Looking for Inspiration? Climb Out of Your Familiar Rut

It happens to the best of us. We start out in our adult lives and careers wide-eyed, excited and eager to take in as much as we can; we’re hungry to try new things, we tackle challenges of all sorts and do what we can to forge ahead and grow in whatever it is we do. And grow we do. Along the way, as we grow, we refine our expectations and we focus – often leading to some level of success that comes pre-packaged with some level of comfort. We settle in, we settle down and before we know it we’ve gone from being bold, innovative, forward-thinking and creative to, well, being lame and out of touch – successful perhaps at a handful of highly focused things – but lame and out of touch in everything else.

Lame and out of touch is not how anyone has ever reached any level of success but it’s a sure-fire way to not reach that next level! The good news is that no matter how narrowly focused and settled in you’ve become, all it takes is a few steps outside of the safety of what’s become familiar to you to find inspiration and reconnect with the people who you do what you do for. And you can do it with the media that surrounds you every single day!

Tune In – To Something Different

If the tuning knob on the radio in your car is frozen in place from lack of use it might be time to try something new. If you were really into rock back in college then why are you locked into “soft hits” today? Seriously, change it up a little. Try an alternative station or even an oldies station – just try something that’s related to what you’ve fallen into listening to all the time but yet different! You’d be surprised how much more is out there that you’ll not only like, but that will give you fresh appreciation for something that’s become stale. That new invigoration will find its way into professional inspiration and help you be more in-tune with more people in your audience.

Read More – More Down to Earth, That Is

For some reason people tend to think that maturity and success must be accompanied with reading and generally being informed on a more, how can I put this nicely, exclusive, level. Reading upper-crust publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic and listening to NPR is great and all; they’re all excellent sources of very intelligent information, but every now and again it’s good to get down and dirty! Read popular websites, blogs, newspapers and publications – they’re popular and exist for a reason – because tons of people read them! You don’t have to stop reading National Geographic for a steady diet of Cosmopolitan but there is no better way to stay in touch with what’s popular with the most people than the media that covers it. You’ll be surprised how what you learn from popular trends can lead to innovation and success – and how easy it is to do with everyday popular publications!

All Those TV Channels You Never Watch – Watch Them

If you’re like most people you pay for a couple hundred cable or satellite TV channels and watch about a half a dozen on a regular basis. If this is true, you’ve again fallen into what’s comfortable and what works for you. Well, there’s a boatload of fresh information, inspiration and invigoration to be had on those channels your channel surfing thumb has never stopped on. If there wasn’t a sizable audience of people as interested in what these channels show as you are in ESPN, CNN and the broadcast networks they wouldn’t exist. That means there’s a whole world out there – made up of a huge portion of the audience at large – that you can tap into for inspiration. Plus, who knows, you might even end up finding something new that you like!