and inspiration and energy and discipline to show up and do the work before anybody else is even suggesting that you do it.

The first step is to realize that digging is not your passion. Let me explain what I mean. Have you ever heard anybody make a joke around the idea of graphic design is my passion.

Like, you know, poking fun at that phrase of graphic design is my passion. I have a few buddies of mine. They're the dance behind the design studio young jerks and they made a hat that says Garfick design.

It's like a typo of graphic design. And I think it's a little bit of a poke at this idea of graphic design being your soul graphic design being your passion.

And I think it's funny. I think that there is something funny within this, but I also respect in relate to the passion of graphic design or typography or illustration or whatever it is.

Like I get it. And I also just respect passion on any level. It's so much more interesting and respectable in my eyes than apathy. Right. But I think the humor that they're getting at there that I also relate to is this idea that moving pixels on a screen is your passion.

Like this notion that you just love being sat in a chair in front of a computer moving stuff around. Like that's your passion. Like let me get my hands dirty in a 500 layer Photoshop file. Like I would love to just sink my teeth, sink my mouse finger into that 500 layer Photoshop file or Illustrator screen and just move stuff around. I love moving stuff around.

It just feels a little bit hollow. It feels a bit silly that your passion, your meaning for living would be moving that little cursor around moving that little pen tool around. Right. And I think it's kind of like an archaeologist saying I just love moving dirt moving dirt is my passion. I just love moving that stuff around.

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