How to Get Inspired

Having trouble finding your muse? There are many ways in which one may gain inspiration. The steps one takes can be on an as needed basis and can depend on the matter in question. Read on the learn strategies for motivation.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Writing/drawing utensils (Pens, pencils, chalk, crayons, markers)
• Music
• Walking/running shoes
• Library card

1. Prayer is powerful. Calm yourself.
   
   Spend time praying or meditating in a quiet place, clear your head of distractions, and find what is truly on your heart. Sometimes, during this time it is helpful to write down any ideas that may come to mind.
2. Go gallery hopping. Expose yourself with works by others.
   
   This may include exposing yourself to the work of others within your field, or works outside of your field. Try going to art galleries, concerts, poetry readings, restaurants, film festivals, craft shows. Stay inside, sip a cup of tea perhaps, and surf creative fields on the internet. Venture to a library and look at books of all kinds. Find books that interest you, even if they seem to be unrelated for what you are needing inspiration, you might make a new connection of which you would not have otherwise thought. Listen to your favorite musical artists, or borrow the musical collection of a friend, and explore the unfamiliar.
3. Get the blood flowing to your head! Get up, out and move around.
   
   Go for a walk through town, city, or country. Take a hike, or go for a run. Consider doing these during the day and by yourself. Clear your mind and let it wander. You might carry a small notepad to write down any ideas that come to you. If you happen to be alone with no one in sight, or if you have no care for what others think about you, do some cartwheels or crank up the iPod and dance around.
4. Be bold. Get that writing/drawing utensil in your hand.
   
   Write down any idea that comes to mind, just get it out. Elaborate when no more ideas come.
   Consider using a medium that is out of your personal norm (chalk, colored pencils, crayons, paint).
   Try adding color.
   Change up your surface; try using your driveway (use chalk), get ahold of graph paper, sprawl out a large sheet of newsprint paper.
5. Find a mentor or become one. Talk to trusted others in your field of interest.
   
   Find out what they have been up to lately. What is their newest project? How did they stumble upon that idea? Do they have any advice for you? Tell them about your latest interests. Do they have any thoughts about these?
6. Take yourself away from your project. Get away from what you are trying to find inspiration.
   
   Go out with friends or family. Do the usual: dinner and a movie, go clubbing, play a game. Do the unusual: go canoing, take a dance class, visit a zoo or museum, watch a polo match.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't get discouraged! It will come to you.
• Try new and different things of similar or completely different categories.
• Hang things on the wall or a bulletin that inspire you: poems, photographs, fabrics.
• Surround yourself with life: get a new plant, buy some flowers, adopt a pet (even a goldfish).
• Opt for randomnocity.
• If you get stuck in a rut move away from the problem.