This is Part 2 of the 2-part series on Inspiration. You can read Part 1 here.

If you would like to just see and go through the visual SlideShare presentation, please scroll to the end of the post!

Here is a summary of Part 1.

1. Breathe In: Breathe deeply and imbibe the world around you. If you are feeling out of sorts and a lack of inspiration, take a few moments to breathe deeply and reconnect with inspiration.

2. Invoke Your Guiding Light: Recognize and understand your ebb and flow and what sustains and inspires you on a daily basis. Increase the events that inspire you and do less of the events that do not inspire you.

3. What is Your Message? What is your message, your big picture, and your one big dream? Make an attempt to reconnect with that source of endless inspiration even if it is for a few moments every day.  

4. Allow it by Letting it go: Let it go! In some instances, by disengaging the conscious mind, you can come up with novel inspiring solutions to your problems.

5. Get inspired by deep practice and emotional triggers: Set up emotional triggers and cues that remind you and inspire you to take action, make you feel great and propel you towards excellence!

6. Synchronicities: Be open to inspiration striking you from an event of possibility thinking and synchronicity. Be prepared to engage the inspiration, connect the dots and recognize the value of chance events. 

Now moving right along to the next 6 steps!

7. Calling a Friend: Personas to Increase Inspiration

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Call on your best friends to assist you in gathering some additional inspiration. Luckily for us, our best friends in this case are our different personas and are always available.

Very quickly, you can call on or assume a different persona that you can imagine and invite.

Personas were first described as part of Archetypes by the psychologist Carl Jung. The easiest way to describe them is that they are the different social roles that we play out in our life. For example, you may be the victim at some point and at other instances, you may feel like the heroine or the hero.

By calling on the energy of an empowering and inspiring persona, you may be able to recapture your inspiration. Call on your fictional or real life characters that really inspire you. If you are a painter, you may be inspired by Michelangelo and assume the role of a master painter by feeling and acting from that role.

Read up on your master persona or role model, go to museums and understand how they got inspired.

Feel the energy of the interaction and the role and allow yourself to be inspired by the amazing energy of the persona that you have imagined. Allow your persona to support and encourage you and allow their wisdom to permeate into your consciousness. 

Even though this might be an imaginary exercise, when you are feeling powerless and uninspired, this may be of great benefit to you. Reading up on people who inspire you and understanding their challenges and victories and taking on a role similar to theirs can be highly inspirational.

The evidence that personas work exceptionally well comes from the highly innovative and creative firm IDEO. In the book, The Ten faces of Innovation by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman, the authors describe the importance of personas to the innovation process in IDEO.

In order to inspire innovation and banish the devil’s advocate or doubt, they outline 10 personas such as the anthropologist, the experimenter and the collaborator. Depending on the persona you assume, you can bring a different approach to the problem you are solving.

For example, when an IDEO human-factor person camps out in a surgical room for 48 hours and helps develop new and innovative health care services, they are living the role of the anthropologist.

The experimenter persona engages in a special trial and error process and believes in new experiments, prototypes and calculated risks.

Kelley and Littman tell the story of BMW’s switch from traditional ads to short films which required the stepping into the role of an experimenter and taking a risk. The experiment turned out to be a runaway success.

By invoking and engaging different personas, you can keep inspiring yourself to create novel material.

Action tips:

Take on different personas or roles to inspire yourself.

Experiment with the different perspectives that these roles bring to your problem.

8. Create or Join a Mastermind Circle

It is well known that great painters and sculptors gained insight and inspiration by learning with the masters. They were very well connected in their networks and frequently attempted to better each other in their arts. Napoleon Hill in his classic book- Think and grow Rich, describes the importance of mastermind groups for success.

When you join or form a mastermind group, you create accountability and a support structure in your life. This camaraderie translates into the form of inspiration when you are trying to catch up with the rest of the mastermind group. 

Action tip:

Join a mastermind group to increase your inspiration and to radically increase your accountability.

9. Keep Taking BIG Action

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.” ~ Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow.

When inspiration does not strike, take action anyway. Action is a wonderful way to keep moving in the face of lack of inspiration. As you make action a habit, you will see that you are much more inclined to feel and act out of inspiration.

Staying at one place and not moving forward is utterly uninspiring. Break through the inertia of boredom and fear by taking consistent big action. 

For example, when you set a time for writing, write even if you feel like you are not producing great content. Make an outline and move forward. Do not give in to the temptation to edit and get distracted. 

Prolific writer Anthony Trollope regularly rose at 5:30 am and wrote till 11 am and penned 46 novels in his career. After his writing adventures in the morning, he would go to work at the post office as a postal clerk.

Immerse into the material by taking frequent action and staying engaged with it. By deep engagement, action and focused attention, you are more likely to enter into a state of flow and inspiration.

Action tips:

Act on it even if you do not feel like it!

One of my inspirational acronyms: TBARN or Taking Big Action Right Now!

10. Look for Inspiration in New places and in Places That You Would Least Expect It

You might get stuck in your own particular patterns in life. You might be taking the same route to work and you might be attempting to get inspired by the same sources. In Eastern wisdom, following habitual patterns is called “a state of sleepwalking.”

Becoming aware of your preference to habitual patterns can be a good first step to infuse novelty in your life.

Try something different this time. Look for inspiration in places that you would least expect it. For example, look in all the places that you have overlooked as boring or uninteresting.

Allow yourself to go against your habitual patterns of finding inspiration. Take a new route to work and allow yourself to take up new hobbies that you would not previously consider. 

As you engage in the new hobby or activity, ask how does it relate to your work? What elements of the seemingly unconnected aspects of the new experience can you bring forth into your current work as inspiration? 

Action tips:

Go out and inspire yourself with new things, places and people.

Look for inspiration in places and ideas that you would least expect it.

If you have dismissed something in the past, look at it again with new eyes.

11. Get Inspired by Influencing and Encouraging Others

“Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.” ― Albert Schweitzer 

A wonderful method of getting inspired is to take the focus away from you. Instead of asking what is in it for you, ask how can you influence and encourage others. How can you genuinely uplift someone else. 

This is a very empowering question to ask because once you are supportive to others, you find a way to lift yourself. There is something very powerful and inspiring about being unconditionally supportive and serving others.

Action Tips:

Make an attempt to inspire and encourage someone else.

As you assist others to achieve their goals, you will be inspired to pursue your life dreams with more clarity. 

12. Get Inspired by Offering Yourself Rewards and Bonuses

In her TED talk, video game creator Jane McGonigal said that she struggled to heal from her brain injury. She then had the amazing idea of creating a video game, Superbetter to help her heal.

The game assisted her to heal by using power-ups and bonuses as a means to keep her engaged, inspired and boosting her resilience.

Inspire yourself by rewarding the little milestones and victories along the way. When you begin working towards a lofty goal and a big dream, it may take a long time to materialize. It is very easy to get uninspired along the journey and opt-out.

When you keep your sight on the big picture while rewarding yourself the little victories, you stay inspired and ready for the next part of the journey. Rewards do not always have to be physical gifts. They can be self-encouragement or feeling great about your achievements.

By appreciating and feeling great about the little parts of your epic journey, you constantly reconnect to the relevant reasons that matter. These are the reasons that made you start on the path in the first place. These reasons will fuel your drive and engagement and inspire you to get better and better on your epic journey.

Action tips:

Gamify inspiration!

When the going gets tough, reward and offer yourself power-ups to feel invincible!

Remember that effective games captures our attention and keep us engaged by offering us rewards and power-ups just in the nick of time before we give up.

Offer yourself bonuses and incentives to stay the course and to inspire you!

Here is a summary of the 12 steps:

1. Breathe In: Breathe deeply and imbibe the world around you. If you are feeling out of sorts and a lack of inspiration, take a few moments to breathe deeply and reconnect with inspiration.

2. Invoke Your Guiding Light: Recognize and understand your ebb and flow and what sustains and inspires you on a daily basis. Increase the events that inspire you and do less of the events that do not inspire you.

3. What is Your Message? What is your message, your big picture, and your one big dream? Make an attempt to reconnect with that source of endless inspiration even if it is for a few moments every day.  

4. Allow it by Letting it go: Let it go! In some instances, by disengaging the conscious mind, you can come up with novel inspiring solutions to your problems.

5. Get inspired by deep practice and emotional triggers: Set up emotional triggers and cues that remind you and inspire you to take action, make you feel great and propel you towards excellence!

6. Synchronicities: Be open to inspiration striking you from an event of possibility thinking and synchronicity. Be prepared to engage the inspiration, connect the dots and recognize the value of chance events.

7. Calling a friend: personas to increase inspiration: Take on different personas or roles to inspire yourself. Experiment with the different perspectives that these roles bring to your problem.

8. Create or join a mastermind circle: Join a mastermind group to increase your inspiration and accountability to complete a project or task.

9. Act on it even of you do not feel like it! One of my inspirational acronyms: TBARN or Taking Big Action Right Now!

10. Look for inspiration in new places: Go out and inspire yourself with new things, places and people. Look for inspiration in places and ideas that you would least expect it.

11. Get inspired by influencing and encouraging others. Take the focus away from yourself by uplifting others.

12. Gamify inspiration: Get inspired by offering yourself rewards and power-ups.

Now over to you! How do you inspire yourself and how have the above ideas resonated with you in your own epic quest and journey of life?

Photo Credit:  R’eyes via Compfight