I can tell I am rusty. It’s been weeks since I have done any routine writing and today I determined to write whether I felt like it or not. The big question - what exactly to write about? No idea. All I knew is that if I didn’t sit my butt down and start, nothing would get done.
Have you ever been here? Have you ever known full well that you needed to accomplish something but you just didn’t have any clue on how to get going? While inspiration tends to be the first thing we look for in order to “get going”, I gotta tell ya, inspiration is a concept that has become tremendously over-rated. Personally, inspiration as of late was in rare commodity and yet, I wasn’t allowed to shirk my responsibilities due to its absence. I can’t think of one person who wouldn’t have laughed in my face if I told them I wasn’t inspired to take care of my obligations. Knowing this, I had no other option but to just get to work. And you know what happened? Once I got busy, I became inspired.
That’s right, in the midst of my draught where inspiration and even motivation are all but absent, the best thing I can do for myself is to take action. It’s my experience that action tends to lead to more action and before you know it, your accomplishments no longer hinge on whether or not you feel inspired enough to get busy. You just get busy. And when you get busy, stuff gets done. I ask you, is there any better inspiration than that? Seeing stuff get done? (This is where you shout “Preach It Brother!”) I can’t think of anything more rewarding than taking care of business and seeing my “To Get Done” list shrink. (Notice that I called it my “To Get Done” list, not my “To Do” list. But that’s another topic in and of itself...)
No matter what line of work you may be in, no matter what responsibilities you have at home, no matter what obligations you lend yourself to, the bottom line is this; it’s all about accomplishment. Success does not lie in the amount of work we take on. Success lies in the accomplishment of the work we take on. And accomplishment has nothing to do with inspiration. All too often we focus so heavily on the activity of getting things done, that we become discouraged and defeated before we even start. We search for the inspiration to get us moving, but it never comes, and we fall into an overwhelmed mindset. If we spent as much time staying busy as we did looking for the inspiration to get busy, our accomplishments would be huge.
And isn’t there some kind of law in nature that speaks to this phenomena? I believe it’s called momentum. Think of a snowball that rolls down hill picking up more and more snow and speed. It doesn’t stop and say, “Y’know something, I think I’m going to wait until I feel inspired before I go any further.” No, it just keeps going, and all the while, it gets bigger and faster until it’s a freaking boulder! Talk about accomplishment.
Each and every one of us has our own reasons for doing what we do. Most of us need to work for a living to provide for ourselves and our loved ones. In most circumstances, work equals pay. So what do you think would happen if when we got to our jobs, we turned to our boss and said, “I’m not feeling inspired today, so I might not be able to work.”? Any boss in their right mind would either send that person home without pay, or worse, fire them. How’s that? Feeling inspired now?
Don’t fall into the trappings of “Inspiration Equals Work”. Inspiration does not equal work. In fact, inspiration could be your biggest distraction form getting things accomplished. While you’re waiting for inspiration to do something great, someone else has already taken the initiative and accomplished what what you had only been dreaming about.
What’s been true for generations, remains true to this day. Hard work equals accomplishment. Inspiration has it’s place, but it is not a substitute for action. As I said, action tends to lead to more action. Waiting for inspiration tends to lead to more waiting. Take action, get to work and watch the inspiration build.
Be the snowball.
Tommy Wittig
© 2012 T-Dub-Ya Words
