How to be Inspired When "Life" Leaves You Inspiration-less

Life Happens

What do you do when “life” happens and you become so consumed by your day to day activities that you have succumbed to routine and complacency? Your day is full from the moment that your alarm clock sounds or your children stand over your sleeping body asking for cereal.

You spend your day chauffeuring these pint sized people to and from school and to and from after school activities. You shop for groceries, put away the groceries, and then cook the groceries. Between doing laundry and cleaning the house, you somehow manage to squeeze in a cup of coffee and maybe a meal for yourself. For some all of this has to be juggled around a full work schedule. 

In the midst of all of these things, you don’t even realize that have lost your inspiration, the thing that you love to do, the things that gives you that breath of fresh air. Somehow that which gives you life and purpose amongst your “must do’s” has managed to take a back seat so far back that you don’t even remember what it felt like embrace it, wooed by it, inspired by it.

What do you do then?

How do you get back to a place where you are not running on autopilot, but on the inside your heart is smiling with anticipation of doing that one thing that makes you happy? 

What is it that you have neglected in your unintentional pursuit of ordinary?

Maybe you a writer with no time to put pen to paper or a photographer who hasn’t been able to see the beauty of nature because of traffic. Perhaps you are musician but life is so cluttered that you would rather sit in silence during your down time than pick up your instrument. No matter what your “thing” is, it’s yours, it’s part of who you are, and it deserves your attention too. 

5 Tips to get your inspiration back

• 1. A Vision Board is a great way to remind yourself visually of things that you love. What to put on your vision board: Pictures from a magazine, quotes, or cards, hand written notes or doodles that inspire you. Put the vision board someplace that you will see it often throughout your day
• 2. Think back to the last time that you felt inspired. Where were you? What were you doing? Now think about what has changed since then. If the change can be altered so that it’s not an “inspiration killer” make the necessary changes. If the changes are a necessity, find ways to accommodate those changes in other ways; maybe at different times of the day or on different days all together. 
• 3. Join a group or take a class. If you love to cook, take a cooking class. If you are a writer join a book club and allow someone else’s work provoke you to writing again. 
• 4. Go somewhere and be still. There are times when our minds are so busy thinking of everything and everyone else that we neglect our own wants and desires. Take a drive, sit on the beach, find a place away from the noise and routine to be alone. Let the scenery and the silence inspire you.
• Just do it. Sometimes the only thing that will get you going again is just to do it. Push past how you feel and just do it. Make time in your schedule and just do it. It may be hard but it will jump start you again.