Inspiration is powerful stuff. Inspired people are fully energised and clearly focused, which means they are strongly motivated and engaged in the action they take. These are prized qualities in the workplace - a manager's dream! - yet inspired colleagues are a rarity.
Too many managers and leaders look for ways to inspire their people while remaining locked into uninspired behaviour themselves. This is doomed to failure! Instead, here are the 5 principles behind success.
1. Being inspired is a prerequisite for inspiring those around you
It's a matter of congruence - walking the talk. If someone deliberately sets out to inspire you and they are not themselves inspired, the falsehood is obvious. Would you be inspired by someone who is not inspired themselves? So, as Gandhi put it, "Be the change you want to see".
2. The resulting insights help you to inspire others
By becoming more aware of how you are inspired, you will gain insights into how other people become inspired. This is not a simplistic assumption that whatever inspires you will inspire everybody else but a deeper understanding of the mechanism of inspiration and how techniques that work for you can be adapted to work with others.
For example, a clear sense of purpose is an inspiring experience. However the particular purpose that works for you may not be the same purpose that inspires your colleague. But what is true is that a sense of purpose, whatever the difference in detail, is important for both of you.
3. Inspiration is contagious!
This is perhaps the most obvious reason - the low-hanging fruit - why you need to be inspired first. If you did nothing else there would still be some positive impact on those around you. People love to be with inspired individuals because some of it automatically rubs off.
4. Inspiring your team is an act of leadership
Inspiring others is a key leadership skill. You are the leader of your team and, whether you choose it or not, each member looks to you as a role model. To some degree your behaviour will be copied - you need to be out in front.
5. Inspiration will sustain you in your role in leading the team
Consistently inspiring a team takes energy, focus, creativity and resilience. You will have these qualities in far greater abundance when you are inspired. Without inspiration, your efforts are likely to exhaust you as well as being ineffective.
Friday, November 5, 2010
What Motivate You?
Have you ever thought? What inspires YOU? What is it that drives you day in and day out? What is it that inspires you?
We think of creative people as being inspired and ask about their work. What inspired you to paint, draw, produce this piece of work? What inspired you to make this? Usually the answer is: a book, poem, film, experience, person, a place or in Cole Porter's case the 'phone call from the director'.
Something else or someone else inspired the artist, the songwriter. But what about the person in a regular job? What inspires you?
"Inspiration is a desire to live life without flinching. To take a risk and possibly fail.
To act on your emotions, creativity, ability and beliefs. To take criticism but have the faith in yourself to do it anyway. Bloody hard work, but then hard work never
killed anyone (or so my Dad says). Oh, and I find foster parents inspiring.
They pick up the pieces when the fundamental teachings and rules of our society fail. If I were religious I'd ask God to bless em."
Carolyn Tomley
What is it that inspires you?
You can begin to see that if nothing inspires you or excites you or lights up your life you are really missing something. You are just like a robot performing task after task. We believe that deep down you have a place where you can be touched. You have a place that is solely ours. Solely for you to show the world. Can you name it?
What inspires me, is the thought that I am more than my body. My limitations are only down to my thoughts. Thus I want to keep pushing the boundaries to find out what is there. Find out what I can communicate to the world. I am inspired by the fact that through what I do I may enable another person to open their mind. To remove the blinkers and reach their possibilities.
Julie is inspired by life. All that is around her. To Julie, inspiration is a rush of adrenalin, a rush of energy that creates a clearing in her thinking. It's that time when you see something from a different perspective and say to yourself, Why didn't see it like this before?
For Julie, inspiration is like the prisoner who says you can do whatever you like to my body but you can't touch my soul, my reason for living.
But what inspires you? What makes you go to that space where you continue to do what you do for hour after hour, when you forget the need to eat and drink. What is it that inspires you?
Some artists suggest that it is their imagination that inspires them. The need to tell the world what is going on in their heads. The links that they make. The different ways of viewing the world. After all literature, music and visual arts are all about the originator communicating with the rest of us.
So inspiration appears to be linked with the need to communicate with others. It may not be in words. But we feel it is about communication. What about you? What are you inspired to communicate?
Inspiration is linked to innovation. To introduce new ways of seeing things. Inspiration is a way of understanding the essence of ourselves. Understanding who we are and what we dream about. Whatever it is that inspires you, it is the core of your very being. So what is it?
Perhaps the role of inspiration is to wake us up from a big sleep. A sleep where everyday is the same. Where we contribute to the world but at the same time we don't contribute because there is nothing of us in there. Perhaps the role of inspiration is to get us to become involved with the world rather than be a bystander, an observer. www.willpawa.blogspot.com
We think of creative people as being inspired and ask about their work. What inspired you to paint, draw, produce this piece of work? What inspired you to make this? Usually the answer is: a book, poem, film, experience, person, a place or in Cole Porter's case the 'phone call from the director'.
Something else or someone else inspired the artist, the songwriter. But what about the person in a regular job? What inspires you?
"Inspiration is a desire to live life without flinching. To take a risk and possibly fail.
To act on your emotions, creativity, ability and beliefs. To take criticism but have the faith in yourself to do it anyway. Bloody hard work, but then hard work never
killed anyone (or so my Dad says). Oh, and I find foster parents inspiring.
They pick up the pieces when the fundamental teachings and rules of our society fail. If I were religious I'd ask God to bless em."
Carolyn Tomley
What is it that inspires you?
You can begin to see that if nothing inspires you or excites you or lights up your life you are really missing something. You are just like a robot performing task after task. We believe that deep down you have a place where you can be touched. You have a place that is solely ours. Solely for you to show the world. Can you name it?
What inspires me, is the thought that I am more than my body. My limitations are only down to my thoughts. Thus I want to keep pushing the boundaries to find out what is there. Find out what I can communicate to the world. I am inspired by the fact that through what I do I may enable another person to open their mind. To remove the blinkers and reach their possibilities.
Julie is inspired by life. All that is around her. To Julie, inspiration is a rush of adrenalin, a rush of energy that creates a clearing in her thinking. It's that time when you see something from a different perspective and say to yourself, Why didn't see it like this before?
For Julie, inspiration is like the prisoner who says you can do whatever you like to my body but you can't touch my soul, my reason for living.
But what inspires you? What makes you go to that space where you continue to do what you do for hour after hour, when you forget the need to eat and drink. What is it that inspires you?
Some artists suggest that it is their imagination that inspires them. The need to tell the world what is going on in their heads. The links that they make. The different ways of viewing the world. After all literature, music and visual arts are all about the originator communicating with the rest of us.
So inspiration appears to be linked with the need to communicate with others. It may not be in words. But we feel it is about communication. What about you? What are you inspired to communicate?
Inspiration is linked to innovation. To introduce new ways of seeing things. Inspiration is a way of understanding the essence of ourselves. Understanding who we are and what we dream about. Whatever it is that inspires you, it is the core of your very being. So what is it?
Perhaps the role of inspiration is to wake us up from a big sleep. A sleep where everyday is the same. Where we contribute to the world but at the same time we don't contribute because there is nothing of us in there. Perhaps the role of inspiration is to get us to become involved with the world rather than be a bystander, an observer. www.willpawa.blogspot.com
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