3 Inspiring Lessons I Learned From Beethoven On Creativity, Motivation, and Tapping Into Intuition

Did you know in the last few years of his life, Beethoven composed what many consider the single greatest piece of music ever written — the Ninth Symphony?

Typically we tend to associate getting physically older with slowing down in terms of creativity and productivity. It’s pretty astounding that one of his greatest creations came when he was near the end and out of his proverbial “prime”.

If that’s not motivating and inspiring to always be creating, do work you love, and keep evolving into the next great iteration of yourself, I don’t know what is.

But here’s the real kicker: Beethoven did it when he was deaf.

As writer Brian Clark speculates in this post, deafness perhaps liberated Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had the expectations and standards set by the masses swirling around in his head.

Meaning, deafness forced him to just create from a place of truth within himself — allowing him to define his own meaning of what constitutes a masterpiece.

Here are three lessons we can take away from this:

Lesson 1: Sometimes the boundaries and constraints we set for ourselves are based on the expectations of others: family, friends, religion, the media, etc. Set your own standard for creativity and self-expression and define your own meaning of not only success but of happiness and fulfillment.

Lesson 2: No matter where we are in life, no matter our age, situation, or circumstance it’s never too late to do our best work just as Beethoven did with the Ninth Symphony. It’s never too late to go down a new path, pursue a passion, take the plunge on something calling you, or change your life period.

Lesson 3: We are more than our physical bodies and what we can perceive is way beyond our 5-senses. We have intuition and a higher self we can tap into for creative expression that is far more powerful than what our rational minds can do. There’s an energy inside us that emanates from the source of all energy that has created worlds. Harness the bad boy!