Start Your Day With Inspiration
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Inspiration, Mental Health, Self Improvement, Self, Creativity

Last week, I was having a conversation with someone. It suddenly dawned on me that she was simply getting by. I don’t mean in monetary terms. I mean she was simply trying to stay afloat every day. Every day was filled with tasks to be accomplished. But, she was not enjoying her day to the fullest. She was caught up in the tidal wave of endless motherhood and relationship demands that she was depleted.

This is the story of so many people in life. I was her a year ago.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way. No matter where you are in your journey of healing, dealing, and surviving the worst, there’s this one overlooked powerful elixir to strengthen you during times of trouble: inspiration.

Why Start Your Day With Inspiration?

I used to start my day with a workout. The chemicals released during the workout were motivating. But, soon, I needed more and more of these chemicals to stay motivated. Then, something unexpected happened. I took my workout outside. In this beautiful place of small streams, and rolling hills, I walked my dog for an hour each day. It wasn’t a true workout for me. But, the walk filled my soul up.

Nature is my inspiration. I wanted buckets and buckets of it each morning. Have you noticed that your morning yoga or workout is much more energetic if you turned on the right music? This is because you are deriving inspiration from the music.

Inspiration is soul food that, not only allows you to sustain motivation all throughout the day, it gives you hope. Hope is what gets you through the worst days that you may encounter.

Swapping Motivation for Inspiration

In the last year, I’ve consciously swapped motivation for inspiration. I started each day writing about ideas that inspired me. In turn, I would linger on these ideas and think about them all throughout my day.

Inspiration, allows your mind to focus and breathe.

Through starting every day with inspiration, I’ve been able to see the reasons for my actions all throughout the day.

Do I really need to be worried about this?

I ask myself this question 100 times a day. Most of the things that bother me drop off when I ask myself this question. Most of the mundane decisions that you make are not going to make a difference in the long run. But, a few will make a difference.

These decisions are often derived from your inspiration and align with your goals, values, and more.

When you acknowledge them, you take the time to make those decisions. You give them the respect that they deserve.

Inspiration Leads To Joy

When you orient your day toward inspiration every day, you are essentially paving a path filled with joy and contentment.

I’ve found that inspiration is what allows me to delay gratification and really buckle down to go through all the steps to achieve the impossible.

In turn, joy is perhaps an understatement. Instead, you find contentment.

Soon, you learn what inspires you. For instance, nature, art, and performances inspire me. Insights, people’s experiences inspire me. Good discussions and encounters with people of substance and value inspire me.

When you start your day with just one of the inspirations on your list, soon you will see that you will gravitate towards more inspiration during your day.

The Start Sets The Tone

A beautiful start always sets the perfect tone for me. The tone of your day adds to the tempo and the rhythm. If you ever wanted to make music through your actions during your day, just inject inspiration at the start of your day and see where that leads you.

When you are inspired, your actions, decisions, and how you treat people will naturally differ.

It sets the tone of your day, but it also changes your mindset from one that focuses on the short term to one that focuses on the long term.