1. Relying on motivation is BULLSH*T

That was the original title idea for this article, and a statement I stand behind 1000%. I think the number one mistake amateur or struggling artists make is to think that if they can just get motivated, they will suddenly become an amazing artist and finish up their portfolio in no time! But in reality all they do is spend hours researching and reading, consuming content and tutorials but never actually take action in producing anything themselves. If they could only flip their consumption/production ratio, they would be well on their way to that dream job.

The biggest difference between a professional and a hobbyist in almost anything is that a professional will consistently get to work outputting results even on days, weeks or months when they don't feel motivated to do so. If there is one takeaway you get from this please let this be it:

"An amateur waits for inspiration to strike, a professional just gets to work"

It’s not a difference in raw talent (that only takes you so far, there are plenty of talented losers out there doing nothing), it’s not that they have found some secret fountain of motivation no one else knows about, they are probably not smarter than you, or any other of the thousand excuses people love to come up with to justify their lack of action and output. They simply work even when they are "not feeling it" and push through that mental resistance. That’s it.