What do you do when you don’t just feel like it? When you wake up with full to-do list and zero inspiration? You just know that you might have to start chewing bottles out of frustration because there’s so much to do but you can’t bring yourself to do anything at all. What you want to do is, coil up on the bed and try to figure out who sang The Lazy Song better — You…or Bruno Mars?
“…and let everything hang loose.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooh….
Today I don’t feel like doing anything….”
But what’s with this issue of inspiration ceasing at will? It leaves you frustrated because there’s not much you can do about it. Motivation doesn’t help either; it’s only a matter of time and whoa! You’ve outgrown it. It’s true that everybody walks through that lonely path, even me. I remember I’d caught some inspiration through my pain to write and publish a thriller about nine years ago. It felt good to fly on the euphoria of my emotions. I had plenty of fans; folks who took time to read bit by bit as I wrote. I loved the wow effect my work had on them and I beamed each time they tried to guess how the book was going to end. I just enjoyed that feeling of being the mastermind and I went with the flow. It motivated me to write even more. So, I wrote all the way down to the nineth chapter with only about five more to go. I was super elated that the work was coming on strong — or so I thought — until I suddenly realized that I couldn’t go any further. It took some years to understand what had actually happened: the inspiration I caught and the motivation I ran with had reached their expiration date and I had nothing else to fall back on.
So, here’s what I learned:
Inspiration and Motivation are Limited.
Inspiration is great. Motivation is wonderful too. But if all you rely on to get the work done are inspiration and motivation alone, you’re bound to wake up someday feeling dry and empty…totally unispired. It is not about just a having twinkle in your eyes or butterflies in your stomach. There’s got to be an iron drive, which can only be after you have distinguished the things that are really important to you. Passion is a combination of love and hatred because it comes with obsession on one hand, and a need for perfection on the other. Inspiration is what gets you started. Motivation will keep you going. But passion will gather the momentum. One of the reasons we have many unfinished projects or abandoned works is that many people try to achieve their dreams by relying only on inspiration and motivation. If you want to start well and finish strong, there has to be a shift from just having a good pastime to having a strong drive. Passion is what moves you to change your language from “I’d like to do this,” to “I have to do this,” “I need ti do this,” “I must do this!” That’s when you can put in all the efforts: the tears, blood, sweat and time to get what you really want.
Some things that are important, some are urgent, and others don’t matter. The urgent things don’t always have be attended to by you. You can come up with some creative ideas to handle them while you focus more on the important stuffs. Find your passion and embrace it by moving with it. Do what you have to do. Believe that you can. Each time you start something you create momentum. Don’t give up even it seems like you have your back against the wall. Just keep moving and let your passion gather the momentum.
It is #InkspireMonday
Let’s roll it!
Hopyrane 