How Inspiration Fuels Motivation

Swimming California from Jamie Patrick on Vimeo.

Motivation by itself isn't enough to get the job done.  That's why you often hear people say, "I'm looking for motivation." There is a gap between a goal and the motivation to do it and it's called inspiration.

Inspiration is what actually causes motivation.  Remove the inspiration and motivation quickly becomes frustration and then failure.  Why is this and where do you find it?  Let's check it out and also look at some examples -

Inspiration is when you see a goal so clearly, you can actually visualize yourself doing it.  Not only that, but the path is something you see as pretty much the only way in life, and obstacles are just temporary roadblocks that you easily push aside.  Motivation is a result of this inspiration, more of a symptom of upcoming success than anything else.

What really helps Inspiration come to life is to find a role model.  When you can actually see somebody doing what you want to do, it makes it all that much easier to replace them with yourself in your mind's eye.  Then, boom!  You have everything you need to be sufficiently inspired and then motivated.

Check out the above video of Jamie Patrick swimming.  This is a perfect example of a role model that can inspire to motivate.  When he asked me to swim across Lake Tahoe with him, it took me all of 0.0001 seconds to say yes.  There was a map on his wall of his previous crossing, he would make sure I was OK, and we would have fun.  It was easy to visualize me doing it, so I was sufficiently inspired.

When I ran into obstacles to get in the training, I practically mowed them down like a bulldozer.  Pool closed?  Find another pool.  Pool not open long enough?  Find another pool.  Not enough lanes?  Fight for more lanes.  Not enough time?  Get up earlier.  Bad nutrition on a swim?  Go back the very next day and try it again.  There was absolutely nothing that was going to stop me from getting in the training to finish that swim.  I was sufficiently inspired to be motivated.

Now let's look at this picture of Rich Roll.  This is the exact same picture I put up right above my pull up bar in my house.  It was this combination that led me to losing 15 pounds and getting to the same weight I was when I was captain of my high school swim team.  When I struggled with nutrition, I saw this picture and then asked myself what Rich Roll would eat.  With this image in my head, I was inspired to be motivated to eat as well as possible, and had my best-performing year in triathlon ever.

To summarize, and if you read between the lines, it's inspiration that allows you to blast through obstacles that halt your motivation.  When you have inspiraton, the distance between you and success is nearly zero.  It's only a matter of time until you get there, because it has now become your destiny. Even when Emily made fun of my picture of Rich Roll above my pull up bar and asked if he was my boyfriend, I didn't take it down.  I wasn't about to take it down.  It was working.  In fact, when what she said didn't bother me, I knew I was on the right track.

Lucky for you, there are tons of inspiring people on the Internet.  Anything that you want to has loads of great role models that can inspire you to have the motivation to hit that goal.  Your job is to find those people.  What's stopping you?