You can’t sprint down the block if you’re not breathing. You need oxygen in order to move your legs and pump your arms. No oxygen, no movement, no life.
It’s the same with creativity.
You can’t churn out a flurry of newsletters, blog posts, e-books, screenplays, or anything else if you’re not feeling inspired. You need inspiration in order to generate new ideas, come up with great stories, move your fingers over your keyboard and create. No inspiration, no ideas, no content. (And if you’re running a business: no products, no launches, no income.)
(Did you know that the original meaning of the word “inspire” was “to breathe in”? Oxygen and inspiration. Both are required in order to live and thrive. Non-negotiable. Coincidence? Nope I don’t think so.)
But what if you’re just not feeling inspired?
You’ve got an enormously big to-do list but… blah. No inspo.
Or you’ve blocked out the entire evening to work on an important project—you set your intention, you lit your fave candle, your workspace is set up just how you like it, you have zero distractions, and yet—nothing interesting comes to mind. You’re blank.
That’s the worst.
Unlike with breathing, which usually happens unconsciously and automatically, inspiration isn’t always automatic. Sometimes you have to assertively seek out inspiration and fill yourself up.
The problem is most of us forget to do this. Or we become over-reliant on the same ol’ blogs, the same ol’ places, the same ol’ faces, even if they provide little to no inspiration any longer. Yet we keep visiting. We get stuck in a rut.
My advice:
Bust out of your bubble.
Seek inspiration from spaces, places, faces and sources you haven’t seen yet.
Stretch yourself. Shake it up.
If you always head left on your walk home from the coffee shop, turn right.
If you never talk to strangers on the subway, tomorrow, ask someone, “Where are you heading today? What’s your story?”
If you’ve been reading the same blogs for five years, tonight, instead, pick up an erotic novel or a book of love poems or a memoir written by an astronaut.
If you’ve been going to the same Sunday night yoga class with the same teacher for months, try a juggling class, or improv comedy, or hip hop, or snowboarding.
Place yourself in a fresh, demanding environment. That’s how you’ll fill up your inspiration-tank and generate your next great idea. Not inside your safe, usual bubble.
The biggest mistake, as an entrepreneur, is to spend all of your time reading books about business, reading quotes about business, taking classes led by business owners, visiting business-focused blogs, listening to teleseminars led by people in business… blaaaaah. If that’s your entire world (business-business-business) no wonder you’re feeling burnt out, bored and uninspired. You’ve got to grab inspiration from other places. It’s a must.
This goes for every type of career path, not just running a business. Take screenwriting. Could you imagine a show like Empire written by screenwriters who only read books about screenwriting, blogs about screenwriting, take classes about screenwriting, and whose life experiences are limited to screenwriting school? Uh, no. Empire would suck.
Instead, Empire’s writing room is stacked with former music industry moguls who witnessed the Biggie/Tupac feud, people who were artists themselves, and who have lived through intense prejudice. The character “Cookie” was not born because a screenwriter read a screenwriting blog post called “10 Ways to Write a Badass Female Character.” She was born from a room of badasses who have lived pieces of Cookie’s life themselves, and whose writing is inspired by real-life experiences out in the world.
Tonight, instead of reaching for whatever you typically reach for, or doing whatever you typically do, try something new. Instead of scrolling through Facebook and staring at babies and cat pics, walk outside with no agenda and make some memories tonight.
Breathe in some fresh air.
Your life, your writing, your work… everything gets revitalized when you breathe in something new.
