The inspiration is a tricky thing. Some people say that true professionals don’t need it to do their job – the great actors can act even if they aren’t in the mood. Others think that the inspiration is an essential part of any job and it’s impossible to ever finish something without it.
But the one thing we know for sure – the inspiration has a lot in common with the motivation. And motivation helps us do much more than we usually can. So, how to get inspired and preserve this feeling?
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Do something pleasant but related to the task
Sometimes we may get inspired while romanticising the task. If you need to write an essay about Romeo and Juliet – you may watch a modern movie interpretation of their story, listen to a metal song about a similar relationship or whatever turns your imagination on.
It shouldn’t be directly connected to the subject, but just move your thoughts into the right direction. You may play a space simulator or watch science fiction to complete your Physics task. Anything goes!
This process taps into the hardwire of our brain. The associations with something pleasant and interesting help us to refer to our task as to something pleasant and interesting – at least at the beginning. When your brain understands that it has been tricked, the half of the task is already done – or even all of it is finished.
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Promise yourself a reward
This isn’t really a fair inspiration, because you are motivated with the reward, not with the task itself – but still it may really help you to finish it. Treat yourself as if you were a character in the video game. Break your task into parts or levels and give yourself a small reward for completing each of them.
For example, you have to write an essay on law, try to inspire yourself by reading other essays on lawaspect.com to make the topic clear. Make some extra reward for super-fast completion or additional tasks related to it and, of course, a big prize for a hundred percent completion.
We love playing games because we get instant feedback and instant rewards for doing something right – even if it’s just a changing score or a pleasant sound. It still influences the satisfaction centre of our brain and urges us to proceed. Applying this mechanism to the dull tasks means gamifying them and making them much more pleasant for our brain to complete.
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Use an “egg timer” technique
This technique is described by Chuck Palahniuk in his essay – but it is useful not only for writers but for anyone experiencing a lack of inspiration. If you don’t have any desire to do what you have to – set a timer for a half an hour and make yourself sit down and start. If after half an hour the task still seems unbearable, give yourself several hours of rest and then try again.
We often are struggling with the beginning of any task. But after some time of working we get in tune with what we have to do and enter the “flow” state. This is the feeling of peak productivity and enjoying your work. Or you may at least just accept it as something that shall be done and isn’t as scary as it seemed before you started.
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Use the support of the others doing similar tasks
Humans are social beings. We are much more eager to tolerate the task if we see that others are also doing it. Try to connect to the others in your group, register on the forum dedicated to this topic or enter a challenge to compete with others. The form doesn’t matter (well, it does sometimes, but only in terms of your own comfort with it) – the main idea is to do the task feeling that you are not alone with it.
Socializing may produce hormones that boost your energy and make you feel positive emotions – both things are great for creativity, inspiration and motivation. Of course, this doesn’t suit everyone, some people lose the energy after the communication with other people, not gain it. But if you are an extrovert, this may work pretty good for you.
Inspiration can make us accomplish much more than we expect from ourselves. It can also be a source of great ideas, limitless productivity and positive emotion. We don’t really know if it is an essential component of any work, but it is definitely a great booster of it. Learn your own way to inspire yourself, take the ones listed above, combine them, interchange them – do anything that will help you to stay inspired!
