8 Methods to Find Inspiration
Success February 23rd, 2009Tim @ Mini Life Hacks suggested I write a following up article from my guest post about 8 Steps to Inspire Others . Thanks for that suggestion Tim, I’ll first cover the methods to find inspiration in this article and my next one will cover how to take action on that inspiration.
Search Out New Experiences
Inspiration comes about because of change or seeing the possibility of change. If you always do the same things, this will be either minimal or non-existent. You must search out and have new experiences in order to find inspiration. This works by seeing new places or people that can inspire you. There are many ways to find and the inspiring moments and things will different for everyone. They might include some of these which I often find inspirational:
- Nature and God’s creations
- Creative art and writing
- Stylish music and sound
- Innovation and brain science
- Life impact stories (Arswino always has great examples of that at his blog )
- Underdog stories. Check out Lance’s example here at Jungle of Life: So Much More Than A Football Game
- Musica italo dance
These are just a few and everyone will have their own personal favorites that interest and inspire them. If you don’t go searching for this material to inspire you however, don’t expect it to simply come knocking on your door. You must search for it!
Keep An Open Mind
Once you do find new experiences, the unknown often drives fear or a defensive attitude towards it. The change that inspiration is generated from will only be held back by those initial worries or reactions so you must keep an open mind in these situations to see them from new perspectives. You want to let it shape you thoughts, change your initial response and give yourself some time to ponder the new things before denying any possible acceptance or further exploration of the subject. You never know what you could be missing if you close your mind to new ideas.
Watch Your Emotions
Emotions are often tied to that initial response but they also relate so closely to your past experiences they are often limiting or blinding what we dare to see or believe. A story that might be inspiring to one person can easily make another upset or angry based on how they relate their own experiences to that. Pay attention to your emotions, watch them carefully and try to control them. They can hide many subtle things that lead to inspiration at the wrong time or place. Keeping them under control and always trying to change the perspective you experience things in can help with getting past a negative emotional response.
Your emotions could just as easily be signals to find inspiration as often you feel deeply connected to something or you care a great deal about specific topics so you naturally gravitate and have interest their. Use this when it ties in well with the types of inspiration you want in your life.
Share the Experience
Finding inspiration comes a whole lot easier when you are actually talking about it doing that and talking with other people. This is where inspiration feeds inspiration in many cases as simply sharing one inspiring story with a friend or colleague can spark them to think of their own inspiring messages and it often waterfalls into a deeper relationship as you discuss important things between you. Each of those items shared also reveals something that has meaning to a person and knowing that thing is meaningful to them will automatically add importance to it in your life, especially if you already valued it.
Sharing stories of meaning and value are also a great way to discover new things and inspiration as well. The first step about searching for inspiration is made a whole lot simpler when other people bring those stories to you directly in conversation. Of course you will never feel the same hear about a story then experiencing it directly but often it inspires you enough to go make a similar experience yourself and get over your fears of leaving your comfort zone. Offering that same to others by sharing your experiences builds a stronger relationship where you can continue to share the inspiration and drive each other to find more of it.
Seek Out Solitude
While sharing your experience with others has it’s set of advantages and methods to find more inspiration, so does solitude at the opposite end of the spectrum. Solitude offers a way to focus your mind and body, which can allow you to tune in to your surroundings, your thoughts and your life. It lets you notice some of the things that inspire subtly and that you would have missed if stuck in a hectic noisy environment.
Solitude is also a place where we can find time for reflection and deep thinking. It helps a person link their actions and experiences to their thoughts, their hopes and their faith. Spending time in solitude can relax the mind and sharpen your senses which makes the impact of inspiration often more intense and lasting. Solitude will be different for different people, some may enjoy that time to think and study, others may meditate to relax the mind and body, and some may spend the time connecting spiritually through prayer and their internal connection to God. All these things help calm the emotions, alert the senses and help to make points of inspiration more obvious in your life, an important way to find more of the inspiration you are looking for.
Keep in Mind Your Role Models
Role models come about because they either inspire a person or make them jealous. Ask yourself what does your role model do that you like about them. Don’t look for what they have or can offer you, but only in what they do. Is it how they handle a situation, the steps they take to overcome hardship, their ability to lead and accomplish great things or perhaps it’s the methods they use to build and encourage strong relationship. Whatever it is, you can draw on that not only for seeing the inspiration but also to seek out more.
Do your role models align with the areas in your life you are passionate about? In other words, are they the source of inspiration that is most important to you?  It’s worth looking at how your role models steer you as often people have role models that steer them away from the important areas of their life and do so more because of social influence than heartfelt inspiration. I’m not suggesting you carve out your role models only from what is important to you right now, as that would limit finding new inspiration, however, it is important to ensure your role models are truly impacting you with inspiration that matters to you and not just because of social influence.
Align Your Actions
While most of this step will be broken out in my next article about taking action on inspiration, I think some alignment of your actions with what inspires you will also help you find more inspiration. Taking action towards something reinforces in our minds that action and it can quickly build the neural connections in your brain to learn that new action and associated inspiration that led to it. This makes inspiration last and grow in value in your mind so putting attention to something that inspires you along with specific actions will only strengthen that. This stronger connection will drive you to seek out even more, as the value you have towards that grows stronger and stronger. If you continue to take action on new inspirations, they will develop easier, strengthen themselves and associations with other inspirations and lead to developing new beliefs and passions .
Follow Your Faith
Finding inspiration is not easy, especially in our hectic world with so many false social influences and media bombardment. Connecting what is really important to you with what you encounter is something that you must learn to do to separate the noise from the inspiration in your life. This comes as no small tasks and while the steps above might all help in that, it’s going to come down to you trusting yourself and your beliefs to actually recognize what is inspirational to you. You must learn to trust your own judgment here, no matter the source. That source of judgment is founded in the faith you have towards knowing what matters, knowing what is right and knowing you will recognize the differences as you encounter them. This faith, whether you consider it spiritual or not, is one to be followed when seeking out inspiration.
Please add your comments about this article, your inspirations and your own methods of finding them. I’d love to know what drives you and how you find it!
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Next: 8 Steps for Acting on Inspiration
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 PM
Hi Mike,
Inspiration…something we can all use a bit of from time to time. One thing I think we need to do is just to allow ourselves to “be”. And in that “being” – accept that we will have moments when we could use some inspiration and it won’t be there. And that’s okay – it’s only temporary. And it is temporary – especially keeping in mind your eight points above.
Another way I’m inspired – is by some good music. For me – that’s some 80’s rock – turned up a little louder than normal. It just gets the blood flowing… I’m also inspired by friends. These are people that’ll be in my corner – and willing to cheer me on – when I need it – and that can be the inspiration I need to continue on…
Thanks for this article Mike – great thoughts once again. And thanks for linking back to me, I really appreciate it very much!
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 PM
Thanks for the thoughts Lance, and let me challenge you a little. I actually struggled a lot whether I wanted to include music and friends actually in this article. I ended up leaving music under the heading of new experiences because I then started thinking about so many other things that inspire me and others. I’d have had a list 50 things long and I wanted to focus on the methods, not the specific things themselves.
Along the same vein in finding a method, friends themselves don’t inspire me. But their stories and what I share with them do. I know this is subtle but it became quite clear to me when thinking about this how the person is not actually inspiring, its what they’ve experienced and how they share that with others that is inspiring. Even a boring experience if told well and shared with heartfelt meaning, can be inspirational. Anyway, there is huge potential to find inspiration in relationships, I am not doubting that, but to me at least its one step deeper than knowing they will always support you. That’s motivating, but not that inspirational on its own. Do you know what I mean?
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 PM
Hi Mike
This is really a great topic.
One of the things I aim / hope to achieve with my blog is inspiring others. This list can be used for the that too i.e. how to inspire others.
Stumbled.
Juliet
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:59 PM
Thanks Juliet and I appreciate the help via your stumble. I hope the next article on action can give you some ways to make this area work for you through your blog then as well.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:18 AM
Great post Mike. My latest method of inspiration has been the strange dreams I’ve had about death (of me and family members). They’ve helped me realise that life it too short and you just have to go for what you want.
Stumbled!
Cheers,
Glen
February 24th, 2009 at 4:27 AM
Great website, You offer amazing encouragement. I was wondering if you would be interested in checking out my website at http://www.successdemandsaction.com I would like to add you to my blog roll, would you be interested in exchanging links?
February 24th, 2009 at 5:00 AM
Hi Mike,
Very insightful and informative post.
I like your balance between sharing thoughts/ideas/experiences and also spending quality alone time to relax and contemplate about life.
Inspiration is definitely amazing and it is so dynamic and fluid.
Therefore, there are multitudes of ways to inspire people or to be inspired.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Hi Mike,
This is one cool article:)
I find escaping to a museum or even running on the tread mill can inspire me.It is relaxing and my mind drifts.
Something I recently rediscovered is reading history.
I get lost in some of the stories.I can spend hours doing this.
I have focused more on my blog in encouraging women to challenge themselves more.That is coming up:)
Hopefully,I can inspire a few.
Music- classical or jazz gets me going.I usually think about the composer and not so much the music.
I am just a history buff and find my inspiration in my heroes.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:56 AM
Seeking out solitude is important. I was taking a walk a couple nights ago, and I allowed myself to just get out of my head during that time and it was one of the most blissful moments I have had in a while.
@ Mike- What do you think about the process of getting out of our own heads? How can that add to the solitude of life?
February 24th, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Excellent article Mike,
One of my greatest sources for inspiration comes from meeting new people who are making a positive contribution to the world around them. Every one of the eight points is vital for balance and you covered each one beautifully.
Thanks for you positive contribution, I’m inspired.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:38 PM
Hi!
Thanks for your great article. Your words already an inspiration to me.
See you around.
February 24th, 2009 at 10:18 PM
@Glen – Thanks for the stumble as well, always appreciated. I totally forgot about how dreams can be an inspiration in the list of experiences as well. Good one!
@Vincent – Thanks vincent, yes I think solitude is often overlooked in our busy society. Inspiration is a complex thing with many ways, I agree.
@Bunny – Museums and history, good ones. I also like the idea of exercise, that one works in combination with solitude for me.
@Jay – Getting our heads calm and out of our own way is definitely an interesting subject. I guess as a starting point, I don’t agree with people that say you need a distraction. That doesn’t help. What is really needed is a way to exhaust the thoughts by asking and thinking about all the thoughts that exist to a point where there is nothing left. That is the only really way to get out of your own head. That might be prayer for some, meditation or simply alone time of peace and calm.
@Jonathan – Thanks for your thoughts on the article. I find the same inspiration in others as servants to the world and to God. Especially people who truly demonstrate generosity in everything they do as well. That is not an easy virtue for me but it always inspires me.
@lunaticg – thanks for the comment and stopping by!
February 25th, 2009 at 2:38 AM
Hi Mike
I get most of my inspirations from other people – listening to them or reading their words. Sometimes it comes from within in those peaceful moments or in the face of nature at its grandest.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:33 AM
re: friends – good point Mike. It’s not the people so much as their experiences and stories. So, yes, that does make sense. I still see people as inspirational when they’re in our corner – although that falls along the same lines. It may not be experiences and stories from them that are inspiring (or it might be) – I think it can also be their language.
Anyway, this whole article is excellent, as well as the comments – great stuff.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:16 AM
Keeping the faith is one of my top priorities when it comes to being inspired with my daily life. I think that by looking ahead and being firm about the positive things i life, I’ve become more inclined to reject negativity and accept optimism. A very helpful article that should serve as a reminder for all of us.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:32 AM
New experiences works best for me. Sometimes we should stop working for a while and see what others do. Sometime their simplest action can bring us new inspirations. Relax and ideas will come to us.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:01 AM
@Ian – Thanks Ian, glad to hear both areas work to influence you.
@Lance – I see what you mean for the point of just having them in our corner, supporting and loving us, yes, that is inspiring for sure… And certainly language could fit in with stories I guess, just depends how you look at that. Thanks for the extra thoughts here Lance, I always appreciate your kind feedback.
@Jared – Faith is great one, I too rely on this alone with some solitude for inspiration and reflection. Thanks for your comments!
@Isaac – Thanks, and great to hear what works for you as well. Lots of people find that the new experiences, some peace and quite and what they learn from others is what helps the most.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:22 AM
I think the biggest challenge for many these days is turning off technology long enough to allow inspiration to take hold! Interaction with others via technology can certainly bring inspiration, but more often technology gets in the way of other forms of inspiration.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:02 PM
Hayli, I completely agree! Certainly it helps find inspiration but technology is so distracting people just don’t take the time to let it sink in!
February 26th, 2009 at 1:21 PM
Nicely done, Mike. A definite bookmark to return to when it’s time for a quick “power boost”
A great primer on how to stay “conscious and purposeful” about all things important, as well.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:24 PM
I find inspiration by reading blogs, going to real estate investing meetings (NETWORKING), and going to other entrepreneurial meetings (NETWORKING). Talking to people and hearing their stories can really get a personal excited. I know it has served me well.
I seem to also find inspiration when I read “The Magic of Thinking Big”. I’ve never read a book that inspires me and makes me happy.
Great article Mike!
March 1st, 2009 at 10:52 PM
Rich Life Carnival #34…
Welcome to the March 2, 2009 edition of rich life carnival.
Healthy Living
J presents Mantralaya posted at Discover Karnataka, saying, “Mantralaya is a famous spiritual and pilgrimage center in south India. Apart from prayer this place also…
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Thank you for submitting your post to the Living by Design personal Development Carnival – it has been included in edition no. 33
July 10th, 2009 at 6:52 AM
Every individual can find inspiration from many different things or event. But ultimately what matters is to gain inspiration which is vital for life.
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 PM
I believe that the best inspiration comes when you´re communicating with people from different cultures – the difference makes the whole conversation inspiring, because it opens up a whole new perspective to the topic.
Keep up the good inspiration 🙂
December 31st, 2009 at 2:11 PM
Thanks Mike
Great Post. You made some excellent suggestions, especially the one about seeking out Solitude. In the busyness of life, we often forget to take the time to do that. I just wrote an article on that very thing myself.
Thanks for letting me know about your blog. I have added it to my Google Reader and will keep in touch.
Take care and have a wonderful day.
Veronica Hay
February 11th, 2010 at 8:04 AM
Great post – Inspiration & motivation go together and are both essential components for the success of any entrepreneur
.-= Entrepreneur´s last blog ..The Single, Easiest Way to Make Money Online from Home With Your PC =-.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:07 AM
Hi Mike,
What inspires me is focusing on things of inspiration as well. Sometimes when I tie my inspiration into my emotions, then the next minute not only am I feeling totally different but my inspiration is gone as well. This post helps me me a lot during those times when I’m not feeling inspired. Great article, thanks for sharing!
April 8th, 2010 at 1:34 PM
Hearing the stories of people who have overcome major challenges in their lives always leaves me feeling inspired… I feel taking action when ideas are running through your head from inspiration is a must for myself and often leads to positive things in my life. It may be something as minut as jotting the idea down until I can better act on it. Great post Mike
November 18th, 2010 at 8:38 AM
For me the easiest way is to learn from the words of the wise – I use inspirational quotes regularly alongside my goal list to keep me eager …
June 17th, 2011 at 3:31 AM
Thanks Mike for sharing! I totally agree with you on how one share his/ her experiences can be an inspiration to others, of course at the same time, the receiver must be ready to recieve the message.
I came across your article as I was trying to read sonmething that would help trigger my thoughts. Thanks again!Keep on shaing.
Cheers,
Esther
September 21st, 2011 at 10:20 AM
hey thanks mike….i really liked this article……everyone has a turning point at any part of their life…..either it may b from thier parents,teacher or their buddys….OR FROM THEIR OWN…we call this as “INSPIRATION”
July 19th, 2012 at 3:26 PM
Hi Mike,
I came across your 8steps to inspiration today and found them most useful, as i am wrting my own book on inspiration and would you mind if i could use the 8 steps as one on the chapters in my book.
Great work , keep it sending more please.
Thanks
Duke
July 19th, 2012 at 3:28 PM
I did sent out my comments
Thanks
Duke
July 26th, 2012 at 9:35 AM
Hi Mike. Your post is very great inspiration to me and thanks for sharing this topic with us.
January 19th, 2013 at 1:55 PM
This article is really helpful to learn how to get inpiration 🙂 thanks :)Inspiration is yhe biggest element in life which gives us the pathway that what to di in life 🙂