The word amateur tends to have negative connotations. It can be used by people who consider themselves professionals to look down on others, and generally has financial connotations. Anyone who doesn’t make money with their craft, no matter what it is or how much they might excel in it, is open to being labeled an amateur.
In a more generous definition of the word, and one that I’m seeing more widely adopted in certain circles, to be an amateur means to pursue something purely because you enjoy doing it, because it genuinely interests you, with no expectation of material rewards.
One definition focuses on results, and the other on motivation, but both focus on external reward. Is that really important? Why should making money be at odds with enjoying the process?
Being an amateur photographer allows me to take as many photos of pigeons as I want…
Drawbacks of Extrinsic Motivation
If you write a book out a desire for a future reward, then a part of your mind will be occupied in thinking about that reward and estimating how far you have go before you reach it. In order to enjoy your work, it helps to be immersed in the experience of actually doing it. When you’re motivated by the end result, rather than focusing on the moment-to-moment act of creation, some of your attention will be devoted to thoughts of the future, distracting you from the joy of the process.
There can also be issues with the stability of your motivation. Material success is rarely directly within your control. If you work at a large company, for example, your being laid off will usually have less to do with your individual performance, and more to do with corporate politics and the economy at large. If you’re a professional writer, or an aspiring professional, the metrics you use to judge your success also respond to more than just the quality of your work. A well-written book published in the wrong year, at the tail end of a trend, might sell fewer copies than a poorly-written book published just as demand for its subject matter or tropes is at a peak. The readership of a blog post might have more to do with how well you incorporate search terms than the actual relevance of the content. (Fingers crossed for this one!)
When the effort you put in doesn’t seem related to how well your work performs, is it any wonder that you might lose motivation? When reality seems to be telling you that no amount of effort will make a difference, why work harder?
Social Effects
A focus on money may also make it harder to form connections with others. Studies have revealed a phenomenon called “money priming.” When people are reminded of money, by cues as benign as a stack of monopoly money on a table, or a screensaver depicting dollar bills, they are less likely to help others. It seems that just seeing money can put us into a more antisocial, individualistic mindset.
I’ve experienced a form of that phenomenon myself, in my early days trying to build a presence as a writer on social media. Because I was focused on growth, on gaining followers, I lost track of the fact that they were actual human beings, out there somewhere in the world. I treated them well enough, on a surface level, because I wanted to collect them, but never tried to understand them as individuals, or to form a genuine connection. (If you were wondering, that approach didn’t get me very far.) It wouldn’t surprise me if that same mindset makes it difficult for plenty of extrinsically motivated writers to feel like they’re really part of a writing community, both online and in person.
And as it happens, community is related to both financial success and the development of skills. Even with stereotypically solitary pursuits, like fiction writing, there’s much to gain by exchanging knowledge with your peers. That’s the premise of a workshop group, after all.
So in theory, shifting the source of your motivation away from money and status should have lots of benefits. You should be more motivated to work hard, you should enjoy the process more, and you should connect with others more easily. So what gets in the way?
What makes it so hard?
The dichotomy between professional and amateur is ingrained in our culture. “Productivity” is generally measured by how useful your work is to other people, not by how much you yourself benefit from doing it. The personal benefits of “productive” work come in the form of wealth and recognition, both of which are mediated through other people.
It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being useful to society is valuable. Humans are pack animals. It’s good that our culture is set up to encourage people to do things that benefit others, but that same cultural bias can cause people to see effort spent to benefit only oneself as a waste, (particularly if those benefits are intangible, like emotion and knowledge.)
That attitude can become an instinct. If a friend of mine tells me that they’ve taken up painting, and shares some of their work, how will I judge its quality? If I want to know whether they’re “any good” at painting, I’ll compare their work to other paintings that I’ve seen, professional paintings. I’ll estimate how wide the skill gap is, how far they would have to progress to be able to sell their work in a gallery, or to sell commissions online. But comparing two paintings doesn’t tell you anything about how much each painter enjoyed creating them. (Or if it does, you must have a very discerning eye.)
It’s bad enough that I’ll judge my friend’s paintings in that way, but it’s even worse for the painter. Extrinsic motivations have a way of weaseling their way into the mind. Naturally, we want to be able to judge the quality of what we do. Striving to improve your abilities is a source of enjoyment, and in order to improve your abilities, you need to know which outcomes are desirable. To figure that out on your own requires expending effort understanding why good art is good, and exploring your own personal tastes. It’s much easier to judge your work based on the societal standards that you’ve already absorbed than it is to build an entirely new framework of meaning from the ground up.
So what do we do?
If it isn’t already clear, this is a battle fought in the mind.
It doesn’t matter whether you are actually a professional, whether you actually make any money. Plenty of people who have never seen a cent from their writing still suffer these same problems because extrinsic motivations loom large in their minds. The good new is that, by the same token, some very financially successful writers are probably able to write for the joy of it. (If I knew any personally, I would have asked them. Alas.)
The difference is in how well you can control your attention. If, when you sit down to write, you can silence any thoughts of personal gain, then for a time, you become an amateur in the best way possible. The professional can come out later, along with the editor. But the ability to control your mind to that degree takes practice. So how do you get started?
I’m afraid that’s just beyond my area of expertise. All I can tell you is how I’m approaching it, myself: when thoughts of money or praise enter my mind in the process of writing, I re-focus my attention on my work. Then, later, I take the time to intentionally plan methods to pursue those things. No doubt, you’ll find a method that works for you, too.
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