What's Stopping You

There are fundamentally two ways to become more inspired. One is to find what inspires you and do more of it. Many of the techniques I've shared with you in previous newsletters are based on this approach. But there is a second way to become more inspired - find what stops you and change it.

Imagine you are driving a car and you want it to go faster. The obvious method is to use your right foot to press harder on the throttle pedal. The principle is that the more you press, the faster you go. But the speed of the car will also depend on what you are doing with your left foot. If it is planted firmly on the brake, then the speed will not increase. The principle now is that the more you press the slower you go.

So where is your inspiration brake - what stops you being inspired? It could be any number of things, or it may be a specific thing. Here are some typical answers:

• I've got so much to do that I haven't got time.
• If I was inspired, I couldn't face the mundane things.
• My boss already doesn't understand me.
• The culture doesn't allow me to be inspired.
• I need to earn a living.

Whatever the answer, there is an underlying assumption that this is how the world works. The assumption predicts the future - this is how things will be - but how do you know that it is true?

Predicting the future based on what has happened in the past has limited success. We may be certain that the sun will rise tomorrow based on the fact that it has done so, every morning, for millions of years.

But when it comes to human behaviour, ours and other people, the past is not able to give us such certainty. Instead we run on what we believe will happen, so we need to be careful what we believe.

If we believe that we can not be more inspired for some reason, then the chances are that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We will unwittingly shape our behaviour to fit with the belief. Henry Ford put it like this:

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right"

When we find reasons not to be inspired, we may think that we are simply being 'realistic'. The danger is that, in actual fact, we are drifting away from real possibilities into make-believe of our own making.

Fortunately there are an unlimited number of beliefs we can choose from. That means we can experiment with a new belief - trying it on for size - and see what view of the world we get looking through it. If we like what we see, we can adopt it.

Here's some of my favourites - which one could you try on?

"Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing"
(Helen Keller)

"It is never too late to be what we might have been"
(George Eliot)

"You become what you think about"
(Earl Nightingale)

"Energy flows where attention goes"
(James Ray)

"There is no such thing as failure, only feedback"
(Anon)

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure"
(Marianne Williamson)

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity"
(Albert Einstein)

"There is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct mistakes"
(George Soros)

"You can make yourself happy or miserable - it's the same amount of effort"
(Ray Bradbury)

"In each of us are places where we have never gone"
(Joyce Brothers)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an art, but a habit"
(Aristotle)

Which ones resonate with you? What other beliefs are important to you?

You could print them and put them around the house, in the car or even at work!