What is inspiration and how it’s different from motivation ?

Inspiration – put some fire…

Inspiration as a word can mean to breath in which nicely fits to the way I understand it – because for me inspiration is this little spark that lights the fire place. It’s a spark that gives you new ideas in your life. It gives you day to day fuel to grow. For me it can be:

• book I’ve just read or movie I’ve just watched
• news, article, blog post or comment
• someone’s life, words or actions
• beautiful nature scenery
• sport, flower, dog… etc.

All those things can be sparks that build my emotions. One time you think about them for a moment then forget and another time you contemplate for a week.

What happens in my head when I get such impulse? Unconscious mind takes it and compares to my beliefs and values system – if it fits it generates emotions, thoughts and ideas.

Simple example:

Situation: I come across crying baby, mother is sitting close watching her baby.
Impulse: Tears, baby, loud noise, mother, watching.
Mind: Children crying means pain, I can’t look at others in pain, I love children
Idea: Help the child
Mind: Crying is not always pain, mothers take care of their children, not my baby, there are many ways to raise children.
Action: None taken.

For me inspiration stops here…

Motivation – where’s the fire?!

So we have new ideas. Why some of those ideas become actions while others just stay in our head? We have the spark, we have the fuel but we’re still not running? Thats how it looks for me:

Ideas are going through our analytic system – after beliefs and values it being compared to our identity and purpose system. If there are more impulses we analyze all those one after another and all together. If after many rounds up and down through our systems we just accept it or the motion generated by all analyzes gives us the energy needed to make actions and changes in our life.

An example to simplify this:

Situation: I come across crying baby in a room where I stay we are alone.
Impulse: Tears, baby, loud noise, empty room.
Mind: Children crying means pain, I can’t look at others in pain, I love children
Idea: Hug it, Check if its hungry, thirsty, needs change, where is his mother
Mind: Crying is not always pain, children cry sometimes to make attention, I still need to be in this room, Children with no care can get hurt, I like helping people, I like quiet places, I’m a father, Children are our future
Action: Taken care of the baby.

The underlined thoughts where the leverage to change state, make actions and realize ideas. These are the things that worked for me what will work for You? I don’t know but the most important question is – do You know what will work for You?

Fire! Walk with me!

If You can identify Your beliefs, then You can better understand why some things inspire you and some don’t and when You get that it’s easier to find new inspirations.
If You can identify Your values, identity or even purpose its easier to make actions, it’s easier to change our beliefs, it’s easier to find motivation in everyday life and in the end it’s easier to control Your life and live it the way You want it!

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This article is inspired by Daryl Furuyama post that You can find in here. I always wanted to help people, to inspire and motivate them so they can live their life with passion and being true to themselves and that’s where motivation came from.