Be Your Own Inspiration (10 tips how)
My favorite source of inspiration is me. I know, that can kind of sound like I’m just full of myself – but not the case! This all comes from a very humble, mentally healthy and positive place.
Lately, I’ve been a bit obsessed with this whole idea of how to be your own inspiration.
I mean, this is a super effective and healthy place to live, right? Suddenly, attaching motivation, value and self worth to external sources and people becomes a lot less of a problem.
It doesn’t appear that comparison culture will be going anywhere anytime soon, so the ability to inspire yourself is a modern soft skill that I can’t recommend enough.
I provide some tips on the things that helped me the most to reach this place later.
But first, let’s start with the why and the what for my newfound self inspiration.
Why I’m My Own Favorite Source of Inspiration
Recently, I was sitting in my small rented room outside of Tokyo, chipping away at miscellaneous work and personal goals.
I was feeling burned out.
I feel like I work, work and work for pennies and no traction. But I know I’m building something important and that my patience, focus and continued work will pay off eventually.
But at this moment, I had a sudden epiphany: I’m way more focused than I’ve ever been.
I have this vivid, and strikingly similar, memory of me sitting in a tiny rented apartment last year (that time, in Seoul) feeling burned out and exhausted.
But last year, I ended up just giving up and watching Netflix or Amazon Prime. Because you know, tomorrow – ah yes, tomorrow I shall crush it.
My goals were more or less the same, but my ability to stay focused and commit to a workflow and completing tasks was weak sauce.
I’ve had a few moments like these.
These realizations or how far I’ve actually come (with regard to my behaviors, attitude and habits) are why I’ve been my favorite source of inspiration as of late.
How to Be Your Own Inspiration: 10 Essential Tips
Can you be your own inspiration? Absolutely. Trust me – it’s a thing.
It’s been a winding road for me to get to a place where I’m genuinely inspired by the things I’m doing and the progress I’m making.
So just remember to be patient with yourself and stay focused and positive.
Here are my top tips to be your own inspiration.
1. Zoom Out – Compare Your Present Self to Your Past Self
No doubt, this is the only healthy comparison we should be doing anyway.
But zooming out can give us a lot of clarity. It’s hard to notice day-by-day improvement – but year-by-year change is easier to feel and realize.
So consider where you were last year at this time. And appreciate the progress you’ve made.
If you’re struggling on this front, just start documenting things now.
Even zooming out over a one month period can be revealing and surprising – especially if you’re focused and chipping away at your skill building and goals.
2. Borrow From Your Future Self
A quick followup to the first tip: leverage your future self – or rather, the image you have of yourself in the future.
For this trick, first strongly imagine who you will become – reaching your goals and objectives.
Now visualize and imagine as if you were already there. Create the emotions, nuances and feelings of that future self and feel it as if it’s already happened.
This is all about believing that this version of yourself is not only possible, but guaranteed. It’s like sampling and experiencing the future version of yourself before you get there.
Pretend you’re already there and commit – it’s a bit like acting, but it works for me when I’m needing a little inspiration boost.
3. Fashion, Health and Wellness
These things may seem separate, but I clumped them together. I don’t know, they have a similar effect for me, inspiration wise.
Essentially, this is all about feeling and looking our best, which can have a big impact on our self inspiration.
For me, these things definitely relate to self love and self care.
When I take care of myself, get good sleep, practice gratitude, exercise and meditate, I feel amazing. I feel inspired.
And similarly, whenever I go shopping or put more care into my outfits, self expression and fashion, I also feel more inspired and confident.
It’s a cool trick.
4. Redefine Success
How you define success can have a big impact on your inspiration.
For example, if your only view of success is becoming a millionaire with a Malibu home and a beautiful partner, then the little victories will be more difficult to fully appreciate.
So restructure your concept of success and highlight the seemingly minor moments and daily steps that are slowly pushing you forward and closer to your future goals.
Make success a daily thing – similar to splitting up your macro goals into micro and nano ones (which I talk about more below).
Split up your success into micro and nano successes. Now let those wins inspire you.
5. Daily Focus – Keep Up the Momentum
We can’t lie to ourselves. If we’re dragging our feet on taking action and doing the work, then we know this fact, deep down.
So a quick fix for this – and a quick way to start inspiring yourself – is to simply do the work.
I know, easier said than done. But if you can just strive to be 1% better everyday, you’ll be shocked at how quickly this adds up and compounds over time.
Getting into the habit of daily focus and practice on your goals does something to your brain. You become more confident, more motivated and inspired and more sure of yourself and your abilities.
You end up looking back and you can’t help but pat yourself on the back.
6. Share Your Knowledge
Teaching and sharing your knowledge is super inspiring and motivating.
Sometimes, you may surprise yourself at just how much you actually know. So sharing this knowledge with someone who’s genuinely interested can highlight your progress and expertise.
Teaching is a fantastic way to strengthen skills and pinpoint areas that need work.
All of this can translate to inspiration – if we’re intentional about it.
7. List Out Your Strengths and Weaknesses (+ the in between)
If you’re a visual learner, this can be a super effective trick.
I have a running list of all my music production strengths, weaknesses and things that I’m actively improving upon.
I’m always pleasantly surprised when I revisit this list to update, and I’m able to move a collection of skills into the strength or actively working on category.
The trick is to only update your list after enough time has passed for you to sort of forget what your exact strengths and weaknesses were.
This creates some objectivity.
When you come back (as long as you’re actively working on your goals every day), you’ll likely be surprised at how much progress you’re making.
This is a great way to be your own inspiration.
8. Turn Your Passions Into A Business
Simple, right?
At the risk of sounding overly reductionist, I know this will take a lot of work, focus and patience. But, it’s a sure way to be your own inspiration.
Turning a passion into a business where you love what you do is incredibly rewarding and inspiring. It’s exactly what I’m doing here.
And to be honest, I felt inspired by this website way before any monetary gains were realized.
There’s something rewarding about putting yourself out there and pursuing your ideal life – getting after them dreams.
9. Define Your Macro, Micro and Nano Goals + Check Them Off
Everyone has goals. And a lot of these goals are similar – more money, a great relationship, health and wellness.
These are great goals, but splitting them up into actionable steps and micro or nano goals can make things easier and more realistic.
So reverse engineer your big goals into smaller ones. Keep a running list of these and chip away at them.
Slowly, with each passing day, week and month, you can start checking these goals off as accomplished.
This is super inspiring.
10. Have A Purpose
Attaching your goals and daily actions to some higher purpose is super powerful.
For example, I have a purpose of inspiring musicians, artists, creatives and art-lovers to do more things that are scary or uncomfortable. To create. To travel.
I also want to eventually create a system of sharing profits and successes directly with my audience and donating a portion of proceeds to charity.
These things are a constant source of motivation and inspiration.
So consider what your why may be – it’s definitely helped me
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