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Inspiration and Motivation: Partners in the Pursuit of Dreams

Inspiration and motivation are often found hand-in-hand when dealing with the pursuit of dreams. Although you can have one without the other, having them both in place is a great indicator of the ability to achieve your dream. Add a dash of persistence and some hard work, and you’ve got a guarantee for success.

So why are these two together such a great combination? Well, it’s got a lot to do with keeping the momentum going. Achieving a dream usually isn’t something that you accomplish overnight. It could take weeks, months, or even years before you hold the dream in your hands, and keeping your enthusiasm going all of that time isn’t always easy. There are times when you will be disillusioned, and times when you are willing to just give up the dream because you’re just too busy with other things and don’t feel that you are able to find the energy to stay on track towards your goal. Between inspiration and motivation however you have two attributes that each ignites the other when the going gets tough.

If you are short on inspiration your motivation to succeed will provide you with the drive to seek out fresh ideas on how you can more effectively get to your goal. Motivation is something that keeps you wanting to press on and not give up. If you have this, it will spark your creativity to look for new ways of getting to where you need to be. On the other hand if you find that you are lacking in motivation, but have inspiration, your creativity will find new ways of inspiring you to continue pursuing your dream and will renew your commitment and motivate you back into action.

Bo Bennett illustrated the mutual spark in his quotation “Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation and a pinch of creativity”. Although both inspiration and motivation work well alone, it is when they are together that they create enthusiasm which makes the journey towards the realization of a dream or goal less of a chore and more of a joy. Enthusiasm is the positive energy that generates the engine that powers your journey – and Bo Bennett says that it is inspiration and motivation (plus a little creativity) that are the ingredients need to make enthusiasm.

How you get inspiration and motivation together however is often in the way that you prepare to start your pursuit of a dream. First of all you need a clear view of exactly what it is you want to achieve, a specific stated outcome that you are seeking to achieve. Once you know exactly what the dream is, and you have something that you can aim towards, and then you can make a plan as to the step you need to take in order to accomplish the dream.

As you write out these steps, you will start to feel the inspiration building inside you as creative ideas on how to best achieve each step, and the dream starts to feel like a reality. This feeling that you are capable of achieving your dream provides the initial motivation to get you started. As a snowball collects snow on its way downhill, so your motivation will build as inspiration surrounds it as you move closer and closer to your dream.

No dreams can be accomplished without effort, but if you clarify and then plan your pursuit of your dream clearly enough to ignite your inspiration and motivation for the project, then you should find yourself in the position of achieving even your most precious of dreams.