From this lesson you will get ideas on how to discover inspiration in places you haven´t noticed it before.
“Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.”
Paul Hawken
How to notice the inspiration in my environment?
“Minds are like parachutes – the only fuction when open.”
Thomas R. Dewar
The best way to channel inspiration from the surroundings, is to switch off all that is excessive and focus your attention to some specific object or moment. What matters is the state of clarity and the calmness you achieve when you focus. Room for inspiration emerges in that silence and peace – ideas that were hidden in all that noise, can now come out for play.
Exercises for experimentation:
If you want to experience how precious the silence is, then listen to heavy music and unstoppably talk out loud until it discusses you. Then turn off the music, shut up and feel how good the silence is 🙂
How to find more inspiring stimulus in an ordinary environment?
Change your perspective on things – change your “lense” that filters your world. Imagine yourself as someone else, be as if you were someone else. Life as in the movies? Yes, even better than movies!
Exercise: wake up being someone else – you can do all your regular every-day things, but do them as if you were someone else (like a private detective for example). Take a different look on the world.
Some cool roles you can test: an artist, a photographer, an entrepreneur, a freemason, an actor, a tourist… have fun!
How to turn routine into inspiration?
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The secret to inspiring life is hidden in the ability to turn routines into rituals – turning boring and annoying things into exciting and pleasurable events.
Exercise: make a list of top 10 routine daily activities that you have. For each activity, find some specific things you could do differently to turn the routine into a ritual. Make this ritual so enjoyable and compelling, that it really brings you joy and pleasure.
Often the inspiration is actually hidden behind energy-consuming activities. With all that noise in our mind and life, we tend to forget the joy of that activity and misleadingly focus on things that appear unpleasant and compulsory. Let me illustrate that with a story about dog puppies.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison
Question to you: what/who is your “dog puppies” – things you put a lot of time and energy in, and at the same time they could bring you so much joy and pleasure, once you devote yourself 100% to being in that moment?
By the way – there is only one lesson left in this course – what are you going to do differently now?
Inspiration with yourself
Exercise of the week: at least once a day be 100% in the moment – switch yourself off from unnecessary noise and devote yourself to the present moment. Observe the nature, listen to your close-ones, feel your body. Make room for inspiration to emerge in that presence and enjoy that good feeling that takes you to the higher level in your quality of life.
Book of the week: Eckhart Tolle “The Power of Now “
Movie of the week:Living Luminaries: on The Serious Business of Happiness (2007)
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Be Inspired!
Harald