My five favourite sources of inspiration

However much we love our business, there are days when even the most motivated of us ends up feeling a bit ‘meh’. Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your latest blog post, a new direction for your business or just a regular day doing great things for your clients, sometimes there’s just nothing there. So when you’re working on your own, how can you revitalise and restore your va va voom? Here are some of the things that work for me.

• Get moving – go for a walk, a run, a swim. Anything that gets you moving physically boosts your brainpower too. I am useless at getting out of bed but when I manage to get myself to the gym in the morning, I find I have a clearer head and much more momentum when I sit down to start my day. The added benefit is the ideas that ping into my head when I’m running. I’m not actively looking for the solutions but given another activity to focus on (not falling flat on my face) my brain is still working on them in the background – genius!

• Change your environment – the best example of this is to take a holiday, preferably somewhere you haven’t been before, with new sights and sounds on every corner. Whenever I travel abroad I feel energised by the people I meet and the new experiences along the way. Stepping away from your everyday life helps you focus on positive things rather than pitfalls and makes you feel as if anything is possible. We can’t take an exotic trip everyday but there are simple things you can do to change your environment: get out of your home office and into a coffee shop, get outside in the fresh air and notice everything around you, or swap a noisy city for an afternoon in a sleepy village.
• Do something creative – doing something that uses different skills helps you switch off from your day-to-day work and can help to get the ideas flowing. Whether it’s baking, learning a new language, or using your camera to create a photo journal, the options are endless. Just pick something you’ll really enjoy.
• Listen to some great music – not everyone likes to work to music but listening to some of your favourite tracks to get you in the right frame of mind before you start, or when you take a break can work wonders. For maximum impact consider combining it with one of the activities in 1-3. I love a drive through stunning scenery with some great tunes on top volume!
• Collaborate – working on your own all the time is tough. Look for projects where you can collaborate with someone else. It’s amazing how the ideas and energy can flow when there are two or more people to inspire each other.

So these are some of my tips. What gets you inspired when you’re feeling a bit lack lustre and stuck in a rut? I’d love to know.

Love and inspiration,

 

 

 

Photo credit: Unsplash