As a creative professional, inspiration is a word that I come across at least once a day. Positive quotes, inspiring stories, tips and tricks on how to find it...
However you put it, inspiration seems to be all around us, but yet nowhere to be found at the same time.
When talking about inspiration, we usually mean one of the two – the process of coming up with new ideas or just that feeling of well… being inspired. In this blog post, I’m mostly going to be talking about the second one because in my opinion, when you’re feeling inspired, then those ideas that you were looking for, will also come to you.
When you’re just not feeling it
Through the last couple of years, I’ve struggled with inspiration many, many times. While studying photography and design in college, this would happen often to me – a lot actually. Sometimes it even made me question whether I picked the right studies for myself or if I had just gotten myself in too deep. Looking back now, I think that at least a partial fault is on the academy itself and the professors within it. Instead of inspiring me to create, they were giving me tasks and projects to complete. And I treated them as such – just another thing to cross off my to-do list.
All of this can be clearly seen in the works that I created during this time. A certain spark is missing in them and they simply look and feel dead. Yes, dead. There is no life within them, no sense of creativity, no joy behind their creation. I wasn’t proud of them and certainly didn’t want to display them for everyone to see.
Does it even matter?
I think it was Nick Cave who said something in the likes of inspiration being just an excuse for not creating. You have to work whether or not you feel inspired to do so. In creative professions especially, this is certainly true, but I would still like to add something to that: to work, you don’t need inspiration, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
How does inspiration even look like?
Personally, when I’m feeling those inspiration feels, I am certainly aware of them. There are things I want to do, ideas that I want to pursue and I just can’t wait to start. Sometimes, inspiration wakes me up in the middle of the night and won’t let go until I, at least, write everything down. Other times it hits me when I’m working on something else or just doing the dishes. But no matter the circumstances, when it hits me, that moment everything seems so much better.
In my opinion, one of the most important things when it comes to inspiration is to be able to recognize it, take a hold of it and just run. No matter how big or small, just run and create something. As soon as possible. Because that wondrous feeling that seems to be overpowering this moment, well it will soon fade away. And then you will be back where you started – once again feeling uninspired.
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