Inspiration follows action.

“Because inspiration follows action”

 

I keep reading this statement from the gentlemen over at IHD and for a while I wasn’t sure if I agreed. I believe so deeply in the power of the mind and how, if we can increase our self awareness and then start to build resilience and grit then we can achieve a hell of a lot more than we ever thought possible.

 

So that would lend itself to believe that the mind is primary. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe this, but there’s a caveat. To get to a stage that your mind can be inspired for growth, we may need to have committed to numerous actions.

 

Even as I write this I feel like my reality is being melted. Here I am trying to build a brand that inspires people and maybe that’s not the most important thing. I keep thinking in terms of my mind now when musing about the future of IL and what I’m trying to create and of how I am trying to help people.

But, when I started this whole journey, I didn’t have any of this in mind. There are probably thousands of little moments that lead to here but if I had to pinpoint one that started this whole thing it was a friend of mine giving me the Insanity DVD fitness program seven years ago.

 

I wasn’t inspired at that moment to create and share and try change a little bit of the world. I was just in a place where I wasn’t really happy with my body or my activity levels and decided to give it a go. There was no large goal tied into that decision, just a small moment where I said yes. I don’t even remember exactly how long that program went for but I know I didn’t even finish it.

Another weird thing to write…. “I didn’t even finish it” – I talk about setting and being accountable to our goals and decisions a lot but this whole journey was kind of started by a throw away yes and an initial quit. Hardly the stuff of a hero’s tale. I haven’t even thought about the beginning for so long that I had forgotten that part. Again, I think in terms of where my mindset and beliefs are now, and I am super proud of how I have been able to develop in the last seven years, but this mindset is not the one I had at the start.

 

I’ve also spent way to long assuming that people are ready to accept change from the same space I am at. Until writing this I’ve never even considered what my 10 year ago self would say to current me. I can guarantee it wouldn’t be nice, if I walked up and started just telling myself to pick my act up and change everything about me. That’s exactly what I needed but I wouldn’t have absorbed that information, I would have rejected it. And unfairly, that’s probably exactly what I have been expecting from people. I’ve been expecting their inspired selves to take off without the ground work. I’ve been talking to them at the same place I am at rather than where they are at.

 

So after writing this and thinking deeply about the process, I’ve decided that it’s not my goal to inspire per se, because that’s an internal drive and it needs to come from you. My goal is to motivate towards that first action. Motivation is fleeting and can not sustain us on any lengthy or worthy journey but it is needed to get started. That’s what the DVD program was to me all those years ago. It wasn’t inspiration, it didn’t shake me to my core and help me see the world in a new light, it just motivated me to make one tiny change at the time. Just that one little action. Then that action led to another and another and another and slowly built into this journey I am on now.

 

Thank you to the gentlemen at IHD – for the idea to muse upon and, if I may, I’d just like to add one little bit to their sentence. Inspiration follows action follows motivation.

I was a motivated lion who became a lion of action who then became an inspired lion. Now the drive is within me and doesn’t need to come from external forces. But I can’t forget that it did.

 

Motivation ► Action ► Inspiration

 

Reminds me of a poem:

“Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking.”

 

What small step can you take today to begin your path?

 

Pursue your potential.

Dice

 

Picture: Completing week 1 of Insanity in 2013.