Yesterday I talked a little about the difference between inspiration and motivation and how understanding that difference can help you to move forward to a place where you the work that is meaningful to you as part of living a meaningful life. When I first thought about exploring the differences between inspiration and motivation, I found a great article on the website of the Lavin Agency. The Lavin Agency is one of North America’s largest speakers’ bureaus, representing some of the giants in the world of public speaking as well as new talent with fresh ideas.
The article also contained thought provoking questions about inspiration and motivation, and those questions really helped me to get a clearer picture of what makes motivation and inspiration different from each other. For example, I learned that people that rely on motivation day in and day out to keep them going answer affirmatively to questions like “Do you find yourself comparing your performance to that of your colleagues?”, “Do you experience energy that comes in bursts and then stalls out?”, and “Does fear keep you from taking risks or speaking the truth?”. In contrast, people that operate from a position of inspiration are more likely to answer affirmatively to questions like, “Do people know what you stand for?”, “Do you love learning”, and my personal favorite, “Do you know that you have something unique to offer the world and are open to discovering new ways to continue contributing wherever you show up?”
The last question about inspiration is my absolute favorite. It helped me to realize how truly lucky I am that in both of my businesses, I have had the courage to develop my own way of doing things that is uniquely mine. It does not matter what the legal question that is presented to me by my client, I have a way to work through it with them and take care of their needs. Similarly, the exact subject of a writing project is not what causes me to write things that I feel people will enjoy reading. My enthusiasm for the subject matter and my efforts to learn more about it if it is not something that I am familiar with keep me engaged and keep me writing authentically about the things that I know or have discovered. I even just came up with my own goofy little anecdote about motivation and inspiration – both motivation and inspiration have a little to do with fire, the question is whether the fire has been lit under your bottom (motivation) or inside of your heart (inspiration). I sincerely hope that every home-based professional has the opportunity to think a little about inspiration and motivation, and to experience inspiration in their work.
Photo by alvimann on morguefile.com.