Motivational
slumps can hit anyone, at any time. It’s frustrating at best, and can cause
some pretty significant delays in productivity
and problem-solving. Here are few tips on how to get inspired:-
1.
Acknowledge that motivation
has rhythms just like your body, like the day, like the seasons, like the
years… You can’t always feel energized and
ready to take on the world with brilliant ideas and massive action. Sometimes
you need to pull back, rest, recharge your batteries and then get back to it.
Tell yourself it’s okay to not be inspired all the time. Go for a walk. Most of
all, relax! Don’t stress about it or
you’ll block creativity.
2.
Use other goals or projects to inspire creativity (past projects work excellently for
this, too). Play some mind games with yourself; see if you can make any connections
between seemingly unrelated activities. Are there approaches that work for
both? Can the way you tackle one task be applied to a completely different
task? What did you do to overcome obstacles in past projects?
3.
Narrow your focus. Lack of inspiration can result from
overwhelm. It’s difficult to clear your mind and open up to inspiration when
your mind is busy ticking off items on your to-do list, thinking ahead to the
next thing, etc. Prioritize what you have to do, choose the most important AND
urgent items and put your energies there. The urgent-but-unimportant and
important-but-not urgent things can wait; don’t even bother with the
unimportant and not urgent stuff.
4.
Quiet your mind. Meditation relaxes you,
relieves stress, and helps clear the mental cobwebs, especially when you’re
super busy and overwhelmed. Learn how using the Silva Method; and take this
time to open your mind to the marvelous ideas and inspirations that are waiting
for you! Most of your inspiration is within you and it’s simply blocked by
having too busy of a mind. Imagine a pool of water. If there’s a lot of
turbulence on the surface, you can’t see the goldfish below the surface. The
surface has to be calm in order to get a good look at the goldfish!
5.
Get inspired by others who have achieved something you think is cool. Whether or not that person has
achieved anything even remotely similar to what you’re doing, you may find just
the technique, mindset, ideas or information that you need at that moment.
6.
Get excited about what you’re trying to accomplish. Hmmm…. how to get excited about
something that you’re not excited about (hence the motivational slump?). Make a
list of the ways your goal will enrich your life. Then make a list of how that
goal will enrich other people’s lives. Then start talking about your goal, and
its many benefits. Talk to lots of people. Speak with enthusiasm and watch them
get fired up about it. Let their enthusiasm fuel your fire even more.
7.
Set a deadline. Surprisingly, having a deadline
looming over your head inspires you like few things can. Whether it’s a real
deadline or completely arbitrary, set one and stick to it. Many a brilliant
achievement sat idle until the night before…
8.
Chunk it. Any goal, no matter what it is, can
be overwhelming (have you ever opened the garage door with the intention of
cleaning it out… and then quickly shut it after a brief look at the chaos?). If
you break it down, or chunk it, into very small manageable steps, you’ll be
more motivated to actually get up and do something. Part of this is remembering
the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your
actions. Identify those, and do them first thing before you do anything else.
That builds momentum, and momentum builds inspiration.
9.
Get help. Talking things out, asking for
ideas, brainstorming and working on something together all help stimulate
creativity, motivation and even inspiration. This also helps you from being too
overwhelmed with the big picture since you don’t have to “do it all.”
10.
Get to work! Get your creative juices flowing,
no matter how stuck you feel. Whatever your project is, get working on it.
Artists, designers, architects, writers and musicians (and all other creative
types) know that you could be in the worst sort of inspirational slump,
slogging along completely not enjoying what you’re doing and then suddenly, “it”
hits you…
11.
Stick with it! Putting a project aside for a short
time to recharge your batteries is one thing… dropping the project altogether
is something else. When you go to recharge, give yourself no more than a day,
if that (if you are able). Do not give up. Even if your inspiration doesn’t hit
today, or tomorrow, or the next week, you’re not going to achieve anything by
waiting. Don’t allow frustration to overwhelm you. Sometimes, the process is
slow. Let it be slow. Enjoy the journey.
12.
Focus on the little things.
Looking at the big picture can bring inspiration, but don’t forget the little
things. See the details. See the small delights. Allow the tiniest of successes
motivate you!
13.
Shift your perspective. Imagine
you are enormous, far, far larger than your project or problem. Use the Silva
visualization exercises to imagine yourself
physically, mentally and spiritually larger than this thing. What can you see
from “up there”? And then, imagine you’re tiny, so tiny that you can see the
tiniest details as though they were life-sized. Have fun with this. There’s no
room for being serious when you’re blowing yourself up huge or shrinking
yourself tiny. It’s all about seeing what you are looking at, from a different
point of view.
14.
Monitor your self-talk. Watch
how you talk to yourself! If your self-talk is negative and self-defeating, you
shut the door on inspiration.
15.
Relax. Let inspiration come… while you are
busy doing something else. Inspiration is about allowing, not forcing. That
doesn’t mean “do nothing and wait for inspiration to drop out of the sky.” Step
back from the thing you’re stuck on, go do something else and let inspiration
come.
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