Messy Reality of Staying Motivated

What they don't tell you about running a creative studio

The other day, I was reading an article about how to get motivated. It was actually full of sensible advice: set goals, foster a creative space, and find your optimal working hours—the kind of wisdom that sounds perfectly reasonable until you find yourself still glued to your desk at 11 o'clock at night, switching between a client revision, a cash flow projection, and wondering if you're completely failing at everything.

I own Concept Studio. On paper, I've got it all figured out. I'm surrounded by project managers, a team, and clients who trust us with their brands. Most days, however, I'm barely keeping all those plates spinning. Advice on how to motivate yourself usually assumes you're optimizing one thing—your creative work, your business, your personal productivity. What happens when you're responsible for all of it, and you're not sure you're succeeding at any of it?

The Weight I Didn't Expect: Balancing Work Motivation and Creative Decisions

When I started learning how to run a design studio, I figured I'd have the toughest time either finding clients or managing the creative aspect of the business. I was wrong. The actual most challenging part is the constant, gnawing uncertainty about whether I'm making the right decisions—not just for myself, but for my team, my clients, and the future of something I've built from nothing. This uncertainty is one of the key challenges of entrepreneurship that nobody really prepares you for.

But there's another weight I didn't anticipate: putting just a little too much care into our partners and projects. When I believe in what a client is building, I have a hard time not taking business personally. I want them to succeed; I want their revenue to grow. I find myself putting in extra hours, extra thought, and extra resources because I'm genuinely invested in their outcome, not just our fee.

Every creative choice carries significant business implications. That experimental approach I want to try? It might be brilliant, or it might cost us a client relationship I spent months fostering. The project manager who needs guidance on a timeline? I'm the one who has to balance realistic expectations for the team with our promise to the client. The design I'm working on at midnight because nobody else can quite nail the concept? I'm not just a designer anymore—I'm responsible for whether we can pay rent next month.

And then there's the practical issue: when I truly believe in a client's vision, I tend to over-invest. I spend unpaid hours researching their market, developing strategies beyond our scope, and refining concepts beyond the agreed-upon deliverables. I want to see them succeed, which means I regularly work past what the fee covers in our contract.

Working on governmental and national projects changes the equation. These initiatives can impact communities, industries, or national identity—a scope that extends well beyond our studio or standard client work. The scale matters. We work late because the impact is broader than usual. Each revision is a step toward something with reach we don't typically encounter.

Some days, I wonder if I've made everything unnecessarily complicated. Other designers I know seem to have cleaner boundaries. They design, go home, and ultimately aren't responsible for whether the business survives based on their creative decisions. I chose a different path, and some days I'm not sure it was the right one. I often find myself grappling with the challenges of entrepreneurship and asking myself how to stay motivated at work amid the chaos.

The Things I Tell Myself (And Whether They Work)

I've tried most of the standard strategies for how to motivate yourself, usually with mixed results:

Creating separate spaces for different types of work. This works…kinda, but when you own the business, everything bleeds together anyway. I'll be sketching and suddenly remember I need to approve an invoice. I'll be reviewing the financials and notice that we need to update our portfolio. The boundaries help sometimes, but they're more like suggestions than rules.

Setting realistic goals. The problem is I'm not sure what "realistic" means when you're building something from scratch. Should I be conservative and risk stagnation, or ambitious and risk burning out the team? I set goals, but I'm constantly adjusting them based on new information that wasn't available when I initially set them. Finding a way to maintain work motivation consistently feels like a perpetual puzzle.

Finding my optimal creative time. I used to hit my best creative strides in the morning, which helped with overcoming creative blocks naturally. Now I'm most creative whenever I can grab uninterrupted time, which is often late at night, after all the business decisions have been made. That may not be optimal, but it's reality.

Using the right tools. I've got good tools, but sometimes the right tool for a creative problem conflicts with the right tool for a business problem. The design software I love doesn't integrate with our project management system. The communication platform that works for clients isn't great for internal creative collaboration.

What Actually Happens When You Have No Motivation for Work

Some weeks, everything clicks. The creative work flows, the business runs smoothly, the team is energized, and I remember why I wanted to do this in the first place. I feel competent and visionary, as if I'm building something meaningful. Yet, during tougher times, when I experience no motivation for work, I have to actively work on how to find motivation again. It's about overcoming creative blocks and recognizing that the ebb and flow of work motivation is natural in this journey. Understanding how do you stay motivated at work during these periods requires both patience and intentionality.

What I'm Learning to Accept

Ultimately, I'm learning that balancing creativity and business isn't just a skill but a constant practice, a dance that requires patience and resilience. As I navigate this path, I keep asking myself: how to stay motivated when the stakes feel so high?

The answer is still unfolding, but I know it involves embracing both the creative challenge and the entrepreneurial journey in its entirety. Yet that may just be the point.