You’ll never get to read many of my blog entries. A tsunami of ideas rush through my head in any given week and I often tell myself that I should write a blog. I’ll even write the initial premise to remind myself about it later. But when I return, the idea is still interesting but I no longer feel motivated to write about it. So it goes into the trash bucket.
The reality is that inspiration perishes. It has a shelf life and then it expires. When we feel inspired, we can get an incredible amount of work done. We work in the zone. When I write a blog entry about something I’m excited about, it just pours out of me. This is true with all of my work. Doing it when it feels exciting and fresh is when I’m most productive. Following our motivations allows us to enjoy life more and experience more flow.
Even bigger than the moment, the general topic areas that I’m interested in change regularly. Some topic will fascinate me for months. During that time, I give into my curiosity and read as much as I can while it’s still of interest because I know it will change, but that I’ll be the better for having delved into it while I was so smitten.
While it is true that we can cultivate motivation, we can get so much more done and truly enjoy what we are doing when we follow our passions.
[Thanks to the guys over at 37signals who observed this nature of inspiration and wrote about it]
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