Are You Inspired or Influenced?

To achieve most of our goals, we look for several things. Some of them are knowledge, learning, guidance, wisdom, motivation, and inspiration. In the process, we look up to few individuals around us to receive one or more of the above-said things.

You may achieve your goal by giving it time, dedicated effort, and being consistent at it. The goals sometimes starts from you or may come from outside. How? Let's say you wanted to lose weight but never worked on it. But then, all of a sudden, you get to hear someone speaking about their journey with weight loss, and then, you got the much-needed kick (I call it, influence!) to get started on your weight loss journey. You work on it for a few weeks and months.

You potentially have few outcomes.

First: You lose your weight as your goal and then stay in the course (with behavior and habit changes) to never go back to gaining weight.

Second: You lose your weight as your goal and then go back to old habits and gain weight.

Third: You lose motivation over days and may give up with your weight loss as a goal.

If you keenly notice, whatever I called a kick, you can call it either Influence or Inspiration.

We generally get motivation from the outside with these two things. Either we get influenced by looking at how others are doing it. Or, we get inspired by looking at how others are doing it.

If you are wondering, what is the difference? Let me throw some light.

Have you ever started with any of your goals and saw yourself losing over it as time passes by. You don't feel the zeal in you as you give your effort every day on your goals. Have you ever wondered why that happens?

It is primarily because the goal that you have set for yourself is probably superficial? Did you get driven by looking at someone or something outside? You did not give it a lot of thought? You only got influenced by someone or something as you had set the goal?

How else is one supposed to set a goal?

You definitely have plenty of tools available on the internet to teach you how to set goals, such as the SMART framework. Yes, they have their place in helping you lay your goals. But do they really help you go deep into your inner self or deep dug thoughts?

That's where the power of questions comes into the picture. By asking yourself a few powerful questions, delving over them to sincerely give your answers, you may get the right inspiration to not only achieve your goal but even transform yourself.

Let's do it with a use case.

Say you want to work on your weight loss. What all questions you want to ask yourself? Here is a sample of questions.

Why do you want to lose weight?

How much you want to lose?

In what timeframe you want to achieve that?

Do you have any health issues with the current weight?

Are you thinking of weight loss because of how you look?

What path would be better for you to lose weight? Just the right diet alone, workouts alone, or both?

Is the goal only temporary, or you want to have a lasting effect on you? Be it changing your behavior, habits, etc.,

Have you spoken to few individuals who have walked the path to understand more?

Are you going to do it all by yourself? or would you need a mentor or a coach?

Have you considered your current lifestyle and thought through all changes you may have to make it? Remember, our lifestyle is hard to change, and taking an intense look into it, is the most critical step.

And definitely, you could ask yourself many more questions apart from the above, only if you take time, sit back and keep asking yourself. Your thoughtfulness would enrich if you are inspired by your goal.

Yes, you may do all these, work on the goal, and still may see yourself dragging. That's perfectly alright. It is only an additional opportunity to go back and reflect on those questions. Sometimes your goal may be right, but what you have been doing may not be aligned with your goals or what you truly want. That's where a lot of retrospection will help.

How would you know you are inspired?

You would stick with your goals and never lose your love for them. You would never feel bored with it. Even if you feel drained, it would only be temporary. You would quickly find back your inspiration through regular retrospections.

Is influence bad?

No, not at all. But it has its own place. We all get influenced by our siblings, parents, friends, colleagues, and people around us in positive ways. They all definitely help, but they all come from outside, and they all may act as momentary motivation.

Yes, in some cases, influence over a long period may act as inspiration, but only you would know you are still only influenced or inspired.

Takeaway?

With never a doubt, always look for inspiration, than influence. You may get influenced by several things (which is all good to some extent), but inspiration can happen only inside you. Inspiration will startle you at times with many questions for which you may not have answers. But if you have the courage, you will find answers or seek to find.

When you truly seek, answers would arrive, in many forms, mainly through people.

Now, if you scroll back and look at those three outcomes that I had talked about in the weight loss journey, you would know you would have the first outcome if you are truthfully inspired.

Remember this powerful quote whenever you don't know whether you are inspired because inspiration doesn't happen at one time. It is series of thoughts, actions, realizations and the wisdom that come along with it.

Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognized for some time - Samuel Butler

Be inspired. Lead an inspired living.