How do you stay Motivated?

So far I've been keeping myself motivated (or at least enough to get an update up on time) by either listening to music (which sometimes makes me procrastinate even more lol) as I draw, or pretty much forcing myself to draw pages if I'm cutting way too close to the deadline date (which I've basically drilled into my head not to miss said deadline or I'm going to end up swallowed up by laziness lol)

...Plus the want to tell my story and show my characters helps too 8U
//though my lack of confidence in my writing abilities hinders my motivation a bit orz

I've almost never finished anything. It's not that I'm lazy (ok, not a lot at least) I either loose interest or find something else that I think is better (often both).
What motivates me to keep going is knowing that if I finsh it it'll be the first time I made a goal that I stuck with. And I don't think I'll be stopping soon (it's been at least five months now) that's pretty cool.

Publicly announce an update schedule; e.g. every Wednesday. If you fail to meet it, you're a failure in your fans' eyes. It's surprisingly effective, yet stressful.

Oh god that's so true! Keeps you from slacking off real good.

I don't really have an answer but I just wanted to say that this thread is so helpful and I'm glad that I'm not the only one who feels this way I've tried to have a buffer before but I didn't manage to get more pages done before it ran out XD. I'm trying to do clusters of 4-5 pages at a time so that people have a bit to read before the next update, but with uni/work it is hard to update frequently. What keeps me going is the fact that I'm redrawing my comic, and I'm desperate to tell the rest of the story haha!

When I have something fun to tell

Similarly to how I do so with writing fiction, that is that I usually keep a permanent notebook around handy to do some drawing off line. Which is no problem if you do traditional, a little trickier if your more of a digital girl.

I happen to be more traditional.

My biggest tip is that I've recently took to listening to audiobooks while I draw. I only listen to the story if I'm drawing. A good story makes you want to continue listening and as a result, carry on drawing. It's worked really well for me. I also listen to a lot of documentaries on my favourite subjects and the time flies by for me.
I have a couple of different projects on the go too. I do my webcomic here and I'm also working on an illustrated novel so I have the option to jump between projects if the other doesn't fire me up. My workspace is decorated with inspiring quotes and autographs of my heroes and I find that always helps.

Hello there,
I totally understand the feeling.
When I was doodling stuff a few years back I would always want to change theme.
But now I finally decided I had to focus and tell this one story that stuck.

So I wrote bulletpoints of what happens in each chapter. Leaving a little bit of flexibility so I don't know exactly..
And I really wanna draw it to see how it turns out...

I discovered I can only work under pressure.
I set a goal of one page per week, and I always draw at my lunch break from work.
With the clock ticking, there is no time to doodle, wonder or browse Internet.

If I don't do it, who will? The story just has to be told...

I just think that if I keep on doing my comics, I am not a complete failure and waste of space.

This is such a depressing comment, I am sorry. XD

But I saw authors saying that they have hours when they are more productive, so they try to adjust those hours in a healthy way, and that sometimes it is good to stop and just doodle/sketch/write to recover tour energy and motivation.

But I think it is also good to not give a looong break.

My initial motivation, independent from feedback or appreciation from the folks around me or on the Interwebs, comes from really wanting to tell this story in a (relatively) unique fashion. Everything's been done before and there's nothing new under the sun, of course - but designing a story, characters and art style that's really YOU - I find that this is highly motivating. There's plenty of lookalike stories out there - there's plenty of readers looking for something weird or different, even if it's far from perfect. Perfection is pretty boring, anyway

Also, I really immerse myself in the minds and hearts of my OC's, often writing associative texts, poetry or 'automatic writing' to find out who they are and what they want. This can be motivating because they become more than just vehicles for the story - they actually push the story along.

However, if no one Out There actually enjoys what I create, or gives feedback and appreciation, I tend to get quite frustrated. But taking it slow and letting myself be inspired by other creator's awesomeness (and hardships) keeps me on track. Also, I really appreciate the comments I get!

Hope this was of some help to thee <3

This does relate only to my current, long-term webcomic btw - I've done plenty of other short comics before, but really having the time to work on this story, create lavish pages and not squish 10 panels into one measly black-and-white page is very liberating!

Another good idea is staying away from sources of negativity. Like some many of the old places I visited, are the source of so much general negativity and chest puffing.

I can't wait till I move, with only free wifi.

I work with my spouse so we keep each other motivated. There have been many times where one of us have totally wanted to quit, but the other ones keeps us going. We have a set of goals that we want to accomplish as well. It always seems like when we want to quit something happens to move us forward towards a goal and it ramps up our motivation again. So we keep going. Sometimes it is hard, but we refocus and move forward the best we can.

As some have already said, it's about discipline. It's imposible to be 100% motivated every day, so I guess that if you're doing a long-term comic, you'll have to face this problem a lot of days.

For me, I hadn't started making comics "seriously" until this year because I knew I'd give up soon because of my lack of "motivation" (discipline)

Of course, there're days when the only thing I want to do is nothing because I don't feel good enough and all that stuff (and the only way to get better at making comics is making comics...). If I'm too bad, that day I won't work on my comic because the quality will drop. You have also to think about that

I always look at each page/strip as a vehicle to improve something in my artistic repertoire. That one thing becomes sort of like a mini-boss in a videogame that I learn to beat on my way to getting to the final boss, a finished page.

Cryptic 101
Having just one person who is in love with you and what you are. Love might bring us back together.

This might sound dumb, especially since some prevailing advice is that sometimes you have to 'kill your babies,' but I think you just need to fall in love with your comic. (Again, if you haven't already.) This is going to be a novel, so stick with me here!

Early on in my comic's journey, maybe four months after launch, I had to reexamine it closely to figure out what about it was not working for me. That resulted in me hammering out the script, actually renaming it (only recommend in special cases), and making sure it was really the story I wanted to tell rather than going for the cheap shot or easy way out. The more I work on my script (it is done but I am always tweaking it) the more I love it. And I love this story so much that I know what needs to be done, even if that means 'killing my babies.' By that I don't mean characters, I mean the entire story and its ideas -- don't be so attached to it that you can't change it. Entire chapters have just been tossed out or set aside, plot points removed or changed, etc. Knowing your comic well helps you understand its strengths, appeal, which can help you target your advertising.

So, staying motivated:

One: Get to know your comic again. What is it about your comic that is awesome? If you don't love it, no one else will! You certainly won't want to spend endless hours making the darn thing!

Two: Try to find one thing to do when you feel despair. For me, it's pages. Forcing myself to work on pages always focuses me and balances my mood out.

Three: Network with other artists, which is what you are doing here! You know we all have these problems to some degree, and everyone here has posted their methods of staying motivated.

Four: Be tough on yourself and be realistic about your time, and this is the primary reason I force myself to do pages when I feel despair. When you are doing a comic, the pages are the most important thing.

Everything else is for vanity -- illustrations, etc. When I studied fashion design I was told that the shows were for vanity; all your hard work behind the scenes and the every-day designs you make to sell are the reality, and what you should focus more on. I keep that in mind for comics. When I tripled my weekly updates, the amount of illustrations I did decreased sharply. Sketches are good though, they help you warm up, learn new things and reinforce good habits.

Five: Be active in advertising, networking, and talking with readers. Communication is very important for comics, especially young comics. Remember to keep an allotted amount of time for this though, because you don't want these activities to take over your content-creating time.

Six: Recognise your working style so you can head off burn-out. If you gotta take a break now and again in order to avoid a longer, more painful burn-out, do it.

Maybe make a motivational music list as well? Honour your moods. Sometimes I listen to four songs on repeat, but for whatever reason, it is what I needed for those pages.

In terms of keeping motivated with art, there's one thing that never fails to get me excited to draw (and @Savannah already mentioned this): speed paint videos. Watching other people work is something grand -- to see how they sculpt their lines, blend their colors and show off their techniques... Gets me pumped every time. Speed painting has become so prevalent on YouTube that its algorithm has automatically generated a channel that specifically collects speed paint videos created by artists of all kinds, and you can indulge in it here. One of my personal favorites is this piece by "Mirey's".

And, while I'm at it, I made a speed paint video of my own, finalizing a page to my comic. /shamelessselfpromotion