What’s Your Inspiration?
Showing up to be your best
If you’re like me, you’re spending some time each day scrolling through LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or Instagram. If you’re really alert on your preferred platform you are bombarded by stories, quotes, or small nuggets of information meant to grab your attention. If you spend more than a few seconds reading and ruminating on each inspirational thought or caption, you might feel burdened or overwhelmed thinking about how to put into practice each behavior you know will positively impact your life. However, if your practice of reading and ruminating includes finding the one thought; the one inspirational quote that will drive your thinking and have a lasting impact, then you’re likely to experience the full effect of the inspiration.
“Stop debating and start doing it.” Today this little inspiration caught my attention. If you are prone to procrastination or paralysis by analysis, think about how this little principle can be applied in your life. The impact can be monumental, particularly if you know this is meant for you today. But what if you have habitually struggled with debate and procrastination in your thinking and living? Rather than feeling inspired and motivated by the encouragement, you may feel discouraged, depleted, and even defeated. What was meant to inspire can oftentimes have the opposite effect.
“Work hard, stay disciplined, and be patient. Your time will come.” When I read this, I thought, “Until it doesn’t”! Working hard, staying disciplined, and waiting are really great leadership characteristics many commit to. But bringing those characteristics to life won’t guarantee results. When you do those things and when the results you were hoping for don’t materialize, do you have what it takes to do it again? Can you trust yourself to apply lessons learned to learn and grow and stay in the lane that is right for you? Does the agony of defeat propel you to develop a character of persistence and resistance in the face of trial and setback? Does the encouragement meant for today really encourage you for today?
“Be the reason someone feels welcomed, seen, heard, valued, loved.” Now this is inspiration I can get behind and make happen in my life every day. In fact, I can make this my life motto. Who doesn’t want people with whom we interact to feel this way? And yet all too often, when we leave interactions with some degree of retrospect, we realize we’ve made an interaction more about ourselves than we have for others.
What is your inspiration? Not just for today, but for every day? How do you take these simple and profound truths from an idea on a platform to a life-altering, long-term behavioral change? Inspiration is an influence that moves the intellect and emotion which then drives behavior. In the context of development, an inspiration must be what moves us to a life with impactful change that allows us to reach greater fulfillment and satisfaction in life. So inspiration is personal and it’s unique. What moves and drives me to action is different than what may move and drive others.
So the next time you’re reading and ruminating on an inspirational quote or slogan, don’t forget the context of your life. Stop for a bit longer and ask yourself how that truth can lead you to make changes in your life that can have a deep and impactful effect. Spit out the bones and chew the meat but choose today how you can be inspired. Choose today to be someone different than you were yesterday; to be smarter, to be kinder, to be more fulfilled, and to reach greater goals. And as you do, remember the countless others doing the same and finding a little bit of inspiration from their daily review of their favorite platform.