Staying Inspired

Staying inspired and excited for life all the time is not always straightforward, and sometimes it’s really easy to fall into feeling a bit deflated and unmotivated without knowing why. I feel it’s really important to know how to inspire and motivate ourselves if we want to continue to expand and grow in our life, especially in the times that are a little tougher. I’ve found that staying inspired is really about being dedicated – which can be hard work! But really good things are often not really easy. However, it does have massive payoffs – you will feel happier, get so much more done and have much more amounts of energy in your daily life. This is a topic that’s been on my mind recently, so I thought I’d share a couple practical things that I know help me to stay uplifted!

Proactively choose to be around the right people

When you’re around someone who inspires you by being inspired themselves, you feel amazing. They can help you believe in yourself and in your dreams, and that is infectious to be around. Open minded people who uplift you are the most amazing company – you can come away feeling like you have new fuel on your fire for life and great about yourself. Surround yourself with people like this whenever you can, and maybe spend a little less time with people you feel a little drained around. Also, CHOOSE to be that uplifting person for other people – learn the art of good listening and compliment people genuinely when you see something awesome in them. Be excited for other people and get rid of jealousy – it doesn’t serve you. Nor does talking bad about other people. Stop that. If something is up with someone, pay attention to them – recognise when people are dwelling in unnecessary negativity or when they just want to share what’s on their mind. If someone is letting themselves dwell in something that doesn’t serve them, you don’t have to entertain it – try and uplift them in a genuine way. If someone is suffering genuinely with something, listen with love. You don’t have to fix anything. Listening with compassion is all people need sometimes.

Be creative

Creativity is something we seem to have a lot of when we’re kids – we play instruments, dance and go to 10000000 billion after school clubs a week. Then somewhere along the line we seem to grow up a little and move around our priorities. Being creative again opens us up to so much potential within ourselves that we can easily forget we have. When we see our own creativity, it automatically fuels itself with inspiration for more. We are ALLcreative – even if you don’t think so. Recently, I’ve found connecting to my own creativity again the most pleasurable and relaxing thing to do. It is also a complete meditation – immersing yourself in something, totally nourishing for the soul. See if you can find a space within your day or week to nurture your own creative side – draw, paint, cook a new recipe, make something, write, dance or take up an instrument (if you’re feeling extra passionate about being creative ).

Limit social media

Sometimes I find myself aimlessly scrolling through nothing on Facebook or Instagram and I catch myself and think WHY. We’re just so used to it. I gave up social media for lent last year and it was one of the best times – I had no idea what was going on with people – they had to TELL me stories when I saw them. And I loved that. It’s not easy to give up what we’re so used to doing, but whenever I pick up my phone now for no reason, I try to remember to ask myself, do I need to check anything right now? The answer is usually no.

One social media platform that I DO find really inspiring though, is Pinterest. It’s an online pinboard that really helps spark creativity. And there’s no pointless stuff on there. But STILL – be warned….I can fall into hours of pinning ideas!

Wake up early

Yeah I know. This one does take a bit of willpower, but it is so, so worth it. I genuinely think the power of a morning routine can change your life, and mine is so important to me. When you choose to get up extra early before work, you have a whole LOAD of time to inspire yourself. Rather than getting up and rushing to shower and eating whatever you can grab, that extra time can be spent doing things slowly and really enjoying the little things…like making breakfast with love! It may sound silly, but spending time and thought over your food and allowing yourself to enjoy it in no rush whatsoever, can totally change your whole day.

Having anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour of extra time in the morning can be so transformational to your mood and your productivity. A really beautiful way to start the day is to begin with some silence – you can spend as little as 5-10 minutes meditating to clear the mind before the day. Headspace is an incredible guided meditation app you can use for this if you’re unfamiliar with it

Just after a meditation spend even just a minute thinking about your intention for the day, or an ongoing intention you have. It doesn’t have to be complicated, actually the simpler it is, the better. If you’re into affirmations (they don’t vibe with everyone) – then the morning is so powerful to do them. Super simple one – I am happy, I am healthy, I am grateful for everything in my life. THANKYOU.

Stretch – move your body. In any way that feels really good to you. Of course, if you have the time and you connect with Yoga, doing even 15-20 minutes of Yoga in the morning opens up the body, totally rejuvenates the internal systems and helps clear the mind. Qi Gong is also AMAZING for beginning the day – helping you shake off old energy and activate fresh new energy. Plus makes you feel really really cool. You can find so, so many Youtube videos for Yoga and Qi Gong, or you can subscribe to a website like Gaia or YogaGlo. My own Yoga teacher has lovely free 20 minute Yoga videos. the link to his Youtube channel is here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyhGivH2RyiLDm8oocaVl6A

Dance in the shower. I’m sooooo serious about this one! Play some music in your bathroom if you can and have a little dance and you will come out clean AND buzzing with positive energy!

Make breakfast with love, and then spend a little time if you can reading and/or writing in a journal. It’s great to write what you’re grateful for too.

Be super gentle to yourself – if you’re trying to make getting up early a part of your daily life, accept that there will be days where it doesn’t happen and some days when you find way more time than others. AND THAT IS TOTALLY OKAY!

Cultivate a YES to everything that comes your way

Whatever is happening, try to accept it. That’s why I’ve used the word ‘cultivate’ – it’s an ongoing process. Whatever life is offering you, it will only rob your energy if you resist it, complain about it or try to force it to change. See if you can accept whatever is happening with open arms, including the hardships and difficulties. Know that everything that is happening will grow you in some way, so try not to fight with it. This one is easier said than done, that’s why it’s really a moment to moment process, and sometimes through gritted teeth. But accepting what is, is much much more peaceful than struggling with it, I promise.

Get out in NATURE

Mother. Earth. She is beautiful whatever the weather! Breathe in the fresh air, swim in the ocean, lay on the grass, hug the trees (kidding. Maybe). Make the most of nature – connect with her in any way that you can and pay attention to how crazily beautiful everything is and the intricate intelligence of it all.

LEARN something however small each day

Find 10 minutes, maybe in your morning routine to read, watch or listen to something that you can learn something new from. I love watching TED talks or documentaries – but there is so much out there. Also listening to Podcasts whilst driving is time saving WHILST feeding your brain

Or pick something like a new skill to practice just the tiniest amount each day, or maybe just once a week. For example, pick a language with the free DuoLingo app. It’s fun and it will prompt you to dedicate as little as 5 minutes to it each day. Plus it makes exciting trumpet sounds when you complete a section which make you feel like a winner.

Be conscious of your energy choices – Does it serve you?

See if you can note what drains your energy and what invigorates it. This can be with every choice you make – do certain foods help you to feel more or less energetic? Does leaving things last minute make you feel good or stress you out? Does staying up super late and sleeping in the whole day help you to achieve what you want? If I’m wondering about doing something, I’ll try and ask myself the question, “Does this serve me?”, if the answer is no, we can make another choice. When our energy, and how we feel is the most important thing to us, we don’t mind starting to let go of old habits.

Plan

Write a tiny little plan for whatever you want to get done. It can be at the start of the week or for every day. It feels sooo good to tick things off when they’re done. Make a big deal out of it.

Make tiny little commitments

If there’s something really big that you want to get done or want to happen – write down the steps that you need to take, or what needs to happen for you to get there. Then ask yourself, what can I do today to move closer to that? Or right now? Sometimes we can make so much progress, but because it’s subtle and over a long time, we don’t realise these things. Taking the time to write it down and make note of everything we’ve done helps us appreciate our endeavours.

Do hard stuff first

I’m sooo bad at this! I always want to leave hard stuff out! But seriously, try to drag yourself through doing the hard, boring parts of your ERRANDS first – you will thank yourself so much later when you’re rolling around in all the other FUN stuff.

Set aside time just for yourself

I know this isn’t easy for everyone, but I hope there is some way that we can all find a small section of the day or week or even month to find a space away from our commitments to be alone for a little while. When you spend time by yourself recuperating, you’ll have so much more to give. You absolutely have to take care of No.1 (you), to be able to take care of No.2. Or 3 or 4 or 10.

Treat yourself with a nice bath, a Yoga class, a book on the beach, or whatever you’re really calling for. This will reset you, and then you’ll be ready to take on the world again

Create a purpose:

This isn’t supposed to be deep, don’t worry. You don’t have to figure out that you’re going to change the world or anything dramatic like that. This is just to make you feel like you can do your tiny part and to show you that you are really important.

The best kind of ‘purpose’ is something simple, selfless and beneficial for more than just you. This is the best way to set a purpose, because that means that it’s much more difficult to fail at. If you set your purpose to be a millionaire, to be famous or to be the most successful so and so, then that is a lot of pressure you’ve put on you and that’s not fun.

Have a really easy purpose that warms your heart. “The purpose of my entire life is to spread love and joy” or “The purpose of my life is to serve others in any way that I can”, are two that are so do-able and will make you feel like you can make a difference. Because you can. The beauty of a purpose like this, is that it takes the focus off you – suddenly, your big problems and demands aren’t such a big deal, and the result of this change means you actually ultimately feel much better.

Re-dedicate yourself to this small purpose every day, and you’ll be able to watch it bring new meaning and beauty into your world.

Keeping yourself inspired is an ongoing process, and being authentic is part of that. So sometimes you just won’t feel inspired, and you’ll do really uninspiring things. And that’s totally normal and human. But staying uplifted means picking yourself back up all the time and re-focusing – asking yourself what is important to you in your life and staying close to that even in the difficult times.

I hope that this may have brought a little inspiration to you!

With so much love

Adéle x