“A Nation Seeking Inspiration”-How to Inspire the Uninspired

“ Every day may not be a good day, but there is good in every day.”- 

 Where does inspiration come from? This question is something that I think about regularly. The concept has been discussed from time to time in the therapy office, and more recently has seeped into my daily conscience. To be honest, the main reason that I chose to write about this topic for todays blog post is because finding inspiration is something I have recently struggled with. (I resorted to posting a poll on Instagram to help provide me with some inspo for this very blog post!)

I know from my personal experience, feeling uninspired can be very scary. It comes with questions and self-doubt. Through my work, I have found that people tend to believe that if they feel inspired, they are then motivated, passionate or purposeful (while lack of inspiration leads to a lack of motivation, laziness or uselessness). I have also found that people associate inspiration and motivation with success and lack of such things with failure (this is where things become tricky). 

Ironically, I chose to write about this topic the day before participating in the Orange Theory 1 mile “benchmark run” in which I fell just shy of breaking my personal record time. At first, I was extremely disappointed in myself. I was frustrated that I did not push myself harder and blamed my “failure” on my lack of inspiration and motivation. My head became filled with negative thoughts and self-doubt, i.e. “clearly I’m not in good shape”, “maybe I just can’t beat my previous time”, “I’ve been slacking” etc.  Although I tried to focus on other things, my attention kept coming back to my negative mental state. 

We often attach significant meanings to words, particularly the words inspiration,motivation and purpose– after all that is what we are all striving for, right? However, I believe that when we allow words to hold too much weight, we allow words to consume us,control us and identify us, which can be damaging to our mental and emotional health. 

After taking time for reflection (and listening to a few of my favorite tunes), I laughed out loud; literally.  I recognized that if I am spending so much time and energy thinking about this event (my sub par performance in the 1 mile run), clearly I care about it (as Sheryl Sandberg says -“motivation comes from working on the things we care about”). In that moment, not only did I remind myself, but someone unknowingly reminded me that “failure” provides space for inspiration to grow. If we choose to look at our failures as opportunities to grow and inspire (rather than as evidence for despair and defeat), we will fare much better (physically, mentally and emotionally)!

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”