Inspire: v.
- Fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.
- breathe in (air); inhale.
Syn. Heartening, stirring, motivate, energize, encourage, incite, persuade, draw in, drink in, inbreathe
As entrepreneurs, you are constantly communicating the value of your services and products. And in today’s visually-connected world, it often requires creative savvy.
Whether it’s problem-solving creativity or creative arts, inspiration plays a vital role in getting the brain firing toward those coveted AH-HA moments.
Why does inspiration matter?
If you’ve been in business for a while, being inspired can make a difference between staying connected to, or isolating yourself from your communities.
When you get stuck in your ways of doing business or refuse to find new ways to learn about your customers, it’s easy to lose the passion for what you do.
Why are you uninspired?
Seasonal burnout fizzles out your inspiration.
Life can sometimes become an endless merry-go-round of new year goals, busy springs, vacationless summers, and holiday burnout.
How stuck do you feel when you are that uninspired? Does the season change bring stress? If remembering to prioritize what will drive your business or your personal life towards impact seems overwhelming, the burnout may be looming.
But try thinking of new seasons as opportunities for resets. Dig through your goals. Give them a tweak.
Repetition drives you away from inspiration:
Many of us have parts of our jobs that are tedious and repetitive. It still must get done.
This sort of repetition can often leave you feeling like you’ll never get around to taking your business to the next level. It may even convince you that you should quit working toward your goals.
What parts of your tasks could use a refresher? Is it time for a second look for efficiency or perhaps connection?
Over–automation disconnects you from inspiration:
Automation systems can help you gain control of your time as a business owner. But setting your business on autopilot can remove the personal and passion-driven touch that made you successful in the first place.
Think about the processes you’ve automated. Are there any that created opportunities for you to think of new ideas? Perhaps rethink automation for that task.
Maybe create a new process that generate similar brainstorming opportunities.
Grief/depression distracts you from inspiration.
Recent loss, a difficult home situation, and mental illness can often play a role in leaving you completely uninspired.
Seeking counseling may provide the emotional outlet you need to regain creativity. If grief or other psycho-emotional or social difficulties are disrupting your day-to-day life, then reach out for help.
Your health is your business.
Here are NINE exercises to inspire you back into making your impact.
- Read
If you are reading this, then you have access to books. Free resources for books are available all over.
Whatever makes you want to read, get your hands on it and read it.
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- Magazine articles
- Newspapers
- Blogs
- Comics
If you hate to read huge paragraphs of text, then volunteer to read to children. Their imaginations are swarming with questions. And simple stories can still give you great ideas.
2. Forced creativity
Giving yourself a task with a deadline can sometimes spark the imagination and allow for the creative juices to get flowing.
If creating your own work does not motivate you, then try joining a local group for writing, photography, or other art/skill group that assigns projects to help gain familiarity with the subject matter.
The peer-pressure to show up and participate can inspire great stuff. Or maybe it can inspire some ordinary things that give you experience and insight for the next great thing you make.
3. Go to gatherings or networking events for conversation
Networking should be more than referrals or talking about your company. It’s relationship-building.
People in social situations often talk about themselves and their problems. With the power of conversation, we can start to solve old problems with new information.
The opportunity lets you learn about how your community might thrive if your services and products improve based on the flow of information from those multiple conversations over time.
4. Learn about a new skill, interest, or hobby
Learning a new skill can employ and exercise new or different ways of thinking.
New information can provide solutions to unsettled issues and a new hobby can provide a stress-relieving activity that allows you quiet a noisy mind.
- Try to paint, sketch, sculpt, carve, or braid/weave
- Try picking up a language and learn about another culture
- Learn to cook with fresh herbs and other garden plants
- Sing, dance, play an instrument – just move with music
Whatever you decide to try. Pick it up for fun and don’t get frustrated with the results. It’s okay if you aren’t great at something. The activity will make new connections in your brain the more you try.
With the power of conversation, we can start to solve old problems with new information.
5. Take Photos
You would be surprised by the kind of pictures you can get with a basic camera. By putting photography basics into practice, you might come up with something that inspires a campaign, a blog post, or even a brand makeover.
Photography (and most art) is done well when you get an idea of how light, colors, angles, and shapes work inside of the camera frame and lens. Photo-taking can be as simple or as complex as you want, but an understanding of technical
6. Rant about something then create a solution
Something might be causing stress and you may not realize it. Find something that’s frustrating you or a peeve you have and write out everything about it that you hate.
When you get done, walk away for bit. Return after a time and read it as if you’re a mediator coming in to find solutions to the rant.
Firstly, you might solve a problem you didn’t realize you had a solution for. Secondly, you might end up clearing out some major creativity-blocking stress.
7. Do something for someone else
Sometimes you are uninspired because you’re focused on your own problems. So, volunteer your services or your product to promote an organization through your business.
There are a variety of ways that getting involved can benefit the community and offer a source of inspiration.
Places where volunteers gather are perfect for being around people who are passionate. Many community business partners may find your contributions inspiring.
It’s the perfect position to cultivate new ideas, relationships, and networking opportunities that are great for your community and great for business.
8. Create a vision board.
A vision board is a visual representation of what all your best efforts and ideas would amount to. For some, this is a collection of images which shows what their success would afford them. For others it might be building a community or climbing to the top of their industry.
Whatever your vision looks like, sit down and write out a plan of how you would showcase what your best success could be. Then put it together in a visual way and display it where you can see it every day.
Once you trigger your mind each day of your vision, you can easily be inspired to take the daily steps needed to make it happen. You can do it. There is nothing special about successful human beings compared to you. They just worked at something every day and it built up into something that took time and effort.
Which leads me to my final point…
9. Just show up.
That’s right. Put on your clothes, brush your teeth, get beautiful, and face the day. If you do not at least face it, then you will never know how to own it.
There times you need rest. But you know that keeping at the daily grind will give you the grit to face those fears.
And even getting knocked around has brought about inspiring stories of your conquered woes. So just show up and keep watering the seeds you plant.
So what did I leave out? How do you stay inspired to keep bringing your best impact ideas?
It’s honestly hard to prevent work burnout. Lately I’ve been focusing on just showing up and ranting about issues in order to create and drive solutions. This piece is making me take a hard look at what else I need to start doing to get out if the burnout routine that I often catch myself falling into. Overall this is great information and good advice to improve my career and give it purpose.
When there is so much out of your control, burnout can be harder to mitigate. With cycles of thinking that have no outlet or lack diverse input, solutions do not present themselves easily.
I am glad you were able to walk away with some new ideas to stay inspired.
If you get the chance, come back and let us know how any of these worked for you!