9 ways to find inspiration when the usual methods no longer work

1. Get into the competition

Take part in a marathon or competition, make a bet with friends, or set your own time limit and rules. So excitement will awaken in you, and with it inspiration. In addition, in a limited time environment, you will simply have no time to be distracted by your inner critic, and it will become much easier to work, create or come up with ideas.

There are many challenges and contests on social networks and blogs that will help you become better, lose extra pounds, improve your creative or professional skills, and sometimes even win gifts. There are marathons for those who draw (for example, Inktober) and for those who write (for example, NaNoWriMo). And also for people who want to play sports, learn a foreign language, work on relationships, and so on.

This is a very popular format, just search a little and you will surely find a test to your liking. If not, come up with it yourself.

2. Draw circles

Exactly. Just grab a sketchbook, a few colored pens or felt-tip pens and draw. Move the marker along the paper in any direction, without thinking or worrying about making the drawing look beautiful. You can even close your eyes if you like. Use a different colored marker when you feel like it. The result is a rather chaotic and abstract picture, consisting of lines and geometric shapes.

Sometimes it will be something beautiful and unusual, and sometimes it will be just childish daub. But the result is not very important here, the process itself is important.

This kind of meditation on paper is called neurographics, and it helps to organize thoughts, awaken inspiration, cope with fears and tune in to work.

3. Pretend to be someone else

This technique is suggested by Julia Cameron in her cult book The Artist's Way. She advises to write down who you always want to become (but never dare to) and literally live a little bit of the dream life. Of course, as much as possible.

Have you dreamed of becoming a model? Pick up an outfit, go to a makeup artist and order a photo session for yourself. Thinking about opening a candy store? Collect recipes, bake and photograph cakes. Did you want to write scripts? Go to a screenwriting workshop, read a textbook, or simply sit in a café with your laptop and think up a story.

Even if your main activity is not related to either cakes or the modeling business, games like this can inspire you and give you interesting ideas and discoveries. And if not, it will at least be pretty funny.

4. Set clear goals

It would seem, where is inspiration - a mysterious and uncontrollable process - and where is boring and soulless planning. But in fact, these two areas are very much combined. To enter the state of flow, it is imperative to set a goal - this is what he writes in his book “Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience Mihai Csikszentmihalyi.

The goal should be achievable and specific, but at the same time difficult enough so that you do not lose interest in the cause.

The main task should be broken down into intermediate ones. For each stage, come up with assessment criteria - how will you understand that the result has been achieved. In short, do not forget to write down goals and objectives and draw up a detailed plan for achieving them. And then you will have clear evidence that the work is going on, and you are progressing - a kind of feedback from yourself. This roadmap will keep you enthusiastic and inspirational.

5. Study the experience of ordinary people

We know a lot about the dizzying successes of billionaires and celebrities. While their accomplishments are certainly impressive, they have little to do with real life. Yes, Brad Pitt once called customers in a cafe dressed as a chicken, Natalya Vodianova traded in the market, and J. K. Rowling lived on the support of a single mother. And all of them - like many businessmen, singers and presenters - were able to overcome a lot and climbed to the top.

But we are at a different point in time and space, we have different initial data. And then, the loud takeoff is often the merit of a happy coincidence that we cannot predict in any way. In a word, there is little inspiring.

But inspiration and new ideas will turn out to be gleaned by communicating with ordinary people.

Or by reading their blogs. If you wander on social networks, you can find stories about how people learned foreign languages and moved abroad, how they wrote books, learned to draw and make money on their work, took part in auditions for music contests, and so on. Yes, there are no crazy rich and famous among them, but that's the beauty.

Looking at an imperfect person, your peer, who lives in the same country as you and was able to get a little closer to his dream, you will definitely feel a surge of inspiration: "If he could, I can too!" In addition, stories like these tell you a lot about the behind-the-scenes activities you are interested in, the pitfalls that await you, and the mistakes beginners make.

6. Get inspired by your successes

In our culture, being proud of yourself, let alone demonstrating your success, is considered something shameful. Supposedly this is vanity and you need to be more modest. Nothing of the kind: there are few things that charge you as much as your own achievements.

If you have lost your enthusiasm, look at your past work and compare it with what you are doing now. You will surely see that you have grown a lot.

Reread reviews from clients, employers, or fans. Go through certificates, diplomas and awards. You can even collect all these achievements in a special "trophy folder" and regularly look through it to feel what a fellow you are and recharge your batteries for new achievements.

7. Create a catalog of ideas

Write down whatever comes to mind, and always keep a notebook of ideas close at hand. For example, bestselling writer James Patterson does this: he has a folder with files, and in each file there is an idea for a plot. If he does not know what to write about, then he simply opens his “catalog”, leafs through it and fishes out a suitable thought.

Surely many authors, artists, screenwriters, advertisers and all those who constantly need to invent something new do this. The main challenge is remembering to write down ideas, and then organize them and keep them in order.

8. Disconnect

We live in an environment of incessant information noise: news feeds, social networks, emails and instant messages. Our brains are forced to cope with this flow from early morning until late at night. Naturally, in such conditions, he has no time to generate new ideas and immerse himself in work.

It is generally accepted that for inspiration you need to load yourself to the fullest: read a lot, watch movies, listen to podcasts and lectures, look at beautiful art, make new playlists. Then the magic well from which ideas come will be filled, and creativity will be easier. This is partly true.

But sometimes, in order to invent something new, you need, on the contrary, to lock yourself in an information vacuum.

Set aside time - from a few hours to a few days - that you spend without the Internet, magazines, and TV. For a complete reboot, you can try to completely abandon reading and not even let yourself near books - this is exactly what Julia Cameron suggests doing in the above-mentioned "The Artist's Way". The bottom line is that during such an informational detox, you will initially become very empty and bored, but this emptiness will gradually begin to fill with new ideas and thoughts.

9. Don't look for inspiration

Thinking about a problem or coming up with ideas, we most of all wait for insight - a bright insight, the very light bulb that flashes in the head and highlights the most suitable solution. But, before this happens, you must familiarize yourself with the problem and wait until the "incubation period" has passed. That is, until all the information fits, the brain will process it and give a solution.

And if you really want to wait for insight, then during this period you must completely disconnect from the task and do something else. Do not think, do not brainstorm, do not consult with friends and colleagues. Just forget. And a good idea will come by itself.

For example, during sleep or while falling asleep. During REM sleep, there is a surge of creativity in our brains, and in the morning we may find that we already have the perfect solution in our head. The main thing is to write it down immediately.