Why Waiting for Inspiration Is Holding You Back

Is creativity something you’re born with or something you build?

In this episode, Adam and fellow musician Elie unpack one of the biggest myths in music: that great ideas always come from sudden bursts of inspiration. They explore where creativity actually comes from, why waiting to “feel inspired” can hold you back, and how consistent effort plays a bigger role than most people think.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, uncreative, or like you’re “not the creative type,” this conversation will change how you think about making music.

Transcript

Adam 0:12

All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Daily Musician Podcast. I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today. We're going to be talking about do great songs come from lightning strike inspiration or just from sitting down and doing the work. So my name's Adam. I'm your host. I'm the owner of Learn Music in Cornelius. I'm also a musician and a songwriter. So this is something I'm really excited to talk about today. I've got a guest host with me today, Elie. She's one of our amazing teachers at Learn Music. Elie, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Elie 0:44

What's up, guys? My name's Elie. I'm super excited to be here today. I've been songwriting for a few years now, and the creative process is a really, really cool thing. So super excited to get into it today.

Adam 0:56

Yeah. So one of the main myths that musicians think about or that they buy into is the myth of the inspired musician. But today we want to ask the question when you think about your best creative moments, do they feel like inspiration or do they feel like the result of hard work? So I can think of so many musicians that I know who when you ask them if they've been writing lately, they'll say the phrase, no, I just haven't been inspired. And I think that culture gives us an image of creativity that songs appear fully formed or that artists wait until they feel it. But that's pretty misleading. So we tend to hear the story after the fact when everything's polished and it makes us feel like the song just showed up fully formed. So even bands like the Beatles, who people often associate with natural brilliance, were writing constantly.

Elie 1:54

Yeah. I think about have you watched the anthology of The Beatles on Netflix? It's really, really incredible. They showcase them when they were younger. I think it's Paul and John Lennon when they're in grade school, they're about 15 or 16. And they were writing constantly. They would skip class and go to each other's houses, and they would just songwrite all the time. So they were always in the habit of it.

Adam 2:18

Yeah, that's so cool. And John Mayer's talked about that too, you know, about treating songwriting like a craft you return to regularly, not a mood that you wait for. And I think like this part of the story gets skipped a lot, you know, and that's why things like the Beatles anthology, it's really interesting. Anytime you can kind of see the back end of the process, it's super interesting. There's a really good Wilco documentary called I'm Not Trying to Break Your Heart, and it's the same thing. It's they were making an album, they had a loft in San Francisco. And I found that DVD at a thrift store with my friend Wes when I lived in California. We watched it together, and I just remember it totally changing my perception of how songs get written. And so, but a lot of musicians like aren't ever exposed to that. You know, they aren't exposed to kind of the back end of the process. They just think that they have to, like we said earlier, kind of wait until inspiration strikes and until an idea's just kind of totally dropped into their heads. So Elie, do you think that the idea that creativity is mostly inspiration actually holds people back? And if so, how?

Elie 3:31

Oh, I think it definitely can because I mean, as a musician who has felt inspired every once in a while, I think it definitely is a good feeling whenever inspiration kind of hits and you can kind of bounce off of that. But I mean, the truth is if you're doing this full time for a living, you can't sit around and wait for that to happen. I mean, artists who rely on this for their paychecks, they have to, you know, be able to produce it even when it isn't striking.

Adam 4:00

Yeah. Totally. And I think, you know, inspiration is unpredictable too. So it's it's not something that we want to rely on.

Elie 4:09

Yeah.

Adam 4:09

Because if we do, we'll create pretty inconsistently. But I also think just because someone's inspired, it doesn't mean it's good.

Elie 4:16

That's very true.

Adam 4:17

You know what I mean? And so I've heard a lot of people say they're inspired, and I'm like, were you really? So let's talk about what inspiration actually is. So we want to reframe it into something more practical. It often shows up during the process, not before. And it's usually built on repetition, exposure, like listening to songs, learning different songs, experimenting with different types of playing and inspiration as like pattern recognition. So Elie, I'm curious, like, when is it time that you didn't feel inspired but created something good anyway?

Elie 4:58

Well, I don't know if good is the right word or not, but I think one thing I think about is when I was in school, we I took a directing class and we had to come up with these fully fleshed out scenes. And we had to do them in like 10 minutes. We had a deadline and we had, you know, stipulations around them. And we had to do that every day for a week. So we weren't feeling inspired all of the time, obviously. So we had to kind of, I guess, manufacture in a way something like a fully finished product, even if there wasn't inspiration behind it, which is totally doable. I think it really just, I mean, the more we did it, the better we got at it. Yeah. So it really is about the practice.

Adam 5:40

And totally.

Elie 5:41

Yeah.

Adam 5:42

Yeah. I think for me when I think about inspiration, inspiration typically isn't this is gonna sound weird, but inspiration is what inspires a good song. And I know that that sounds really obvious, but I want to unpack that a little more. Like for me, the way that I deal with inspiration is if I have an idea, I'll record a voice memo. If I have like a lyric idea and I have a piece of paper handy, I might write it down in my notebook. But typically I don't go, oh, I had this idea, I'm gonna go right now. Right. Because just on a very practical level, like that when I like a lot of times inspiration strikes at the worst time. You know, it's I'm I'm in a meeting or I'm in a lesson, or it's it in a time where I can't really do anything with it. But I sort of view the act of writing as like the vehicle, and inspiration is what you bring to the vehicle, it's the fuel that fuels that. So basically I view myself as a collector of inspiration. And then when it is time to write, when I do intentionally sit down to write, I might have these things that I can pull from. But I don't think you can really get away from doing the work because even when you have inspiration, the song doesn't write itself, you know what I mean? And even when you have inspiration, you might only have a line or a lyric or a hook idea or a chord progression, and you've still got to do the work to finish the rest. So I I just think you know, inspiration is important, but like we've already established, you just can't rely on it.

Elie 7:24

Sure. And I think one of the cool things about the process is there's no order to the inspiration that strikes. Obviously, we've said it's unpredictable. And what's cool about kind of getting into the work is I think the more that you do it, you find inspiration through the work that you're putting into it.

Adam 7:42

Yeah, totally. So I think I'm gonna actually change what we have in our notes in a little bit. All right. I do well, I'm not going to. Inspiration isn't the starting line, it's a byproduct of showing up. But I think, and I don't want to confuse anybody, but even when you're inspired, you still have to show up. Does that make sense?

Elie 8:05

Oh, 100%.

Adam 8:06

So, and and that kind of takes us to our next point is you know, there's there's no way to get around the hard work. Like, it doesn't matter if you're being creative or not, like, or if if you want to be creative, it's just you're always gonna have to work hard. And so I think we need to be really honest about the role of hard work and creativity. So I want to break down what hard work actually means in music. It means being consistent, it means finishing ideas, even bad ones. I want to come back to that later. It means practicing your craft, it means, you know, getting really familiar with your instrument, knowing how to navigate your instrument well, like understanding or deepening your understanding of harmony and different how to write a melody and different frameworks for writing lyrics, all that kind of stuff, and also trying things that don't work. So do you have anything that you want to add to that?

Elie 9:03

I think that one of the coolest yeah, thank you. I think one of the coolest things about being a musician is there's so many different facets of the process of writing and the process of music itself, whether lyrically or not lyrically. And you really kind of have to be brave and try things that don't always work. And that's one thing that's helped me a lot through songwriting is not kind of shying away from ideas that I've not ful thought fully through before just kind of diving in and trying the lyric that maybe isn't fully fleshed out or trying the chord progression that I don't know exactly where it's gonna lead yet. But through doing that and through trial and error and making mistakes, I I usually find that the results get better and better over time.

Adam 9:48

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that fourth point, the trying things that don't work, that's been the one that's been hardest for me because I can be a perfectionist when I write. And so I'll sit down and write often, but it's like I don't sometimes I have a hard time finishing the idea if I don't think it's like gonna be an amazing song. And so, but I think like sometimes knowing what you don't like or knowing what's not gonna work gets you to like what is it that Ryan Holiday says, Well, the Stoics talked about this a lot, but Ryan Holiday has a book with this title, it's The Obstacle is the way, right? So sometimes I think we need to when when we run into that roadblock or we find that thing that doesn't work, we have to wrestle with it and figure out why. And when we figure out why it doesn't work, we know we it helps us get to what does. So another thing that somebody told me early on that is also helpful is for every 10 songs you write, nine are gonna be bad and one's gonna be good.

Elie 10:51

Yeah.

Adam 10:51

And so that really helped me, and I think that that's pretty accurate, you know. Like I think you've gotta write the the bad songs or the songs that aren't as good to get the one that's gonna be really good. Totally.

Elie 11:06

And I think at the end of the day, we're always our own worst critic, right? So it's really easy for people to kind of cut themselves off at the knees. I know I certainly when I first started songwriting, I struggled with it a lot, and I still do from time to time for sure, but pushing through and finishing the song, even if it's not exactly the way I want it to sound, I think that's definitely worth something.

Adam 11:29

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So when does inspiration matter? We need we we do need to balance this conversation so it's not one-sided, because we're not saying that inspiration doesn't matter.

Elie 11:41

For sure.

Adam 11:42

Right? We're just saying you can't rely on it.

Elie 11:44

Oh, it's super important. I mean, I think especially when I was younger, I if I didn't feel inspired, I had no motivation to, you know, put in the work. So it's what makes it joyful, I think. That's part of the process that's the most enjoyable is you know, whenever you have a really, really cool idea for something. And I mean, that's why we do it right, is because we love it and we feel inspired. So yeah, it's definitely important.

Adam 12:09

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's important we want to acknowledge that it's real and that it's valuable. So there are moments where something clicks quickly, and those moments are great. And there have been times where I've been inspired and I've had the availability to sit down and write when I'm inspired. And you know, you get I wrote a song about a a year and a half ago that I ended up putting out on Spotify, and I think I wrote the whole thing in like 30 minutes. And and but then I've had other songs where you know it's been like multiple months that it's taken me to finish and fully flesh it out. So the times where it does happen in a day or in 30 minutes are really, really awesome. And I think we're not saying that that doesn't exist, but you have to be you have to build the muscle. And I honestly think that when you build the muscle, you might have some of those moments more. We can't rely on them. So I think the key idea here is you want to use inspiration when it shows up, but also you know, you don't want to wait for it. So, and we really want to view creativity as a skill. And so I think we want to reframe creativity because it's not a personality trait, it's a trainable skill. Like I always just think about exercise, right? Like going to the gym, like, you know, your arm isn't inspired to get big one day, and then all of a sudden it's like, you know what, I want to be big, and then it wakes up and you have like, you know, big biceps or whatever. Like you have to go to the gym and you have to you have to work that muscle. And I think creativity, it's not a personality trait, it's a muscle, it's a trainable skill. You get better by writing more, by listening more intentionally, and also experimenting.

Elie 14:12

There's this misconception out there that there are creative people and there are more logical-minded people. And I think that just innately, I mean, everyone has creativity within them, but like you said, if you don't train it, if you don't use the skill, I think it's harder to kind of view yourself as a creative person if it's not something that you're you don't have your reps in, you're not doing it over and over again. So totally, yeah.

Adam 14:39

Yeah, and I think I had this realization a couple of years ago. I have this really good friend named Jake, he's one of my best friends, and he owns a company called Prism Supply Co. And they uh do a lot of different things, but they're in the motorcycle world, and one of the things that they do is they build motorcycles. And I remember going to a show and seeing a bike that they'd built and just thinking about how beautiful it was, and I and I feel like maybe this should have hit me earlier, but I'm like, man, this is a piece of art. But then if you kind of back engineer that, what you realize is well, how was he able to create that art? You know, like he went to school for engineering, he took math classes, he wasn't born knowing how to build motorcycles, he wasn't born knowing how to build motorcycles, and so the way he was able to be creative is by developing all these skills that gave him the tools he needed to create a beautiful motorcycle. And it's funny to me how with art, it well, specifically like with music, we don't view it that way, but we really should. There's there are certain skills that we would we would be best to develop. Um so like I know there's a lot of great songwriting books out there. I think songwriting without limits is one. Jeff Tweedy from Wilco has one called How to Write One Song. And you know, we need to be studying those things so when creativity does strike, we can be most effective with it. So I think kind of the thought there is creative people aren't different. They've just done more reps, like you said. Creativity isn't something that you either have or you don't have, it's something that you build. Absolutely. Yeah, you want to say anything else about that?

Elie 16:26

Yeah, I was just gonna say tagging off of the toolkit thing that you said. My my very first voice teacher always described anytime we would learn a new skill or a new facet of vocalization and singing specifically, she would call it just another tool to add to your tool belt. And that's exactly what it is.

Adam 16:48

Yeah, totally. So yeah, I think a lot of people aren't lacking creativity, they're just getting stuck somewhere in the process. And so something that's really helpful to do is identify specific friction points, you know. So, what are some of the things that people get stuck on? I think not knowing how to start is one. I actually had a lesson yesterday with a student who I love teaching, and I mostly teach guitar, but with this student I do some like music production type stuff. So we're songwriting in her lesson and we'd written this killer song and she wrote killer lyrics for it. And then it came time to write the melody, and she was basically just like, Oh man, I'm not I'm not good at this. I don't know how to do it, I can't do it. Can you help me? And I just said essentially, I I said, just start, just do it. Yeah. Just see what happens, just sing on top of it. And what we identified, it's not that she wasn't good at it, she just didn't know how to start. But it's amazing how once she started, she quickly got better at it. So really cool. Yeah. What's some other like key friction points that people experience, you think, Elie?

Elie 17:58

I think a lot of people, myself included, whenever they have a good idea, if they're able to kind of dive off the diving board and start the process, I find it very easy to quickly stop and go back and try it again because I didn't necessarily like how I started. I think I think it's really easy if you especially have a lot of ideas, creativity, creative-wise, to try and put them all into something all at once. And you're not quite sure which route to take. So what I do sometimes if I'm kind of in a rut songwriting is I'll pick one facet that I know I want to stick with and just go off of that and try not to stray too far. Yeah. If I have extra ideas, because those can come into songs elsewhere. They don't all have to be put into one song, if that makes sense.

Adam 18:50

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. I had a song that I wrote this week and actually it was the same thing. I I started writing it, and I'm like, this is these are this isn't a verse in a chorus, this is two verses and it's two different songs.

Elie 19:02

So totally.

Adam 19:04

I think too, like a common friction point that I've I know I've experienced a lot is judging an idea too early. So I think songwriting and creativity is something that's really vulnerable. And just because something feels uncomfortable, or just because like something comes out of you that you're not used to or that you haven't done before, it doesn't mean that it's bad. Right. Right. And so like sometimes we're gonna create things and there's this really cool, new, innovative for us kind of path that we can go down, but we judge it too too quickly and we squash that. Right. So I think a lot of people get stuck on that. They start something and they go, Oh, well, this isn't good. Right. But even we've talked about exercising that muscle and kind of have implied, you know, you gotta sit down day after day after day. But sometimes exercising that muscle is just finishing the idea and not judging it too quickly.

Elie 20:00

Totally. I think some of the my favorite songs that I've written are not necessarily the most lyrically complex or anything that I would put on the radio, but just the fact that it's a fully completed song. So I think that says a lot.

Adam 20:14

Yeah, totally. And then, like, you know, I think the la another common friction point, this is the last one we'll talk about, is just like comparing your music to other people's music. Like, you're not other people, and that's a really easy trap to fall into. I think like, especially, you know, I'm old. Elie's not that old, but she's older than you know, a teenager. And and so I think as adults, like if you're if you're an adult who's starting songwriting, it's really easy to compare yourself to people who have been doing it for a long time. Oh, totally. And that's like that's the quickest way to get discouraged.

Elie 20:53

Oh, yeah. You can't go with the preconceived notions. Yeah. Everyone's songwriting is different.

Adam 20:56

Yeah. And too, for those who have been writing for a long time, like I know I'll write something and I'll be stoked about it, and then I'll scroll Instagram and be like, oh, I'm the worst, you know. And so it's really important not to compare yourself to other people. Absolutely. So, Elie, where do you get stuck most create creatively?

Elie 21:15

I think for me, it's honestly I have trouble finishing songs. I'm usually good kind of navigating through the middle ground and finding different things to add in there, but I always want to keep writing. I never want to call it completely done. I have trouble putting the pen down and saying, okay, it's finished. There's always more that I want to add on to it.

Adam 21:36

Yeah, totally. I can relate to that. I'm really, really great at writing parts of songs, but it's really, it's really hard to finish songs. And so it's the perfectionism. Yeah, totally. I think for me to just like as a business owner and a dad and a husband and you know, all that fun stuff, it's just for me, it's just hard to find time. And so I have to be really Diligent, like you know, and this is kind of like the thesis of this of this podcast is like it takes work. For me, it's a really practical, it's not that I don't want to do the work, it's hard to find time to do the work.

Elie 22:13

That you also want to sleep, yeah.

Adam 22:14

I also want to sleep, and I also, you know, want to play with my kids and all the things, all that stuff. So cool. So, Elie, what are some practical takeaways for you from this podcast today?

Elie 22:28

I think go out and write songs. Yeah, right. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, just being, you know, diligent with it and not getting discouraged too quickly. I think the biggest thing is you're never gonna get better. And this goes for anything in life. You won't get better at it unless you start doing it and just start trying, no matter kind of where your starting ground is, just acknowledging where you're starting and then just trying to move forward from there with songwriting or basketball or anything.

Adam 22:58

Yeah, for sure. I think my biggest takeaways today are just reminders that consistency is key. You gotta put in the work, you know, songs aren't gonna write itself. And then, you know, you don't have to be inspired. A lot of times, action is what inspires inspiration. Does that make sense?

Elie 23:16

Yeah, totally.

Adam 23:17

And then something that we didn't talk about, but that I was just reminded of is surround yourself with other people who write songs. Like I was thinking about that a lot, like thinking about whether or where I learned some of these lessons. And a lot of them, like I have a really good friend named Jacob who's a producer. He's produced a lot of really great artists, and some of the things just spending time with him and hearing him talk about his process and hearing him talk about you know, recording other people or even writing his own songs. That's been really good for me. And if you don't have friends that write songs, I think what Elie brought up in the beginning of the podcast is really great. Like, find documentaries like the Beatles anthology one. I haven't seen that. I've heard everyone talk about it, I just haven't gotten around to watching it yet. It's so good. The Wilco one, I think it's called I'm Trying to Break Your Heart. That that one was game-changing for me. I think Charlie Puth has a really good Instagram, like he's always sharing these like little tiny songwriting nuggets. So maybe I have I actually have a separate Instagram account just for music. Really? Yeah, just because I don't want to like it's my guitar Instagram account, and I try to only follow musicians that I like. That's cool, and that's been really good for me too. And it's kind of like a mentor of mine once told me that everyone needs to have a board of directors, and your board of directors can be people who are alive, but it or people that you know could be people who are alive that you don't know, it could be people who are dead, and you know, like you kind of get to know their ideas through reading their books and watching documentaries and stuff like that. So if you don't know anybody that writes songs or that is uh creative in this way, like put together, you know, a board of directors of famous songwriters.

Elie 25:03

Hop on the internet, they're all out there.

Adam 25:04

Yep. So the goal is to build the habit. Remember, inspiration isn't what should prompt your writing of a song. You sitting down and taking action is what prompts inspiration. So don't wait to feel inspired this week. Schedule time to create and see what happens. So we want to challenge you. We want to encourage you to write something every day for five days, no matter how small or how bad you think it is. Quick closing story. I was on, we live in this little town called Cornelius, and the mayor has a uh, he has like a radio show, and I was on the radio show right before we did this, and he he reminded me of something that I did a while ago. I did this about a year and a half ago, and I did a riff a day challenge for seven days, and I didn't write lyrics, but I just I wrote like an A section and a B section, kind of like a verse and a chorus, and he actually brought it up in the interview today. And I was so glad he did because I knew we were getting ready to do this podcast. But I can say writing every day, just like Elie's director challenge that, or what was it?

Elie 26:16

A directing for school. It was like a class.

Adam 26:20

Yeah, just like that challenge. Like it's amazing if you just do something for five days or seven days, how much you'll grow from that. And it'll be a sacrifice, but it's one of the best ways to grow or exercise that muscle quickly. So we want to challenge you. Write something every day for five days, no matter how small or how bad you think it is. All right, so that's it for today. We want to invite all of you to subscribe, share this with another musician, and leave a review. If you could leave us a great review, that helps us so much. Thank you so much for listening today. We love helping musicians become better musicians one conversation at a time. Thanks.

Elie 27:11

Bye, guys.