Motivation VS Inspiration

Do you find some things really effortless and other things needing you to push yourself, and really focus on staying on task to complete?... You do. Everyone does from time to time, in one sense or another, but why? What's the difference?

Simply defined, motivation is driven from external forces- like expectations, deadlines, goals etc. Something that you don't intrinsically have, or are driven for example you need to be 'motivated' to do it, whether you motivate yourself, or you have someone else motivate you, like a coach or mentor or friend or lover etc.  Inspiration comes from within, and is much more powerful as a driver for behavior and ultimately results, yet inspiration &/or motivation alone don't equal results without action.

How many times have you had a fleeting moment of inspiration? An idea that at the time you had it, stirred up a deep positive feeling inside you, and in the next instant it was gone! Vanished into the depths of your biological filing system, no matter how hard you tried to recall it, you just couldn't, and the harder you triedthe harder it was to recall, until you just moved on.

One of the biggest keys to a fulfilled life is to act on your inspirations, like the great artists, engineers, architects, authors, thinkers, doers, leaders & changers of our time did and do. All of these people were driven not by motivation, but by inspiration, or in other words their ultimate purpose, the thing that no one told them to do, and everyone said they would never be able to do.

If you get a bucket and put one crab in the bucket, the crab will crawl out of the bucket. The crab is instinctually inspired to get out of the bucket and back to the ocean floor, where it knows it belongs and loves to be. BUT, you put two crabs in the same bucket and neither crab will get out....true story. You see, every time one of the crabs gets inspired enough to escape the limitations of the bucket, the other crab will reach up and pull it back down... 

So what is your purpose? What inspires you? Which is normally the point where a person will say either "I don't know" or they'll say what inspires them, followed by all the reasons they can't do it, based on the size of their bucket and all the crabs out there that keep them in the bucket. 

Inspiration doesn't have to mean changing the world, or going into business, or anything for that matter, it means what ever it means to you, whatever it is that provides you with real fulfillment. I have friends that are inspired to live very simple lives, completely off grid, and I can tell you they are happier than most other people that need to be continually motivated to do something that doesn't inspire them, but "pays the bills", but you can find inspirations in your everyday movements... if you look for them!

The bucket is your comfort zone. Your limiting beliefs about the world and what is possible, and the crabs are the external things that limit you (money, relationships, government, opportunity, privilege etc.) 

When things seem impossible think about this. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
If you scale this to 1B:1, or in other words down to 46 years, then the human race has been here for just 4 hours & The Industrial Revolution began just 1 minute ago!

Forget about what you think is possible, and start to think about what inspires you. Steve Jobs once said "I want a phone with one button..." and everyone said he was crazy - to which he replied "the people that are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do"

Step out of the bucket and into life, and if you have crabs, ask a coach for some inspirational crab removal cream...

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This article was contributed by John Fell. For more about the author click the link below; Click here