John Legend always wants his work to be the “best” he’s ever done.

The ‘All of Me’ hitmaker isn’t motivated by winning awards, but whatever he sets out to do, he always hopes it can be even better than anything he’s done before.

He said: “For me, it's just been focusing on the work, focusing on writing songs, focusing on trying to get better as an artist and be as good a performer as I can be. Really focusing very immediately on the project I'm working on and trying to make it the best project I've ever done.

“So I approach every album with that sense of trying to top myself to be better than I've ever been. And I feel that if I keep focusing on the work and trying to be the best I can be, I'm just going to keep going."

The 41-year-old singer – who has Luna, four, and Miles, two, with his wife Chrissy Teigen – also admitted he never has a specific plan in mind when he starts working on a new record.

He said in an interview: “Every one of my albums really just starts with me writing with different people. I think about who I want to write with and sometimes I take suggestions from my managers or I run into someone who I think would be interesting to collaborate with.

“And you never know what will come from these writing sessions, you just try things out and you start to see where your head is at and what's exciting you musically at the time. And then it starts to take shape, I don't go into it with a real plan.

"I don't know what the theme of the album will be before I start working on it. But the songs start to tell me where my head is and what direction I want to take the album."