Inspiration Challenge 23

Day 23 Challenge: Live like your hero for a day.

This should be interesting.  One of my heroes is Anne Shirley ala Anne of Green Gables.  I love the spirit with which she approaches life and the people who surround her.  There’s a certain optimism and “Anne-ish” philosophy that I could use right now.  I feel that negative thoughts constantly slip from my mouth or into my mind, that though I see myself as a generally positive and optimistic person, this is not reflected in my day-to-day conversations with people.  I want to bring the face I present to the world into greater alignment with my inner world.  So I’m going to only say positive things all day today, only think positive thoughts.  There is a silver lining to every incident.  I may have to squint hard to find it on a blustering New England morning, but I’ll find it – oh, I’ll find it.

The Connection Between Inspiration and Empowerment

Acting on dreams and inspiration is not just about honoring our uniqueness and vision for our lives.  On the most basic level, it feels good.  Think of the times you finally get around to that list of household chores.  Or how much you enjoyed writing a card to a friend, even if it is hard to shut off the TV.  The activity itself is enjoyable, the process feels good, or the sense of accomplishment is satisfying.  It engages the three components of happiness that positive psychologists talk about – positive emotion (enjoyable), engagement (getting into the flow), meaning (doing something with a larger purpose beyond personal fulfillment).

Beyond increasing happiness, acting on dreams spills over into the rest of life in other ways.  The courage and initiative it takes to explore a new hobby or tackle a project are important in so many areas.  These are the same skills as it takes to start up a conversation with the cute girl next to you at the supermarket or to make a career change.  In job-seeking parlance that’s called “transferable skills.”  The process of starting up a new project builds other transferables like persistence, diligence, self-discipline, creativity, and the confidence to tackle new and unfamiliar tasks.  And these are important in all areas of life, not just the fifteen minutes or half an hour set aside each day for personal activities.

In public health parlance this is called “empowerment,” or possession of a sense of control over life.  Empowerment is not innate but developed through life.  That crucial step – knowing that options exist, feeling that there is something I can do about the situation – is the difference between feeling trapped and searching for a way out.  It is the difference between feeling hopeless and finding hope.  And that has a huge impact in how we react to situations, both tiny crises and major life changes.

This is not easy to develop.  Initiative does not pop up overnight, and from the time we are young we are not given many opportunities to develop a sense of empowerment.  First in school then in work, we are always acting on someone else’s agenda.  Empowerment can, however, be cultivated in successively larger projects.  The first time is always the hardest, so it makes sense to start small and gradually build up.  Pick something out of personal interest.  It is far better to take these steps when the stakes are lower and the timeline is fluid, than when the stakes are high and time is limited.

In that regard, taking one step towards something you’ve always wanted to try, like signing up for an adult education class or becoming active in a church committee, is an easy, fun and non-threatening way to develop empowerment and the skills to take control over life situations.  Best of all, it coincides with your personal interests and values.  And who knows?  It might lead to new opportunities in your personal or professional life.  The blogosphere is filled with stories of men and women who started documenting their hobbies and developed them into a full-fledged career, or who met likeminded people through the Internet and created all sorts of interesting, creative, unusual and powerful new projects.

So just start.  Pick something.  Dip your toe in the waters.  Run with it.

Inspiration Challenge 16: Make a Play Date with Your Inner Child

The first thing I think of when I think of my inner child is “Harry Potter,” because when I was 15 Harry Potter brought me back my childhood.  My young childhood, the one taken with fairies and magic all around us, just waiting to be discovered by the right pair of eyes.  But simply rereading Harry Potter feels like an easy way out of this challenge, so I pushed one step further.  What about that younger child?  How was she doing?  What would she want to do now?

And then I remember the creek fairies.  Actually, I’m not quite sure what they were called, but they lived in four marbled folders stuffed full of paper that I used to carry around with me everywhere, scribbling notes for the novels I had planned for their adventures, one for each folder.  The fairies were about three inches tall and lived by a creek, though they were eventually forced to move to an island and into the forest, among other places (hence the subsequent novels).  Their adventures were the first novel-length story I planned, and I faithfully sat down to my father’s computer at the tender age of 8, typing away for 20-odd pages after school and on weekends before I stopped one day.  I think the words stopped flowing, and I stopped typing.  It was my first run-in with writers block.

I wish I had that manuscript now.  So instead of putting Harry Potter on audiobook as soundtrack to the dishes, I sit down to recreate the story of the creek fairies.  There are few details I remember now, only that they could fly (all my fairies could fly), and that they were gatherers, making do with nature’s provisions for sustenance and household goods.  It was idyllic for sure, no hunting or conflicts with neighboring tribes of creek fairies, maybe a close call with a fox.  The fairies of my childhood were always sweet, without edge, the type of people I wanted to surround myself – the type of person I wanted to be, I suppose, living in harmony with beauty in the world.

The stories, too, never had much plot.  I was usually too enamored with creating the details of their context to think about action.  Imagining the details of a house in a log inspired me more than friction to move a story along.  I much preferred to imagine how many rooms they would have, how they would furnish it, where they would play and cook and sing and befriend a gross hopper or friendly mouse.  I can think of very few details now in the fogginess of adulthood, only, perhaps, a hollowed out acorn for cups or bowls, but even now the adult censor kicks in, asking if they would harden the acorn shells with fire for durability, how they would find or tend such a fire, whether the cups would really be waterproof.  Perhaps it is this voice of “common sense,” this inner critic, that silences the imagination now, for it has been challenging to recreate these details that I loved so much in childhood.  My mind does not operate on the same scale or see natural objects with multiple uses anymore.  I wonder if I am rusty, or if my mind is too filled with “big world” matters like plot and characterization, to hear the voice of the young child calling through the darkness.

I think the creek fairies must have coincided with my Borrowers phase, because I read many similarities between the two.  The tiny scale (though most my fairies were this small), fashioning daily goods out of found objects, moving in and out of nature.  How I loved nature, even in those days!  How I loved making daily objects from found items, improvising a boat out of a large leaf and a stick!  How I loved stories like Stuart Little, reading about improvising for tiny creatures or for living out in nature.  I loved books like the original Bobsey Twins books, a complete set from my mother’s childhood.  Those books featured activities like experimenting with jelly cakes or making houses out of cardboard shoe boxes.  Making.  Doing.  Creating.

I see now that theme has always been inside me.  Those were the stories that most drew me because they wrote of activities that fascinated me.  Today those are the very same activities I prefer.  Instead of creating small worlds where my protagonists occupied center stage, I’m now taking these activities and using them in my life instead.  What’s missing is the magic and the imagination.  Or perhaps they are merely expressed in a different format, magic and imagination framed in grown up terms like recipe improvisation or the sheer joy of a beautiful sunset.  But I do miss that young child.  I think she still has lessons for me, if only I can cut through the din of the world to hear her whispered fancies.

Day 17 challenge: bring fresh flowers into your life.

Day 18 challenge: Do something new.

Day 19 challenge: Reconnect with an old friend.

Ways to Keep Inspiration In Your Life

There are many ways to keep inspiration in our lives.  Daily challenges are one way, inspiration boards another.  In the spirit on inspiration, here are more ideas to spark your thoughts:

*Inspiration scrapbook or binder.  Similar to the board but a permanent landing place that keeps all your ideas in one place.  Can be multiple binders, or one with compartments for recipes, weekend activities, home decorating ideas, work projects ideas, favorite sayings, reflective exercises such as “If money were no object …”

*Inspirational quotes, photographs and images.  These can be placed anywhere: a photo of your next vacation spot next to the computer monitor at work, a picture of the your dream house tucked into the credit card compartment of your wallet, “if money was no object …” list taped to the mirror.

*Visual reminders of impending deadlines.  Some people prefer to track their daily efforts against a larger timeline to keep themselves moving forward.  In this case, weekly or monthly goals should be written up in a prominent location.  Every week I make a list of topics I want to write about.  When I’m fumbling around at 7AM trying to get the words to flow, this list is usually enough to point me in the right direction.

*Visual reminders of progress made.  A visual metaphor for progress is a powerful antidote to the voices of self-doubt, laziness, or the mental roadblocks that make it difficult to start your project each day.  Pinging is one example.  Or place a calendar next to your work spot, and every time you complete your goal – exercise for 20 minutes, write 500 words daily, clean out the attic to make room for your expanding side business – mark that day with a giant X.  As the X’s start to accumulate on the calendar, your motivation to keep going comes from two sources: to keep moving towards your goals, but also to keep up that steady stream of X’s.  Or say you’re trying to exercise regularly.  Put a dollar in a clear glass jar every time you exercise.  It’s a nice feeling as the dollars accumulate in the jar, and you can use the jar as fun money to treat yourself to something you wouldn’t otherwise do.

*Images that remind you of your ultimate goal.  This keeps the focus towards the ultimate goal and overcomes small temptations along the way that detract from the ultimate goal.  A smoker might quit to be around when her grandchildren grow up.  One way to encourage her is to put a box of mints or Altoids where she normally keeps her cigarettes, and paste a picture of her grandchildren to the front of the box.  If habit kicks in and she automatically reaches for a cigarette she’s immediately reminded of her reasons to quit, instead of growing tempted to have “just one” because the conspicuous absence causes her to fixate on smoking.

Take some time to reflect on what you find most challenging, and where you could use some inspiration.  On a day-to-day level, what do you find most difficult?  Getting started?  Keeping the rhythm?  Maybe this means putting the alarm clock across the room and taping an inspirational word or quote to the top of it.  Or it could mean setting up a small corner that is solely devoted to your project and making it as warm and inviting as possible.

Or are your efforts uneven from day to day – some days everything comes together, other days progress is slow?  What patterns do you notice about both?  What rearrangements can you make to increase the number of good days?  Maybe you work best by keeping the final product in mind.  Or maybe you are most inspired when there’s a tangible short-term product to aim for.  For example, if you’re training for a marathon you might find it most motivational to remind yourself “Four months left to train up to 26 miles!”  Or you might find it easier to think, “This week I will train up to 12 miles.”  Either way, transform these into visual reminders and keep them prominent.

Troubleshoot your problem areas.  When do you encounter the most resistance?  Be specific.  Where are you, what are you thinking, and why are you thinking those thoughts (i.e. what are the underlying emotions that create those thoughts)?  Each “W” is an opportunity to change up your routine to overcome resistance to your efforts.  For example, you’re trying to eat healthier by eliminating nighttime snacking.  What is giving you the most trouble?  Perhaps you find yourself constantly going in and out of the kitchen after dinner (where).  Is it during commercial breaks (what), because you’re bored (why), because you like to end a meal with something sweet (why)?

Snacking => kitchen => TV => need something mindless to do while watching TV

Each arrow represents a place in the chain to stop the activities that prevent you from reaching your goal.  In the link between snacking and the kitchen, you might turn off the lights, close the kitchen door, put signs on the kitchen door, refrigerator, cupboard panels.  These signs can be inspirational quotes or reminders of healthy snack alternatives.  To address the link between kitchen and TV, keep yourself occupied during commercial breaks.  Place a stack of magazines or crossword puzzles next to the couch.  To break the link between TV and the need to do something mindless while watching TV, think of various ways to keep your hands occupied.  Take up crocheting, work on a jigsaw puzzle, doodle on scratch paper.

Keep inspiration all around you.  Keep it physically close to the places you could use extra encouragement.  Think about what obstacles you’re facing when you need that extra boost.  This offers clues about the best way to use inspiration to keep you moving.

Inspiration Challenges 15, 16

Day 15 Challenge: Look up.

Day 16 Challenge:

Soccer lessons

In the middle of my first semester of grad school, a little sign popped up in an out-of-the-way message board for intramural indoor soccer. We could form teams ourselves or sign up individually and get placed on someone else’s team. I hadn’t played soccer in over a decade and thought it would be fun to have regularly scheduled weekly exercise and an excuse to band together some classmates to share in sweat, pain and glory. There’s something about that combination that really brings people closer like no other. Katelyn had sent out an exploratory “anybody interested?” email to our cohort to little reply so she dropped the subject, but we agreed to put each other’s names on our individual signups and hope they’d place us on the same team. On the very last day for signups we gathered at the board to fill out our forms. One by one classmates dropped by to see what we were doing, and one by one we talked them into joining us, until, spontaneously, we had enough for a team.

The unfortunate detail I forgot to mention to everybody present was that I suck at soccer. I do. In elementary school we’d had a ragtag team – our school’s only team sport available – that won maybe one game in the entire four seasons I played for them. We had a couple parent coaches with no particular soccer experience, and did nothing but scrimmage on an open field for practice. The field sloped slightly downwards so that whoever won the coin toss and chose their side of the field generally won the scrimmage. I knew very little about dribbling, passing, strategy, where to run and when to do it. All I did know was defense, where two defenders and myself would prowl the perimeter of our territory and attempt to eject any stray balls or opposing players that ventured into our territory.

Enter indoor soccer. A dozen years later I found myself facing the very first sport I’d ever played, the one that really should have turned me off of sports as a meaningful form of exercise but instead, it’s really the form of exercise that I enjoy most. But indoor soccer is a beast of an entirely different nature from soccer. Halve the team size and transport the game to a basketball court, where walls are “in” and so is the area behind the goal. Indoor soccer is like watching a movie on fast forward. The montage cuts out all the nonessential filler and puts the action in a small arena. There is no hiding in indoor soccer, no room for superfluity. Every person counts.

Our first game was at 6PM on a cool November evening. Some of us hadn’t played in over a decade, others had competed on high school teams and such. The referee blew his whistle, and the blur of bodies and ball began. I discovered within seconds that when there’s only five of you on court there’s just not a lot of room to hide. Two people on offense versus three is a 50% increase; it means the difference between one person to pass to or two. And when there are only four people on each side, well, there is a large difference between stranding your teammate in an offensive strike and running up to help out, if only to spread out the defense.

Even if their professed skill level was roughly equivalent to mine, they threw themselves in without abandon – chasing the ball, running back and forth between goals, dribbling, taking aim, giving it a shot. They put themselves out there, experienced or not, and as their reward, they were actually part of the team: laughing, high fiving one another, whereas I, I was still timid, still shy, wanting to be a part of it but not quit sure how to venture in, unwilling to take the plunge on the off chance that I might fail quite gracelessly by dint of trying.

There’s nothing like a rousing game of sports to throw you back to your most primitive state of being. At my very core and youngest version of myself, I am shy, timid, risk-averse and conservative, unsure of myself and unable to put myself out there, and how that all came out in that first game. I froze at the thought of venturing up to offense, a place where I have no skills, no experience, no sense of strategy or field vision, nothing to offer.

Why can’t you be like them, I’d whisper to myself. Just get out there and try. Surprise yourself. It’s the only way to improve. You would have so much more fun, they would have so much more fun.

To make a clean breast of it, for several months now I’ve been meaning to work on this fear of failure that stymies any attempts towards even trying. Sometimes you can hide behind the excuse of exhausting work schedules and over commitment that prevent you from really tackling what you want to do, but out on the court pretense is stripped down in a matter of seconds, and stares you in the face for one long, painful hour.

I’ve grown up in many ways from that shy, timid version of my most primitive being, but in this one area I still haven’t made nearly as much progress as I’d like. More than anything, that is what this year is about: putting myself out there, learning to embrace failure, even seeking it out to force failure upon myself in order to become a better person.

Inspiration Challenge 14

Day 14 challenge:

Inspiration Challenge 12: Revisit an old artistic medium

Inspiration Challenge 12: Pick up an artistic medium you haven’t touched in awhile.

When I was cleaning up the other day I came across this Chinese saying written in some odd corner of an old notebook, along with little notes about the type of drawing I wanted to make out of it.  The saying literally translates as, “Take a step and look around,” which roughly means to take life one step at a time, or that life is a constant recalibration process.  My friend said this to me while I was in China, uncertain about the future and what direction to head with my life.  “It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making this out to be,” she was telling me with this phrase.  “Nothing is set in stone.  Try something out [take a step], then see how you feel about it [look around] and make adjustments accordingly.”

I think about this now that I’m several steps along from that initial conversation.  I’d taken several steps into a field I thought was a perfect fit, but when I took that larger step [an expensive one at that!] I discovered it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be.  So now, true to her word, I’m looking around.  What else is possible from here?  Three steps from here?  Five?  Where should I veer?

It’s similar to what Angela said.  It’s important to test our your dreams.  Make the first move, get to know them better.  In the case of this blog, I’m finding it’s a lot harder to develop my voice and a steady posting rhythm than I thought it would be.  I never realized it would be so difficult to write about inspiration, and to be honest, I’ve questioned whether or not I want to keep this up for another ten months.  I think I’ll do it, but I need to rethink this space and what I offer to the blogosphere that is different or interesting.  In the case of my professional life, I’ve discovering that I love the philosophy and approach of public health, but not necessarily the way that translates to the day-to-day work.

If I hadn’t started this blog, if I hadn’t gone to this program, I wouldn’t have known this.  Writing daily about wellness [in academia-ese I think of this as “building human capital”] would remain a dream, something to moon over in class as we talk about regression coefficient.  It would be my default pie-in-the-sky dream job whenever I got frustrated or disillusioned with school work, causing greater and greater hopes to be pinned to it until it became so bloated with unrealistic, grandiose expectations that it would be too daunting to ever try to pursue, lest the bubble burst and I discover I’m holding a frog, not a prince.  Likewise, these past 6 months have helped me pinpoint what, exactly, it is about this field that I absolutely love, and which surprisingly large segments are perfectly fine but now what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.  More than that, it’s forced me to reflect on my past jobs to find the underlying themes that gave me greatest satisfaction and which parts of the job burned me out, the types of tasks that I am drawn to, my strengths and my weaknesses.

Back to the challenge, I went through a “doodled abstraction” phase towards the end of college.  I’d take a concept and translate it into symbols or a Chinese phrase, then abstract the symbol, characters, and images and work it up over the entire page.  An example I dug out of the archives:

This is my last name in Chinese, over and over and over again.  I haven’t doodled in over 2 years, so when I plucked the slip of paper out of the jar yesterday morning I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Finally translate that saying to paper.  Dust off the black pen and give it a go.  I’d put this off for days now, afraid it wouldn’t be perfect or that I hadn’t thought through the concept enough to get it down on paper.  And while this isn’t exactly what I envisioned, it felt really good to dip back into an old hobby, dust off the cobwebs an back towards once-familiar terrain.  And just as the saying says, you won’t know what you need to tweak until you make that first move.

Switching mediums for a day stretches creativity in new directions.  Fresh perspective generates new ideas, just like the change in perspective achieved by focusing on one sense.  This is particularly helpful when stuck in a rut, but even as a weekly or monthly exercise it works to keep our projects fresh and keep us exploring new directions.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll take a step in a new direction, look around, like what we see, and keep moving.

Challenge 13: Research your hero.

Find out their life story.   What motivates them?  Where do they get inspiration?   What challenges did they face?  How did they overcome them?

The importance of inspiration

Everyone has a list of things they’d like to do before they die. Maybe it is to write the next great American novel, act in a play, see the pyramids, start a business. Far too often we put these off for “later, when I have time.” Meanwhile life slips by. We rush from obligation to obligation, and at the end of the day we’re too tired to do much more than flop down on the couch and decompress for a couple hours in front of the television.

The problem is that we could fill three lifetimes with work and household chores and still not be done with everything we’re “supposed to do.” In other words, we could spend three lifetimes on tasks that are less important to us, and less meaningful, than our dreams and passions. But it is our dreams and passions make us unique, not our jobs, not our ability to wash dishes or pick up dirty laundry. You may be wonderful at your job, but chances are you didn’t create your job. You may have molded someone else’s description into a job that fits you, but at the end of the day someone else could still take over and the organization would continue functioning. Your dreams and passions, on the other hand, are unique to you. Even two people who share the same overarching passion will find differences in the details, because our dreams are defined by life experience and personality.

To honor our dreams and passions is to honor what makes us unique. This means acknowledging our dreams and actively pursuing them. It may feel impossible to carve out time for them, but I’m sure you can think of a couple minutes ach day to devote to them. Pick one. Start small. Give your dreams half an hour a day, or fifteen minutes, or even ten or five. Aren’t they worth it? Aren’t you worth it?

Just start. Think of fifteen minutes you can squeeze into your day. Maybe it’s during lunch. Maybe it’s right after dinner when the TV shows aren’t that good anyways. Or maybe it means setting the alarm clock 15 minutes earlier and starting your day off on a positive note. It’s helpful to identify a consistent time each day. Think through the small details – where you’ll be, what supplies you’ll need, ways to avoid distractions and other obstacles. Make the commitment in writing, tell a friend.

Inspiration is the starting point. Inspiration is the day-to-day reminder to work towards the big dream, and why it is so important. It is also encouragement, a source of new ideas and solutions to the problems we encounter along the way. Inspiration is the flashes of insight into how you will carry out the dream – it is the seed of an idea, a novel new approach, the way around a stumbling bock. Inspiration keeps us moving forward. It reminds us to stay balanced and stay focused on what’s important.

Most of all, acting upon inspiration is exciting. Acting on one good idea unleashes a wellspring of new ideas that tumble forth, pile up, cross-fertilize to create even better ideas. You’ll notice this spill over into other areas of your life. Work won’t feel as tedious, and inspiration will help you find faster ways to get work done, or new ideas to contribute at meetings. It gives you something to look forward to as you do your chores. As your project grows and develops, it encourages a broader shift in thinking: what is worth my time? Am I enjoying life? Can I reshuffle my obligations to increase the time I spend on the things that matter? This creates an even larger snowball effect. Acting on inspiration leads to working on our dreams, which inspires new ideas and possibilities that lead to even more time and energy spent on our dreams, which leads to even more ideas and positive energy.

Inspiration Challenge 10: Focus on one of your senses.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk of late, dipping in and out of dark moods of despair, isolation, and self-defeating thought patterns.  All is not lost among the dense fog of gloom; indeed, there are many, many moments of sunshine that break through – though do not dispel – the threatening clouds that loom overhead.  Yesterday was another low, one which has been building for several days now and peaked around 2PM, sitting there in class, frustrated that the entire conversation was way over my head, frustrated that this school wasn’t what I wanted or needed, frustrated, most of all, that the conversation was perfectly manageable for half the class and that this school was exactly what that half wanted and needed.

Or so it seemed.  I’m not sure what’s more frustrating, being caught in circular thinking or the recognition of the circuitous path of your train of thought coupled with an inability to break the cycle.

You’re being really negative.  Jamie’s words, directed at herself not too long ago, but dead on nonetheless.  It’s funny how much negativity can seep out into the rest of your life, so quietly and unobtrusively that the coup is total and complete.  My ambivalence has infected all areas of life and dragged them down: my classes, my relationships, my moments alone with the activities i most enjoy, even my mornings at the keyboard.  It has been damn hard to write this past month.

You’re being really impatient.  Jordan’s words, advice to Lisa that she shared in passing a couple conversations ago.  Even now, Lisa and I find ourselves at similar crossroads in life; despite the thousands of mile between us, her life lessons still cut through my tangled webs of circular thinking that choke off rational thought.

Help comes, as it so often does, from an outside source.  Or in this instance, from two outside sources, both of whom have shouldered a disproportionate burden of helping me through this latest funk.  But from here, I know, I must shoulder the burden myself.  And so, just as I turned to daily inspiration challenges to fight February’s gloom, so too I turned to it yesterday to combat the additional shadows that have haunted my mind for so many weeks now.

Day 10 challenge: focus on one of your senses.

Touch.  The sensation of water running over potatoes, the warmth of the gas stove as it heats up a pot of soup.  Cooking can be remarkably therapeutic or it can be a messy sprint to throw together enough calories to get me through the day.  Last night I chose the former, mental sanctuary in the rhythm of the knife against vegetables, the soft glow of the kitchen light against the fading remnants of day.  The gritty unevenness of potato skin.  Bumpy, tangled ridges of kale.  Granules of salt, cradled in the palm of my hand before released into a bubbling pot, the gentle heat meeting arm and wrist for brief seconds in time.  And dishes, a chore I detest second only to cleaning the toilet, last night even the dishes were sanctuary, smooth porcelain and rivulets of water and the occasional soap bubble dancing on the surface.

Sometimes inspiration comes from the editing process.  Our senses tell parallel strands to the same story, but the mind becomes bogged down by too many details so it filters them out.  That richness of detail is an untapped source of inspiration.  So focus on one sense.  Let the voices of touch, taste, smell, and hearing tell their untold stories.  Last night meant letting go of my passive, reactive, self-victimizing internal dialogue.  Focusing on touch was a metaphor to balance my perspective with multiple voices, and also that we have power over which voices we edit out and which ones we let in.

Day 11 challenge: