The Key to Finding Inspiration Anywhere
Inspiration is a state that involves cognitive, emotional and commitment aspects. Finding inspiration is important because it produces a powerful feeling of well-being and it’s crucial to the creative process.
It’s not easy to define what inspiration is exactly. It’s pretty much the process of being mentally stimulated to do something creative. Thus, finding inspiration consists of creating adequate conditions for that stimulation to emerge.
The definition might be beautiful, but it’s still not very concrete. Inspiration can be seen as a way of breathing in the information of life. All this lack of accuracy might lead you to think that inspiration is a complex, profound, and wonderful phenomenon. In this sense, how can you find inspiration? Below, we share some tips.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”
-Henry David Thoreau-
Inspiration
Inspiration is a state in which you experience a revelation about an essential aspect of life or reality itself. It’s an intellectual phenomenon that involves knowledge. However, it also involves true happiness that translates into conviction, desire, or passion to carry out a certain action.
One may say that inspiration leads to moments of absolute joy. It’s an ever-growing force that opens up your mind and heart. When you’re inspired, you feel a real and direct connection with the entire universe. Pain simply goes away and only a blissful peace remains.
In fact, neuroscientists Marcos Jung-Beeman and Edward Bowden from Northwestern University and John Kounios from Drexel University have published interesting studies on inspiration. They explained that it’s been proven that there’s an area of the brain that literally lights up in certain moments of revelation or epiphany.
Inspiration and motivation
People tend to confuse inspiration with motivation, but they’re two different things. Motivation is the force that pushes you to act with the goal of getting some kind of benefit or avoiding pain.
In other words, motivation is the pursuit of pleasure and the prevention of pain. You might feel motivated to do something because you think you’ll get what you want or keep something awful from happening.
Inspiration, on the other hand, goes a step further. When you’re inspired, pleasure and pain aren’t as important. It’s such a strong force that it’ll make you endure pain because the outcome is worth it. Inspiration pursues an even greater reward. It makes people give their lives for freedom or endure any humiliation for a cause or purpose.
How to find inspiration
Finding inspiration is a process that involves great effort and resilience. However, there are ways to get closer to it and eventually reach it. The first one is meditation. It’s been demonstrated that meditation changes how the brain works. It eases the processes of creation, which result in inspiration.
Reading fiction books or making art are other ways of finding inspiration. All those activities break your usual routine and eventually lead to new perspectives. And those new perspectives sooner or later lead to profound revelations that characterize inspiration states.
Getting enough rest is also fundamental. Try to sleep well and distract your mind every now and then. Try new environments when you feel stuck. Take an indefinite break and then come back to your activities. This will allow you to find inspiration and change your outlook on life.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Romo, M. (1997). Psicología de la creatividad. Barcelona: Paidós.
