It started with a sketch, just one sketch, then two, then a whole week of daily practice, and you felt unstoppable.

But somewhere between week three and month three, life happened.

Work deadlines piled up, Netflix looked a little too good, and suddenly that sketchbook hasn't been opened in days, maybe years.

Does that sound familiar?

Well, you're not alone.

Staying motivated long term is one of the hardest parts of being an artist.

But here's the thing.

Creativity isn't just about bursts of inspiration.

It's about building a relationship with your art that lasts.

Hello, friends.

This is Timothy Keem o', Brien, your head instigator for Create Art podcast, where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your critic and create more than you consume.

Now, in today's episode of the New Artist Compass, which is the series that I'm running right now in 2025, we're going to talk about what it really takes to keep showing up, not just for a couple of weeks, but for the long haul.

I'm going to share strategies, mindset shifts, and some personal stories, and, yes, even my creative slumps to help you find your rhythm and keep your fire lit and stay connected to why you started that journey in the first place.

All right, so some of you may not think making a podcast is a artistic endeavor, and that's understandable because you're like, well, you know, you're using technology, you're using this and that, the other thing.

But making a podcast is a lot like making art.

My first point here to prove that is finding your why and keeping it visible.

In podcasting, we talk about finding your why, know why you're doing the podcast, and I know why I'm doing this podcast.

Absolutely, I know why.

But why are you doing art?

Why are you painting or dancing or creating sculpture?

What do you get out of it, and what does your audience get out of it?

So I know with this podcast, you get a lot out of this.

You get to hear the wisdom of other artists.

You get to hear, you know, my thoughts and my takes on art, and you get encouragement.

You get that, you know, I'm the head instigator, so I, you know, give you a nice, gentle nudge here and there.

So finding out your why is the first thing you need to be doing.

And then write it down.

Write down why you create art and post it to your workspace.

I can tell you that I have, and I apologize, I had to step away from the microphone for just a second there, but I have a card right here in my hand.

If you're watching on YouTube, you can see me hold this card.

I'm not going to show you what's on the back of this card.

It's basically a memorial for a soldier that I knew and that used to listen to this podcast.

Unfortunately, he passed away, but I am doing my show for men and women in that kind of a position because I'm prior military as well.

So I always have that right off camera here looking at me.

And that's the person that I talk to all the time.

Yes, I'm talking to you, but I talked to that person over there as well.

So I'm doing this show for him and for you.

So that's what I'm doing with my.

Why.

The other thing you need to do is you need to revisit that.

Maybe your art has changed.

Maybe whatever you're doing is evolving.

So revisit that.

Why go back to it?

Are you fulfilling what you started off to do?

No.

Maybe you found something new to take, a new direction to take your art in.

So revisit that from time to time, and then make sure that you're sharing that with your audience, whoever that be.

Whether people coming to a show for a dance, music, sculpture, cooking, you know, that's art, too.

But share with people why?

That's why I shared it with you.

So that way you know why I'm doing this show, what motivates me to do this show.

So make sure you're sharing it, and that will help a audience to keep you accountable.

Maybe that's what you need is an accountability partner.

I know when I don't do the show for a while, people like, tap me on the shoulder and go, hey, Tim, when's the next episode coming out?

But, you know, sometimes life does get in the way, and knowing that that happens, it's okay.

We deal with it and then we move on.

So make sure you're sharing that with your audience.

All right, My next thing for you is to build consistent creative habits.

If you're in the habit of doing it already, fantastic.

But if you haven't set up that time, maybe it's once a week, maybe it's once a month.

Whatever that time is, build that into your schedule.

You know, schedule like you're going to a doctor's appointment.

I know that doesn't sound very creative, but make it a meeting on your calendar.

A meeting for yourself.

Protect that time.

Don't let anything interrupt that time.

Maybe it has to be super duper early in the morning, maybe it's late at night.

I do the recordings for these on Sundays, Sunday mornings, when, you know, my kids are asleep or they're just waking up.

My wife takes care of the kids on Sunday mornings because she knows that that's my time to do my art.

So make sure you're scheduling that out.

And, hey, maybe it's 15 minutes, that's okay.

If it's 15 minutes, maybe, you know, later on, you build it up.

Okay, so the next week, I'm in two months, I'm gonna crank that 15 minutes up to a half hour in two months after that, I'm gonna crank it up to 45 minutes.

Two months after that, I'm gonna crank it up to an hour.

It's kind of like working out.

You know, you start off small, and then you add on to it.

So that way it is interesting and entertaining for yourself.

So, you know, always evolving that time.

Making that time longer is a great thing to do.

Another thing you can do is to use rituals.

So, you know, maybe you light a candle or you drink some tea or play some music in the background, and that's your cue to your brain, hey, this is the time I'm going to create something.

Doesn't matter what it is.

Or maybe I'm working on a project, and it needs a few times, you know, a few iterations.

Maybe it needs a few of these 15 minutes, you know, strung together over a few weeks to do that.

Whatever that is for you, set that ritual up.

So that way everybody in the house knows, hey, at this time, I'm going to be doing some creating.

I need some quiet.

Or, you know, may, if you have access to a studio.

There you go.

You make it homey.

You make it your studio.

You know, throw on some candles, throw some incense on, throw some music in the background, but make that ritual, protect that ritual, just like you're protecting that time to practice your art.

At the very worst, you're practicing the very best.

You're creating something new each and every time you set up these blocks of time.

All right, my third point here is to celebrate the small wins.

How do you do that?

Well, you can track your progress, you know, with sketchbooks, photos, journaling, writing, whatever you have, track that progress.

And let's say you're a writer and you want to write, I don't know, 50,000 words in a month, like National Novel Writing Month, which is coming up in November this year.

Again, track that.

That'll motivate you to keep going.

Now, maybe you're, you know, Again, you're a novelist, and, you know, you don't want to do it in a month.

Maybe you're like, I just want to get 100 pages in this month.

Fine.

Treat it like a challenge.

Treat it like, you know, National Novel Writing Month.

The great thing with that and National Poetry Writing Month is that you track it yourself.

Now, in years past, when I did National Novel Writing Month, they had a little tracker on there, so that way you could see how close you're getting to your goal at the end of it.

And many years, I was like, I'm almost there.

I'm almost there.

And that's what pushed me to continue to write.

You don't need somebody else tracking it.

You can track it yourself.

Now, once you've set up the tracking, you can reward yourself at certain goal posts that you have.

You know, hey, I got 100 pages done today, all right?

I'm gonna get some Ben and Jerry's ice cream, or I'm gonna go out to the coffee shop and order two espressos.

Whatever it is, make sure you reward yourself so that way you want to keep coming back and showing up for your art.

And part of your tracking.

You know, my.

My first point in here is, with the tracking, is to reflect monthly on how far you've come.

So set it up.

Maybe, you know, do your 15 minutes every week for a month.

Well, take a picture of, you know, what you did at the end of the first 15 minutes and then at the last 15 minutes of the month, and then see how far you've come.

You know, maybe it's a picture, maybe it's a graph, whatever it is.

But once you see how far you've come in that month, you're going to want to keep on coming back each and every month to see how far you can go with it.

So you're kind of gamifying it for yourself.

You kind of, you know, like, we all have our smartphones, and we all have our little games on our smartphones, and it tracks how far we are.

And even some smartphones, you can track how long you've been on that game.

You know, for me, it's probably been too long.

But set up that monthly check in with yourself to go, how far have I come?

And after each session, you know, record it.

How far have you come?

You know, what did you accomplish that day?

Put it in a journal, put it in a sketchbook, whatever it is, but track that for yourself.

That way you're going to be able to look back and go, hmm, I started off here at level one.

Now I'm up here, level 20, and this feels really good.

And it'll help you appreciate how far you've come and it'll motivate you to keep on going because, yeah, you're at level 20, but there's infinite amount of levels.

So let's get up into those higher numbers, shall we?

Okay, my fourth point is to find that creative community.

We live in a wonderful age where you can find anything just about online and you can find a lot of local artist communities as well.

So why don't you join up with them and, you know, get that feedback, get that encouragement.

You're already doing it right now by listening to this podcast and I'm providing you with this encouragement with these takes that I have on art.

So you've already done that step.

Great.

Good for you.

Excellent.

Now go out there and find the local community of artists that maybe it's not you're a novelist, but there's a bunch of poets out there.

Fine, Join up with them.

Learn how to do what they're doing.

Take from them and give to them.

And always be generous with these new groups.

Give more than you receive is usually the best way to go about it because that will attract more people towards you.

And feel free to share your works in progress.

Maybe somebody there is going to have some critique.

And we've talked about critique and we've talked about criticism and feedback.

Those folks, they can provide the feedback.

They've probably already gone there and bought the T shirt and they can tell you about the local community and what sells and what doesn't sell.

And if that's kind of what your mindset is, you know, for monetary wise, what you can get out of it, great, that's fine.

I'm not going to poo poo you for that.

I mean, you're an artist.

In my estimation, you're an artist.

So if you make some money off of it or if you are pursuing ways to make money off of it by joining that local community, you can get that intel that you need and you can get that feedback that you need from others who are already selling in your community and who've already developed a customer base.

And they can tell you what it's like, what people are looking for.

So use that intel.

Another thing you can do is you can teach and mentor others.

I do that right now with you.

You know, like I said, I've got over 30 years of experience in art.

This is how I pay it back.

You know, there's a lot of artists that inspired me.

Some.

Most of them were dead, but some of them were alive.

And I took what they were saying and what they were doing, and I've applied it to myself.

Do that for other people, mentor other people, teach other people.

A lot of times you can go into your local library and teach the process that you learned how to make your art.

And you can do it for in a free space or, you know, a greatly reduced space.

You know, you may not be able to sell your stuff there, so check with your local library, but maybe that's where you start developing an audience.

Go to the coffee shops, go to the places where your people hang out in your community that buy art that you're selling and start small and then grow, grow, grow, and take pictures of it when you start, record it down when you start.

That way you can go, yeah, we started off with five people and then we blew up.

And now I've got a hundred people following me or a thousand people following me and buying my art.

But you started way over here with like maybe one, two or five people coming to a meetup and look at how far it has grown.

So make sure that you're giving back to the community.

Giving.

Being that person that inspired you.

Now, my last point may be counterintuitive from what I've been discussing in this episode, but it's vital.

Give yourself permission to rest.

Creating art takes a lot out of you.

Takes a lot out of me.

When I do these episodes, I will just veg out and watch some pbs.

I just recently found this morning one of my favorite shows on PBS was Check, Please.

Out of Chicago.

Well, I found out that there's dc.

Check, please.

There's Philly.

Check, please.

You know, all these other places have picked that show up.

So I'll watch that for about a half hour or 22 minutes, whatever it is, maybe an episode or two.

And then I'll tackle the rest of my day on Sundays.

And that's what I do.

I give myself time to rest because it takes a lot out of me.

You know, rest isn't quitting, it's recharging.

So make sure you're recharging your batteries, whatever that is.

Maybe, you know, you sit on the couch, open up a book, throw on some jazz.

That's probably what I'm going to be doing after I'm done with this episode as well, because I enjoy reading and I enjoy listening to jazz on the.

On the turntable there.

It's not quitting, it's recharging.

I give you permission to do it take intentional breaks so you don't burn out?

We've heard so many stories, We've seen so many stories of people burning out.

We've talked about it on the show where people have just, you know, burned out after a while because they didn't give themselves a break.

I've burned out because I didn't give myself breaks all the time.

Take the breaks that you need and recharge.

And you know what?

I just, you know, I kind of told you before, I, you know, I'll listen to some music, I'll read a book and take that downtime, that quote unquote downtime for passive inspiration.

Read a book, listen to some music, do some museums, have some conversations with people.

Next.

Well, by the time this comes out, one of the things that I'm going to be doing is I'm going to a podcast conference in North Carolina for a weekend.

So I'm going to take that time.

I'm actually writing up another show.

And at the conference, I'm going to take my little mini laptop and start working on a script for.

For another show.

But I'm, you know, taking that, you know, I'm able to take the time, you know, in the daytime to be with other people that do podcasting.

And then in the evening, when everyone is, you know, going to the bar or something like that, I'm going to be sitting on my little laptop and rocking away another show.

So sometimes that's what you need to do.

Other times, you need to go out to the bar with the folks that are there at the conference with you and enjoy yourself and just have a good time and get inspired by other people's stories, whatever that is.

Give yourself permission to rest.

It's.

I used to go by the old adage of, you know, I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead.

Well, guess what?

You will get enough sleep when you're dead.

I don't want to die anytime soon.

I've got a lot to give.

I've got a lot to give.

My kids, my wife.

I've got a lot to give you.

So don't go by that old adage, I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead.

Take that rest.

I give you permission.

If you need permission to do that, I give you permission.

So you can take that rest if you need to.

All right, that's the show.

Thank you so much for listening and for being here, for taking time out of your day.

I know I. I need to get back to my day, but now it's Your turn.

I want to hear how you stay motivated long term.

You can shoot me a message or tag me on social media with your favorite trick for pushing through the tough days.

You can email me, Timothy, create art podcast.com and let me know what you're doing.

I tell you what, let's build a toolbox together that helps every new artist out there keep going, even when motivation feels miles away.

And hey, if today's episode got you thinking, share it with another artist who may need that little spark as well.

Now, speaking about sharing things, I run another podcast called Find a Podcast About.

You can find that at Find a Podcast about xyz.

And that's where I help my listeners there.

Outsmart the algorithm and find the next binge worthy podcast.

Check it out.

You might find your next favorite podcast to listen to.

Besides this one, of course.

The other thing that I've done in 2025 here is started up my own business and it's called TKB Podcast Studio.

You can find it at TKB Podcast Studio.com and that's where I help my clients lead through the noise with quiet professionalism.

So if you're thinking about starting up a podcast, think about reaching out to me@tkb podcast studio.com all right, that's all I have for you today.

Again, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Now go out there, tame that inner critic.

Create more than you consume.

Do it for the long term.

Do it with me for the long term.

Go out there, make some art for somebody you love.

Yourself.

Until next time, Sam.