Follow genuine interest, not strategic interest
Pursue the thing that genuinely excites you — even if you cannot explain why or see how it fits.
Why it works
Intrinsic interest signals a match between a domain and the person’s cognitive and emotional architecture — which predicts sustained engagement and depth of exploration. Creative work typically requires far more sustained effort than the initial concept warrants; intrinsic motivation is one of the few forces durable enough to power that sustained effort through the long middle of a project.
How to do it
- When starting a project, ask "does this genuinely excite me?" before "is this a good idea?"
- Notice when excitement is genuine versus performed — intrinsic interest is recognizable by sustained spontaneous engagement, not just initial enthusiasm.
- Allow yourself to pursue interests that seem tangential or impractical — Rubin explicitly treats these as the most valuable signal.
- Periodically return to something you loved before "what to do with it" became a question.
Evidence
Self-determination theory research consistently finds that intrinsic motivation produces better quality creative work and greater persistence than extrinsic motivation, particularly for complex, open-ended tasks. Amabile’s (1985) study of creative writers found that simply orienting people toward extrinsic reasons for writing measurably lowered the judged creativity of what they then produced. (observational)
Intrinsic motivation supports creative quality in the lab; professional creative work also requires finishing, which often requires external structure — pure interest alone may not carry a project to completion.
Sources
- Amabile (1983), The Social Psychology of Creativity — intrinsic motivation and creative output
- Amabile, T. M. (1985). Motivation and creativity: Effects of motivational orientation on creative writers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(2), 393–399.
Common mistake
Pursuing what you think you should be interested in, or what others will find impressive, rather than what actually moves you — producing technically competent but hollow work.
Practice this with IX Coach
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More practices for The Creative Act: Rick Rubin’s Approach to Making
- Cultivate awareness as your primary creative tool
Pay unusually close attention to what you notice, what you feel, and what catches you — these are the raw material.
- Collect everything that resonates — without editing
Build a practice of gathering ideas, images, sounds, and fragments without evaluating whether they are "good enough."
- Experiment without attachment to outcome
Make many small experiments and treat each result as information — not as success or failure.
- Treat completion as craft, not finish line
The final 20% of a project — finishing and releasing — is its own skill that must be practiced.
- Protect solitude and silence as creative inputs
Schedule regular time alone, away from stimulation — this is not a luxury but the condition for original thought.
- Approach your own work with beginner’s mind
When evaluating your work, try to experience it as a stranger would — without the story of how it was made.