Dumb Little Man: How to Overcome Self-Help Fatigue and Make Inspiration Stick

How to Overcome Self-Help Fatigue and Make Inspiration Stick

Posted: 28 Apr 2013 10:37 AM PDT

Are you addicted to "inspiration porn" like I am?

During a recent weekend, I spent nearly an entire day reading post after post by some of my favorite inspirational and personal development bloggers.

Want to know how I felt the next day?

Terrible.

I felt bloated and heavy from my overindulgence.

But I also felt small and cynical.

And I felt envy for not being as wonderfully productive as all the goodie-goodie gurus I so love.

I had feasted on too much rah-rah advice about how to be awesome and epic and remarkable and revolutionary and badass.

It made me feel exhausted and helpless.

But why?

Why did the stuff that was meant to leave me feeling inspired end up doing the opposite? Because I'm a loser. That was my first thought.

But it didn't feel right

So I reassessed. As I paced in front of a window and stared at the open sky, it dawned on me. Self-help had turned into escapism.

Reading about personal development allowed me to experience boosts to my self-esteem without the inconvenience or discomfort of actually taking action or using the advice. But the highs didn't last. Like a junkie, I had to keep indulging to keep from crashing.

But here's what really distressed me: As a blogger, I've contributed a lot of my own self-help advice. Did that make me a hypocrite? Was I a pusher?

Ouch.

I realized that the truth about self-help is sometimes pretty stark. Very little of this stuff sticks unless you take an active role in making it stick.

But I learned something else while researching why

From the standpoint of generating lasting inspiration, our brains respond better to stories of conflict and struggle in the pursuit of something than they do to lists of motivational rules meant to bring bliss and success. Scientists have discovered that our brains are hard-wired for storytelling (i.e., tales of trouble).

In his review of Jonathan Gottschall's book The Storytelling Animal, David Eagleman writes, "Story not only sticks, it mesmerizes."

So maybe the story you tell yourself about your dreams and your pursuits is the key to making inspiration stick. Maybe all that good advice needs a good story to go with it. This is not a simple proposition, especially when you feel heavier than a sad clown on Jupiter.

It takes effort to tease out the kind of story that'll work. You can't just snap your fingers, tell yourself you're Luke Skywalker, and expect a hero's inspired sense of purpose. I've already tried.

Instead, here's a process that has worked for me (your mileage may vary):

Disconnect

I sometimes have to cut myself off—completely.

No Internet.

No self-help books.

No motivational pollution.

Just me alone with my thoughts for a while. Admittedly, this is hard. My work requires connection. And I'm always looking for another fix.

I have to do it though. I have to let myself unplug and crash. Only then can I even start to feel the freedom to be inspired again.

Take a long walk with a friend

I'm sad to say it. I haven't done this in many—many—months. So I need to follow my own clichéd advice.

Few things are better at stirring my imagination and enthusiasm for tackling what's before me. When I was a kid,this was a sure-fire way to make me feel powerful and full of momentum. It still has that effect. But it has to be with a genuine friend who knows me. Not a mere acquaintance.

I have to feel safe enough to be vulnerable and talk through my dreams and hopes and fears. I have to listen. And I have to do the same for my friend.

Take a long walk alone

Like many of you, I walked to and from school a lot growing up. Unless a freezing wind was blowing, I enjoyed those walks. They gave me a chance to process my day and brainstorm how I fit into the world.

As an adult, I don't do this as often. But when I do, I experience deep satisfaction from transcending a long distance under my own power. It clears my head and gives me the emotional space I need to push forward.

Watch your favorite "against-all-odds" movie

For me, it's the original Karate Kid. Or Rocky. Or both. (Not at the same time.)

This goes back to the point about storytelling. Our brains allow us to receive the same kind of boost from a fictional hero's triumph as what we'd feel ourselves in real life.

I find that it provides just the kind of spark I need to start gaining back my lost momentum.

Reaffirm your dream in writing

I'm always amazed to discover what I actually think instead of what I think I think. Writing down my thoughts, unedited, allows me to capture what's really going on in my mind (and in myheart). Nobody else has to see.

I release my thoughts and feelings from the prison of my mind and let them take shape in a way I can more easily understand. It's a better way to identify what I truly want.

With that knowledge, I then reaffirm those dreams or goals on the page. Then I put it all away in a secret place and loosen my control over the desired outcomes.

(Staying inspired, for me, requires having a mind free of many of its future-oriented concerns. I always know my dreams are available when I need to remember them.)

Make it bigger than you

I have a nasty, ugly, monster-mutant of an ego inside me that tries to make life all about him. The more I allow him to have expression, the less inspired or motivated I feel.

The world gets very small when it's just about me. In fact, it's suffocating. The only remedy is to step outside of my selfish concerns by caring about and doing good things for other people. I have to allow my dreams to morph a little for the service of the world beyond my narrow expression of "I."

I've found that the quickest way to experience a boost of inspiration is to help someone else solve a problem or surprise somebody with unexpected generosity. It can be something as simple as expressing gratitude to someone for the small ways he or she delights me.

Then I use that boost to help me imagine how my dreams and personal goals can have positive meaning or impact for other people and the earth that sustains me. Doing so feels good. It's the kind of feeling I want to have stick around.

For most of us, inspiration doesn't live long inside the hollow vacuum of greed and selfish accumulation of our individual desires. We are each a part of the world, not the world itself.

Establish your meaningful quest

When I was in the sixth grade, I co-wrote and illustrated three "epic" choose-your-own adventure books with my best friend.

The experience forced me to think about the unexpected pathways created by our decisions and the uncomfortable fact that our choices can never provide us with certainty. Anything can happen, no matter how safe a given path looks from the outset.

Being involved in the creation of such a story is exciting. Inspiring even.

Just as in a choose-your-own adventure book, life makes us the protagonists in our own stories. We might not get to choose every plot point or every ending, but we do often have a say in choosing a general direction or theme.

We get to co-write our own personal narratives. We get to be the heroes who don't give up in the face of lots of bad days or enormous obstacles or paths that have dead-ends. We get to do it all for more than just us. We get to try to save our corners of the world in our own special ways.

When I'm the hero of my story, I accept challenges more readily. I brave my fears more often. I care more about riding the adventure than dreaming (and stewing) about the outcome.

Ruthlessly curate your mentors

I struggle with this one. Shiny new gurus draw me into their shiny happy places all the time. If I'm not careful (which I'm often not), I soon feel like…well, you read the beginning of this post, right?

I have to remember that no blog or book or podcast or seminar is going to move me past my hang-ups. Personal development bloggers and life coaches can show me possible paths. But it's up to me to choose which one to walk.

Then I actually have to take action. I can't just keep accumulating new maps.

So it's important to be selective. If I want to stay inspired on my quest, then I have to acknowledge that my mind only hasspace for a few good mentors.

My mentors shouldn't just tell me what I want to hear. They should challenge me. They should help me deepen my narrative and push it further. And they shouldn't care whether or not I call them master or give them money or retweet their platitudes.

In my experience, the best mentors are the ones who make me laugh, not the ones who take themselves or anything else too seriously. I'm serious enough already.

I don't need more rules

I've got plenty of those. I need mentors who encourage me to play and explore and get dirty and scraped up. But they can't act all holier-than-thou if I choose not to.

Ultimately, my destination may not be the one I dream about. It's freeing to be OK with that.

I'm the hero in a story not yet told. It's being written now. Part of it is even in my own handwriting.

That inspires me.

What about you?

How do you make inspiration stick?

Written on 4/28/2013 by Luke Redd. Luke Redd is just an imperfect guy looking to make a difference in the world. Most of his writing can be found at Classrooms, Careers, and Crossroads, the blog of Trade-Schools.net. He hopes to someday find a way to use art to transcend his mutant ego while also helping to unchain the potential in others—without being all guru-like.

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LESBIAN PIC DOMAIN

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