What are the things you do to find inspiration? Different people give different answers to this question. Here are some of the things they mention.
The specific things I do to
sometimes find inspiration are:
To listen to certain kinds of music … To walk in my favourite places … To study success … To be close to water … To relax and sometimes to sleep … To set stimulating goals and work to achieve success.
To do deep breathing … To sing with other people in the choir … To lead teams that do pioneering work … To raise money for certain charities … To focus on the positive things I want to give to people.
Different people get inspiration from different things at different stages of their lives. Looking at my own life, here are some that inspired me.
Growing up with loving parents, from the age of 12 I was encouraged to travel around England by myself watching football. This helped me to take responsibility, explore and navigate situations.
After leaving school at 15 I worked in a factory for six years. I found inspiration in reading many books and also exploring ways I could find a job helping people.
Reaching the age of 18, I was encouraged by a social studies lecturer who helped me to join his English course at night school. This provided lots of inspiration and helped to carry me through several years of doing the night shift in a factory.
Eventually at the age of 22 I managed to get full-time voluntary work with Community Service Volunteers. Alec Dickson, the founder of VSO and CSV, encouraged and inspired me to keep developing in this work.
The next step was to work in therapeutic communities. The work was inspiring and I also had great mentors. It was also wonderful to discover the books of people like Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Viktor Frankl.
During the almost sixty years since then it has been inspiring to be able to encourage people that want to achieve their aims. They have provided so much stimulation when working towards their picture of success.
Let’s return to your own life and work. What are the specific things you do to find inspiration? How can you continue to do these things in the future? What may be the benefits for both yourself and other people?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentence.
Leave a Reply