SOMETHING SIMPLE YET GREAT — INSPIRATION
By Swati Srivastava
Suffering is a very normal and common part of our life. At one point, we fail and get hurt. But there is always that one person or incidence that inspires us to continue doing great things. Inspiration can help us to mend our wounds. Inspiration is something very simple but always is the launchpad for something great. It is not something that you can touch, feel or sense. It’s something abstract. It just stimulates the feeling of eagerness or zeal which you get from someone or something that gives you unique and creative ideas. Inspiration is something that you can get from either watching an inspirational movie, listening to inspirational speeches, listening to an inspirational song, listening to someone telling an inspirational story or reading inspirational quotes. Apart from these, some of the best motivators are fear of failure, power of rejection, passion, assertion, by staying among positive and motivated people and by being calm.
Inspiration can be either of two ways — self inspiration or inspiration by others. Self-inspiration is the scenario where people always find a way to reason and strength to complete their task. They don’t need other people to encourage them to perform any challenging task. In inspiration by others, a person requires encouragement by others. Many people do things simply out of kindness in their heart and do not realize they are inspiring others around them. If you want to be inspired or want to inspire others, the first and foremost step is stop saying no to complete any challenging task. Always try to have positive attitude towards life. A very short example on how can you change the attitude to look at things. It has been heard a lot of times that you sleep a lot. What is the reason for it? Maximum of us will say, because you are lazy that’s why you are sleeping for so long. On the other way round, it can be said that you are a ‘dreamer’ so you sleep a lot. You may dream something which can change your goal, attitude or perspective towards life. These are the two perspectives of the same aspect. This reminds me a quote of a very famous person Alexander Den Heijer. He stated:
“You often feel tired not because you have done too much, but because you have done too little of what sparks a light in you!!”
Few of the best techniques to be self-inspired:
1. Try something new — You can keep your previous work on hold for sometimes and give area to explore something new.
2. Change your environment — Sometimes, changing environment may spark a new vision to look at things.
3. Get back to nature — Nature’s eternal beauty, its joy and its loveliness may sooth you and change the perspective with which you look at things.
4. Research what others are doing in your field — This really works a lot nowadays.
5. Start looking about the people like whom you want to be — Read about their struggles, their way of overcoming the difficulties.
6. Try to introspect yourself — You would realize that there had already been scenarios where you have struggled more than now. This will automatically give you hope to move forward as there is something new in every day that comes before you.
7. Try meditating — Take some time to sit, be still and breathe. This will give your brain a chance to refresh.
8. Keep a notebook to pen down ideas — This idea may not seem ground breaking at times but they might serve as inspiration at a later stage of life.
9. Come out of your comfort zone — It’s very easy to get stuck in a routine. Trying something you’ve never done before that pushes your comfort zone. By breaking your daily life routine, you will be encouraged towards flow of new ideas.
10. Start before the inspiration strikes — Sometimes to get inspired, you just need to start. Inspiration comes from doing, so get your materials out and start creating!
Few methodologies to inspire others:
- Leave ego behind — If you really want to influence people, let your actions speak for themselves.
2. Lead by example — You can lead by example only if you are persistent yet flexible and you have the courage to act on the right path.
3. Embrace the process — When you are exclusively goal-oriented, we lose personal touch. Instead, realize that collaboration is a creative process. Your goal should be to appreciate everyone’s leadership style. When you’re demonstrating mutual respect for all involved, the process of collaborating becomes a source of inspiration in and of itself.
4. Give people multiple reasons for doing what you want them to do — When we give multiple reasons, it changes the way people think and feel about the act so that they can take positive actions. It taps into people’s values and desires.
5. Trust people — When you’re inspiring people, you aren’t going to tell them exactly what to do or giving them precise directions. You are just empowering them to do their best, trusting that they will then do the right thing.
We all have either read or heard many stories in our childhood but we were not able to implement what exactly the story is designed to tell. Now we will discuss few stories and see what impact they can create on our lives.
In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. He then hid himself and watched to see if anyone would move the boulder out of the way. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many people loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none of them did anything about getting the stone out of the way. A peasant then came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to push the stone out of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant went back to pick up his vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contains many gold coins and a note from the king explaining that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. Thus, we can see that with “every obstacle we come across in life gives us an opportunity to improve our circumstances, and whilst the lazy complain, the others are creating opportunities through their kind hearts, generosity, and willingness to get things done”.
Considering another situation, a gentleman was walking through an elephant camp, and he spotted that the elephants weren’t being kept in cages or held by the use of chains. All that was holding them back from escaping the camp, was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs. As the man gazed upon the elephants, he was completely confused as to why the elephants didn’t just use their strength to break the rope and escape the camp. They could easily have done so, but instead, they didn’t try to at all. Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why the elephants were just standing there and never tried to escape. The trainer replied when they were young and much smaller, we use the same size rope to tie them and at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe that they can’t break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free. The only reason that the elephants weren’t breaking free and escaping from the camp was that over time they adopted the belief that it just wasn’t possible. This shows that “no matter how much the world tries to hold you back, always continue with the belief that what you want to achieve is possible. Believing that you can become successful is the most important step in actually achieving it”.
“ YOU ONLY FAIL WHEN YOU STOP TRYING!! ”
