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Your Ultimate Guide to Finding Inspiration Everywhere

From time to time, you may feel uninspired and down in the dumps. How can you get the creative spark back at such moments? Let us explore what inspiration is and then delve into some avenues through which you can find your inspiration.

What is Inspiration?

It isn’t easy to get a consensus definition of what inspiration is, but consider it to be motivation that you get from a source that is external to you. That motivation drives you to bring into reality an idea or something that you have in mind. It can also result in finding novel solutions to a problem you have been grappling with, or helping you to see things in a new light.

For example, you may look at a very old tree in a park and this inspires you to come up with an abstract art painting.

Contrary to what many may think, inspiration is all around us. We discuss some of the avenues through which you can find a spark of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing again.

Read, Read, and Read

Reading books, articles and other written materials is one sure way to find inspiration. There is very little that is absolutely new under the sun, and people who read widely get access to knowledge and different perspectives that inspire them to make progress in whatever way they want.

For example, when you read an autobiography of someone you admire, you can be inspired by the insights they share about how they approached the different challenges that they encountered in their life.

When you are an avid reader, you are constantly encountering new ideas or new ways of thinking, and this exposure enriches your mind to the extent that you can easily find new ways to make use of the ideas you read about.

Watch Movies, Documentaries, etc.

Inspiration can also be found by watching movies, series, documentaries and other such audio-visual material. Great movies have a way of broadening your view of what is possible, and this can translate into inspiration for you to go after your dreams.

Another hidden gem in reading books or watching movies is that this activity temporarily gets your conscious mind away from brooding over whatever challenges you may be facing. When your conscious mind switches off from the cares and worries of your life, the subconscious mind gets to work on what has been bothering you. The end result is that a solution will just appear “out of nowhere” and the problem will be resolved.

It is therefore a good idea to spend some time watching movies if you are in a rut and want to get a spark of inspiration.

Change Your Environment

It is easy to lose your inspiration if you are always in the same place doing the same things day after day. You can even get to a point where you are on auto-pilot and aren’t engaged in whatever you are doing or is happening around you.

This is why inspiration can be derived from a change of environment. All your senses come alive once again, and your mind is sharpened by the new experiences of the new environment.

A change of environment can be as simple as getting out of the house to take a walk in the woods, or you can spend a weekend exploring another city. Speaking of cities, you can also get inspired by exploring another section of the city where you live by taking a long walk rather than driving through the place.

If you are down in the doldrums, a change of environment may be all you need to get a dose of inspiration.

Do a Digital Detox

Technology and our mobile devices make us to be constantly bombarded by news, notifications of messages from friends and acquaintances, updates about what the celebrities we follow are up to, and so on.

This constant chatter and noise can take quite a toll on one’s mind and body, especially if you are an introvert who needs frequent periods alone to recharge from all the stimulation around you.

This is why a digital detox is important if you would like to regain your inspiration. Turn all your gadgets off and spend some time alone to give your mind and body a reprieve from the fast-paced life around you, and all the digital noise.

By so doing, you will give your mind time to rest and recover, and that could be the key that opens the door to your inspiration from within.

Reconnect with Who You Are

If we aren’t careful, the demands of life can sneakily push us farther and farther away from who we really are at the core, and that could zap all your inspiration.

For example, the direct and indirect pressure to conform to what we see on social media can be a strong force that gets you to stray from who you really are to what society expects you to be. This could be part of the reason why many celebrities and high-profile persons end up with mental health issues.

It is therefore a good idea to take time off and reconnect with who you are on the inside so that your inspiration for your work and other aspects of your life can return. For example, are there hobbies that you used to enjoy but have now dropped to the wayside due to your busyness?

Now is the time to set aside time for those hobbies so that the spark in your eye can return. Similarly, what core values do you have and have set them aside due to various reasons? It might be that you love helping people, but you are in a job that sometimes requires you to do things that cause people to suffer. An example of such work is being the person who is sent around to evict individuals whose homes have been foreclosed on.

If the work you do isn’t in sync with your core values, you might want to come up with a plan that gradually “rescues” you from that line of work before you lose yourself (and your mind).

Fortunately, not many people may have to take that extreme step. Most may just need to spend some quiet time meditating, journaling or engaging in other such activities so that they come up with ways to reconnect with who they are. Inspiration will naturally follow if you align your life with who you are.

When all is said and done, inspiration is to be found in lots of unexpected places and even in the most mundane of things. You need to be mindful and be in the moment, and there may be no shortage of sources of inspiration. To get started on recovering your sense of inspiration, look no further than the suggestions above. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Keep an eye out and you will find inspiration almost everywhere!