I’ve heard it said that there are no new thoughts or ideas. Billions and billions of people have lived and died. Someone who came before us has, statistically speaking, had the same idea that we have had and many have taken the time to write it down for the benefit of human posterity. As much as I wish the things that I write about came from my brilliant mind (joking), I am merely taking great thinkers' ideas and sharing them with you. That being said, the idea I am about to lay out for you came from an author named Mark Manson. I also do not doubt that he received inspiration for his idea from previous thinkers, philosophers, and authors.
Inspiration and Motivation: when does it come and how do we find it? We find them through taking action. In Mark Manson’s book, “The Subtle Art of not Giving a F***,” he lays out the process like this: Action leads to inspiration and inspiration leads to motivation. (On a side note, if you are not totally adverse to cussing, I highly recommend his books.)
Many of us have spent days wasting away time waiting for inspiration or motivation to get us to turn off the TV, get off of the couch, and start doing something more productive. What most of us experience is that the motivation never comes. The difficult truth is that you may have to fight yourself in order to take action. At first, overcoming the tendency to keep scrolling on facebook or TikTok will be hard. However, when you begin to break the cycle it gets easier and easier. Getting up and getting to work becomes almost second nature when you have found your inspiration and motivation. So, the first step is taking action and just getting started.
I’m going to use my personal life as an example. I’ve always loved reading and much of my time would be spent in isolation reading. I was taken with the imagination writers must have to create such rich characters and environments. I too wanted to write and become an author. Well, guess what? I’m now middle aged and just within the past few years began to write. Why did I wait so long? I’ve asked myself that so many times and here’s the answer. I was always waiting for inspiration and motivation. However, even though I’ve desired to be a writer since childhood, I never took the first step, which is to just start writing. Action, I failed to begin with action.
After I took action and began to write, the inspiration followed. I was inspired with new ideas, ways to describe things, and outlines for how to get my point across. Inspiration is exciting. When activities become exciting, motivation soon follows. In no time the process Mark Manson describes begins to repeat. Action to inspiration, inspiration to motivation, motivation to more action, and so on.
There are projects that we want to do and have wanted to do since childhood. Begin with action. Get going and start. The inspiration and motivation will follow. Continue the process and soon enough you will have written that book, started your own business, or finished that home improvement project. It’s all waiting for you to begin.
