Inspiration can be a very powerful motivator in your life. It can keep you moving when you feel like quitting. It is even more influential than goals, as goals gives you your basic blueprint to where you want to go–it shows you where you want to be. These, subsequently, may be centered on requisite want or need. But inspiration satisfies those motives with faith, opportunity, and pleasure and protects the everyday from becoming too routine.
But just what does inspiration involve? I suggest two components: vision and purpose. Gail Devers says, “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.” A vision is the first move in the direction of turning your goals into inspiration. Someone with a vision can see what is down the road. He can recognize what it will be like two weeks, two months, a year, five years, ten years, and more in the future.
But how do you attain vision? First, you need to narrow down your viewpoint. You can’t try do everything at once. Decide what it is you are searching for, so you’ll know when you see it. Have in mind some basic goals as to where you want to be two to six months from now. These goals will create the foundation of your motivation but should also work to reduce the extent of your plans.
Next, try to find and select an opportunity (business, career, or educational venture) which you feel appropriate for you at this time in your life. This may be simpler said then accomplished, as there are lots of alternatives which may sound good. You may come across an exceptional opportunity immediately, entirely by chance. If so, stay with it. But you will almost certainly have to choose several in the beginning and examine which each one offers and attempt to estimate the possibility of each one objectively. Decide on the one which you believe has the greatest possibility with the smallest amount of unique challenge.
Once you have selected your opportunity, stand behind it proudly and don’t resign or change your mind. Jerry Lewis said “I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can’t get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That’s in friendship, that’s a deal, that’s a commitment.”
Imagine yourself as being in it for the long haul, regardless of what transpires. Try to visualize, based on your understanding, how your life will be in the future. Keep that image in your mind, and never have any hesitation that you will accomplish your goals and dreams. Norman Vincent Peale said “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”
Once your vision is securely embedded in your brain, let it grow into your operating power. Let the vision motivate you with the prospect of its realization and you will routinely begin the next move–you are on a quest. Your goal is to create the fulfillment of your vision. If you maintain the vision in your mind, you will push ahead in the pursuit, achieving wholeheartedly gradually that which is required to bring your vision into existence. You will have created a sense of enthusiasm, significance, and importance which will keep the flames of inspiration blazing in your heart and pushing you all the time onward and upward.
