”You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” -Jack London
What does it mean, to be inspired? I would say it’s not so much about understanding it, but rather feeling it inside of you. If you notices some of the following symptoms like joy, calmness, being in flow with everything that’s happening, strong waves of creativity, you have been inspired. At least that is how I would describe it. One time I listened to this amazing short video by one of my favorite photographers, Jana Williams and she described it as ”Life feels effortless.” and I couldn’t agree more! But as creative individuals we often fall into creative rut and feel uninspired. For me, that’s the most depressing situation. I’m a person that needs to create something every day to feel alive and good and when other things get me mentally tired sometimes, like studying for days and only eating and sleeping in between I feel like I’m gonna break. I don’t create anything for days. Since that happened way to many times I’ve decided to sit down with myself and write down some things that always help and inspire me. Hope some of them will come in hand when you’re feeling a bit stuck. They help me every time and I hope they will bring some good vibes your way too.
1. TAKE A WALK
As simple as it may sound, there is nothing like a good walk. When I’m feeling uninspired and don’t have any new ideas to realize, I just get up, take my camera, play some good music on my headphones and get lost in the city. I look at people and dogs and birds and stick my head into flowers. This world is so beautiful and literally every thing you come across can be a trigger for new ideas. Allow yourself to be amazed by the most simple things. Allow yourself to be a tourist even in the places you already know and let every impression in. Once I heard that walking in a tuned in rhythm is like a form of yoga, because our steps match beat of our hearts. When I stopped smoking I would walk for hours and hours and it calmed me down so much. After the walk I would always sit down and write some new ideas to realize. And had a bunch of new photos 🙂
2. BRAIN DUMPING
I found out about this via Pinterest (like everything else in these last couple of years haha) and it was really a method that made room in my brain for some fresh ideas. I’m a person that always writes, but when it comes to writing ”to do” lists I crack. In the last year I have worked non-stop and finishing my undergraduate year which ment I had A TON of obligations. I was late with everything. Reason for is was that I had to many things on my mind, juggled all the time, deadlines, appointments, exams, seminars, photosesions.. I realized that was one of the main things that kept me so uninspired. So I sat down, divided a piece of paper in squares and tagged them in relevant names like ”Work”, ”College”, ”Home”, ”Blog”, ”People”. Poured myself cup of coffee and started writing everything that came in my mind I had unresolved. Even if it was from months or year ago. All that load on my mind was overwhelming me. At the end of session, my paper was full of stupid little things I have or had to do but simply forgot, like send some papers to my friend like a month ago. As crazy as it may sound, all that stuff you keep in your mind are taking a load on you. Write that sh** down and you’ll feel a lot lighter. Than later start resolving them.
3. YOUR PEOPLE
I can’t even count how many times talking to ”my people” made me feel inspired. You know those friends you just love to sit down with and have a cup of coffee, eat a cake and just have a good talk full of positivity? Keep those people in your life! I mean that! Because I know like me and like the rest of the world, we all have friends that love to talk about other people and their business in a mean way, only complain, are always negative and can’t move a bit from one mind state for years. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life. Their negative attitude is a wall to inspiration. And most importantly, it’s more than okay to walk away from those people. Yesterday my friend and I went on an unplanned adventure and it was absolutely amazing. We talked about nothing and everything, took a bunch of photos (which you’ll see down below :)) and talked about our new photography project. When I got home I was so hyped and inspired, I edited photos until 2 am and decided I’m gonna write this post 🙂
4. MOOD BOARDING
This is such a good method and I haven’t used it for some reason before, but when I stared I had a clear vision and was inspired to make ideas come to life. Since I’m a photographer, I love photos. Stupid line, but there is just no other way to describe it. When I see a photo I like my heart literary jumps a little. A good photograph should do that, it should transfer a certain kind of mood, make you feel something. Mood boarding works on the simple base of combining together photos that match the feeling you wanna transfer through something you create yourself. For example, say you’re a sculptor. You don’t have to save only photos of sculptures, take every photo that matches the mood you wanna transfer through your sculpture. It may be a photo of a painting, a text line of some kind, a photo of a building. It’s really fun and turns your mind in some other direction. It makes you inspired by the things that aren’t even in your domain and that expands your creativity. Research and mood board away.
5. NOTE TO SELF
Like little reminders of most important things. That really helped me many, many times. I have Passion Planner and if you don’t have one you should definitely get it right now. And no, this is not sponsored, I just love the whole concept and idea behind it, so I recommend it to everyone I know and wish good to. 🙂 The whole planner is like your little life coach. Every week there are inspirational quotes and growth challenges, you can create a passion roadmap that helps you stay clear with your vision, a reflection at the end of every month. Absolutely amazing! At the end you have clear pages for drawing, writing, etc. So I made a big ”note to self” over two pages and just wrote down things that instantly inspire me. Favorite quote, a line from a song, words someone said, few photos, memories, reminders to myself when I get stuck. It really got me going a few times and I recommend you should do that. ” You don’t get inspired, you reveal the inspiration that already lives inside of you.” So just remind yourself about that.
6. ASK
Ask yourself why is it that you love what you do so much? In your passion, what is the thing you love and that makes you create, feel inspired? Sometimes we forget the most basic things so it’s important to remind ourselves. What do you like about making music? Is it seeing people dancing to it? Is it the way the sound makes you feel? Is it both? When you think about what you love most about whatever is that you’re doing, you won’t be stuck anymore. Give yourself a push by asking the right questions.
And now some photos from my trip two days ago. Hope you enjoy them and find this post useful. Let me know in the comments if you do. 🙂 Sea of love, S.
