Get Inspired Using 3 Simple Techniques

Have you ever sat down to try and accomplish an important task but found yourself completely devoid of the necessary energy and passion?

To get inspired on command, you need to take a mindful approach. While it’s impossible to always feel creative and energized, with the right mentality you can summon the spark of creativity when you need it most.

When you feel inspired, difficult tasks become easier and it’s as though you are completely aligned with your life’s purpose. Many seek inspiration because it allows them to work diligently and feel productive. Others simply find it impossible to create anything meaningful without feeling that spark of inspiration.

Clearly, being inspired is a critical part of the creative process and is important for a healthy, productive lifestyle in general. However, this feeling can be quite elusive.

Being a writer, I understand how important it is to feel inspired about your work. In this guide you will find some practical mindfulness tips on finding inspiration when you need it, as well as some insight into where inspiration really comes from in the first place.

Why Can’t You Find Inspiration?

There are a variety of reasons why you might not have that “spark” of creativity that others seem to possess. What I’ve found is that the main culprit in these matters is a cluttered, anxious mind.

When your mind is overburdened and stressed, it can hinder your ability to receive signals and synthesize important bits of information into a usable framework.

Here are some of the habits and choices that could be keeping you uninspired:

• Information overload, doomscrolling on social media, watching too much TV, especially the news.
• Worrying too much about paltry issues, being overly focused on small matters.
• A thankless ungrateful mentality. If you are pessimistic, nothing that you “receive” will feel like a good idea, and thus you will ignore flashes of inspiration and write them off as bad ideas.
• Not setting aside enough time to actually come up with ideas and synthesize them properly. Trying to cram a creative work session into tiny blocks of time will make you feel rushed and stressed out.
• Letting other people interfere with your ideas and inspiration. By and large, the creative process is personal and should not be left open for others to meddle in. While there is such a thing as collaborative work and the sharing of ideas, very rarely does inspiration strike multiple people the same way and in the same direction. Don’t overshare your ideas before they have come to fruition.

A poor diet or lack of hydration can also hinder your ability to find inspiration. Like any other part of your body, your brain needs proper nutrition in order to function.

If you struggle with excessive brain fog, mental lethargy, frequent “low ebb” or low energy days, anxiety, or racing thoughts, these are all signs that you may need to work on your diet.

What Does it Actually Mean to Feel Inspired?

To understand how to get inspired whenever you want, it would help to understand more about what inspiration actually is.

Inspiration is a state of being where you feel driven to create something or perform a task based on clear insight.

While this definition encompasses most of what it means to feel inspired, there is some important information lacking from an esoteric point of view.

When we are inspired, what is actually occurring is that we are clearly receiving information that is aligned with our life’s purpose.

To some degree or another, we are constantly “attracting” into our lives everything that we need to progress forward, based on our mindset, frequency, and so on. The majority of what we attract is raw information, which can manifest in a million different ways.

We attract what we are. However, that doesn’t always mean we are receptive to the information or energy we are attracting. In fact, as is most often the case, our scattered minds attract a haphazard assortment of oddities that result in a relatively uninspiring and chaotic lifescape.

This is why true inspiration can feel so powerful, because that feeling of being in alignment with your life’s purpose is dramatically different than your normal day to day life.

Inspiration occurs when you recognize information (energy) within you that serves a purpose and is clear. This information is typically aligned with exactly what you need to do in order to grow, accomplish an important task, escape a bad situation, and so on.

This is why such amazing and otherworldly ideas are formed when we are inspired, as the process itself is far from mundane.

Get Inspired With Mindfulness

For those who rarely feel inspired, the prospect of creating this feeling on command might seem unrealistic.

However, we are wired for creation. If you are able to find ways to tap into your core nature and allow your Self some mental and emotional breathing room, inspiration is sure to follow.

The following tips will help you cultivate the right frame of mind so that you will get inspired more often and have a lot more control over your own ability to feel creative whenever you need to.

Clear Your Mind

How many times have you wanted to sit down and create but the jumbled mass of thoughts inside your head wouldn’t allow you to focus?

It is in these moments when we seek inspiration the most yet it rarely comes. Instead, inspiration touches us at the most random and sublime times: in the dead of night, in the shower, while you’re watching TV or listening to music, or even in your dreams.

The common denominator here is a clear mind that is not being split a hundred different ways.

Rather than try and force an idea, one of the best ways to get inspired is to simply clear your mind.

On the surface this can feel like one of those “easier said than done” pieces of advice, but you don’t actually have to obtain a perfectly clear mind for this to work.

In fact, just a few simple mindfulness exercises like conscious breathing or even light exercise can help promote a more creative and inspired state of being.

Think of it this way: a clear mind means you are more receptive to sensory input. You will be able to absorb and process information with less chance of things getting jumbled and lost.

From an esoteric standpoint, the clearer your mind is, the easier it is to receive information downloads from the collective unconscious, or the universe in general. You don’t have to subscribe to such ideas in order to take advantage of what a clear mind can do for you however.

Plenty of studies show that mindfulness leads to greater productivity, more creative ideas, and better stress resistance.

Clearing your mind of mental baggage, useless thoughts, doubts, and background noise naturally results in more creativity. In such a state, you are more perceptive to what’s going on around you, you will be more intuitive, and you will be more likely to synthesize information that you glean through psychic means into something that’s usable.

Some simple ways to clear your mind:

• Thought dumping. Write your thoughts on paper or compile them on your computer for easy arranging.
• Spend time away from your devices. Perform a digital detox and let your mind rest once in a while.
• Breathwork. It is said the mind follows the breath. If you find yourself overwrought and uninspired, bring your awareness to your breath by slowly inhaling and exhaling through your nose.
• Parse your thoughts. Instead of dealing with a hundred different thoughts all at once, focus on one specific idea or issue that you are thinking about, and spend time working through it. Ask yourself questions as to why you are thinking about it or what needs to be solved so that you can “let go” of the thought and move on to something else.
• Get more sleep. An overworked and tired mind becomes sluggish and disorientated. It is much easier to feel creative when you are well rested and mentally refreshed.
• Learn to compartmentalize thought-groups. For example, don’t “bring work home with you.” Remain present when speaking with people, stop worrying about the past and future. All this does is create mental noise that doesn’t accomplish anything.
• Use  mantras to bring your Self back to the present so you can focus better. Mantras combined with breathwork are a tried and true combination that can help provide a much needed mental reset when you feel uninspired or mentally fatigued.

Inspirational Visualization

Visualization is one of the most powerful tools any artist or writer has at their disposal. As a mindfulness tool, you can use visualization techniques to guide your inner journey by consciously interacting with the world on an etheric level.

For our purposes here, you can use visualization techniques to give your Self a creative jolt.

For instance, if you currently feel hemmed in by your surroundings and can’t seem to find any inspiration in what you see before you, practice visualizing your Self in a more creative space.

You can even go one step further by placing your Self in the very situation you are trying to conjure.

Staring at a blank canvas or piece of paper trying to physically “force” an idea rarely works. In some cases, the ideas that come about through this process will conflict with what you create later on, because it didn’t come from a place of inspiration.

Rather than artificially push through an idea, embody it. See your Self acting out the scenario you want to write about or draw. Picture your Self in the very landscape you are painting.

You can use the power of visualization to get inspired about practical matters as well. If you want to give a dynamic and engaging speech, for instance, don’t waste time trying to memorize lines or ruminate over specific talking points. Instead, visualize your Self giving the speech during a conscious meditation session. Picture the venue, the people, the energy in the room. Allow your Self to get lost in the sensation of actually being there.

The difference here is that you are in full control, so you guide the narrative.

The brain can’t distinguish between what goes on in your mind and actual physical reality. If you “imprint” your Self with what it feels like to give an inspirational speech, you will be much more likely to be inspired in the moment when it comes time to perform.

Put Yourself In a Creative Environment

A drab physical space can hinder your ability to create. A positive change in scenery can work wonders for short term bursts of inspiration.

If you are struggling to come up with an idea, something as simple as moving to a different room of your house can potentially shift your mindset.

However, if you really want to use this technique to the fullest, try getting out in nature. Allowing your Self to absorb the positive energy along with the pleasant visuals might be just what you need to spark your creative side.

The environment around you can either bolster your creativity or hinder it. For instance, if your workspace is cluttered and drab, this could be weighing heavily on your subconscious mind and keeping you from being in a receptive, creative state.

You also have to factor in the people that are around you. Naturally, you may find it hard to be creative if you have people around you that are constantly being negative or trying to stifle your creativity. Depending on your specific circumstances, you might not actually be able to change your environment completely or remove people from your life. In these cases, it’s up to you to get up and move to a different location that is more conducive to getting inspired.

Some creatives have a specific place they go to whenever they want to write, draw, or formulate ideas. This can be a cozy corner of your local library, your favorite cafe, or a calming spot in the park. Whichever place resonates with you and allows you to be creative, seek this spot out and commit to it.

You will find that the more you work in creative spaces like these, the more inspired you will be in general.

Have you ever heard the idea of “feeding” your soul? If you want to get inspired, try feeding your soul what it craves. An artful, colorful, and enriching environment will almost always be more beneficial toward helping you to be creative than one that is chaotic or depressing.

Don’t Force Inspiration

As much as we would like to think that we can generate inspiration out of thin air at all hours of the day, this is simply not reasonable.

The idea of forcing inspiration largely comes from a misunderstanding of what inspiration is in the first place. Creative power doesn’t all come down to mental aptitude.

In fact, as artists and writers know, creativity as a force is somewhat otherworldly and difficult to pin down. It comes and goes like the tides of the ocean.

We don’t so much generate creativity as much as we channel it.

Keeping this in mind, you can avoid burnout and frustration simply by allowing your Self to accept low creative ebbs for what they are. You’re not always at fault or “doing something wrong,” you may just not have clear reception that day. While mindfulness can help in these situations somewhat, you also can’t force what is not there to begin with.

Inspiration is often spontaneous and fun. It should feel natural, invigorating, and enriching.

If your ideas feel forced and incomplete, this is not inspiration.

The best way to get inspired is to give your Self the creative room to expand into. Ideas need fertile ground to flourish.