This is a continuation from this short 3 part series on inspiration.  My original guest post called, “8 Steps to Inspire Others ” and my last article, “8 Methods to Find Inspiration ”. I hope this helps you find ways to spin your inspirations into action.

Research and Learn the Subject

Obviously I’m a big proponent to learning and so learning more about any subject or person that inspires you is a great starting point for activating your mind on the subject.  Once you activate your mind by learning more about the subject and by thinking more about it, it will more easily lead into action in your life.  If you can excite your mind and generate more and more interest in doing something, then the actions come much easier later on.

There is a definite balance here to maintain between too little time before action and too much.  That point will not be equal for everyone and I think it needs experimentation to realize.  If you spend all your time learning about a subject and don’t take any action, then the learning can be more of the inspiration than the action and when it does come time to take actions, then the learning component is greatly reduced.  On the other hand, if you take action without knowing anything about the subject, it’s possible to cause more harm than good by either frustrating yourself or in some cases causing emotional, physical or relational pain because of the actions you took without understanding them well.  Balance this by knowing at least enough about what new things you are getting into and find the right people to help or guide you and you can make the learning experience align with the actions you take keeping the inspiration that drives it satisfied and in balance.

Connect with Others

A great way to act on inspiration is to look to share and connect with others that have similar interests and activities.  As I outlined in the finding inspiration article, this strengthens the inspiration and gives you people to talk with and share more experiences about the events that drive this.

These connections can easily develop into closer relationships and friendships and these will give you friends and colleagues to act out your inspiration with.  You can use each other and work together to achieve the results you want in this related area.

Ask For and Accept Help

Connecting with others is great when perfectly aligned as your energy and synergy can be very motivating, but that is not enough with inspiration.  Inspiration is about change and new things, so there are always areas you will face that will be a challenge to act on.  This is where these connections come in as you now have people to ask for help when you need it.  They can guide you in areas they are stronger at and they can encourage you to drive through challenge far more than you could tackle on your own.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help already , and then be willing to accept it.  Accepting it is the part that means action and there is no exception with that here.

Do the same for others by helping where you can you will continue to promote your inspiration not only in yourself, but also in those learning from you.

Take Action Soon

Don’t wait too long to take action towards something that inspires you.  I already mentioned the item of learning and researching a subject, but there’s more than that.  Often people are afraid to do something because it is so grand or noble or simply outside their comfort zone.  It can be the simple things that as an action, shift from from a wisher on inspiration to an actor on inspiration.

Look at the things that inspire you from the first section on finding your inspiration and pick some action to do more of that or to begin implementing one of these items in this article to make it real.  A small step today that gets you closer just lets you take a bigger one tomorrow and it will send you down the path towards the results you hope to achieve from whatever inspired you in the first place.  If it is a person that inspires you, then contact them.  You’d be surprised how easy this can be, even if they are busy people, famous or in some other way, hard to reach.  People who inspire others, do so because of connections and they know this, so will generally be happy to talk to you, to help or to at least give you some direction to get you started.

The sooner you start doing something real with your inspirations the sooner you will gain the results hoped for.  This enables you to then move on to new inspirations or to grow the original one with more intensity, more importance and dedication in your life.

Visualize Results

Action is definitely more important to take than this step, but this one can give you nearly all the same benefits when the action is simply not possible yet or because of where you are.  The imagination of the mind is a wondrous thing, it simply doesn’t know the difference between what is imagined and what is real.  This gives you a fantastic ability to experience achieving what you want from these inspirations even when you are not doing an real actions on them.  There have been countless studies and brain research conducted about how the mind’s imagination can be used to become stronger, more creative, confident and even better at actions when they are finally performed for real either the first time or after many repetitions.

If you add visualizing your results into your steps for acting on inspiration, you will see the benefits without the practice.  Beyond this, it also helps you to realize what your true desired outcomes are as you can imagine it before it happens.  This visualized results can be a strong motivator to take even more action!

Be Persistent

I’ve touched on persistence before in my productivity series, and it is just as valuable here.  Persistence is about being headed in the right direction , making progress in that direction and consistently steering your actions toward your goals.  Since taking action on inspiration will always be in some way challenging, it’s important to accept setbacks and failures along the way.  If you learn from those, get back up and be persistent by trying again, you will make great progress and eventually be where you want to be.  You can’t let a setback stop you!

Set Goals

All of this is based on getting somewhere new with inspiration and so you can’t do that without some goals in mind.  It may be some new ability to learn, material possessions, or a special talent or ability, no matter what it is, you won’t easily get their without setting some goals for guidance.  Goals are a brilliant tool if used well and typically abysmal failures if not understood well or planned properly.

Your goals must connect to something with meaning in your life.  Luckily this topic of inspiration largely addresses this as inspirational expectations are usually seated in something already important to a person.

Goals must also be measureable.  This inherently makes them something you need to consider and be realistic with as you will have to have a way to measure it.  Something to count, to see or specifically identify and recognize.  Go ahead and set audacious goals but if you do, ensure you can easily recognize progress and keep driving forward.  If you struggle with goals, be a little less aggressive and set easier goals to train yourself and gain some ground with accomplishment while acting on your inspirations.

Also, ensure your goals are time based with specific dates so that you can focus on them and know when they need to be checked, changed and rewritten.  Don’t leave your goals to be static.  Taking on a challenge with something that inspires you will be new, and so will the goals so you can’t expect to set them early and never need to adjust them along the way.  Go ahead and drive towards them, work hard to reach them but don’t worry if they need to be adjusted along the way.

Be Enthusiastic

I just love this one!  It is so powerful and yet so under used by people who want to act on something that inspires them.  Even more of a crime is when people are inspired by another person, and that person is extremely enthusiastic yet that doesn’t seem obvious to the person looking to then act on that enthusiasm.  Well, I can tell you, if you put more enthusiasm into your actions, you will make much faster progress.  Enthusiasm will build confidence as well and it automatically attracts others and inspires them to find out more. Wouldn’t that be impressive to act on an inspiration and take it full circle, by inspiring someone else with the same thing!  I think so!

Not only will enthusiasm drive even more inspiration but it will help to engrain deeper beliefs in your mind.  Energy and excitement in the mind build stronger neural connections with new activities and things you learn so that enthusiasm can slowly turn into a deeper passion or conviction.  This will ensure you lock in place the beliefs needed to act on that inspiration at any time.  The passion will become stronger and in turn, that will continue to then be something you express, where once again you’ve come full circle as you begin to inspire others with it.

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