If you can understand your 'why' then others will follow you, not because they have to, but because they believe what you believe and because they want to. On reflection I want to be more than inspirational. I want to be influential. As a personal development specialist the reason why I do what I do is because I believe passionately that investing time in yourself leads to a happier and more fulfilling life.
What is your 'why'? If you need further advice you can contact me via LinkedIn. Why not contact us today to see if we can help you with your personal development as a manager and a leader?
Toggle navigation. Inspiration and influence: what's the difference? Some of my inspiration comes from: Books Articles The physical environment around me Influence has a goal.
Some of my influences are: The weather My emotions My parents Another word that often comes up when talking about inspiration and influence is 'motivation'. Complaints Policy - Apprenticeships. Step 3. Take action The moment you feel inspired, take action immediately. Step 4. Step 5. Keep it up Inspiration looks and feels a little different for everyone.
Quincy Seale Quincy is KIM's lead editor and content writer, and has invested in online properties since An alternative to this model is the possibility that the audience correctly infers inspiration Bowra, The psychological science of inspiration, as well as its relation to creativity, is now well-established.
Inspiration has been conceptualized through integration of usages in diverse literatures, operationalized using a well-validated measure, discriminated from related constructs, and linked to creativity in multiple populations, contexts, and levels of analysis. Prior work provides a solid foundation on which investigations into the neuroscience of inspiration can rest. In most respects, the challenges associated with studying creative inspiration are similar regardless of whether one approaches the topic as a neuroscientist, a psychologist, etc.
Therefore, the preceding general challenges and solutions are also relevant specifically in the neuroscience context. In their classic EEG studies of the creative process, for instance, Martindale and Hasenfus used the terms inspiration and elaboration to refer to the stages that precede and follow, respectively, creative insight see Kris, , for a precedent for such usage in psychoanalysis. Inspiration as we have defined it—i. We now turn to challenges that are particularly relevant within a neuroscience context.
One obstacle in studying inspiration in the laboratory is the impossibility of direct manipulation through exposure to exogenous elicitors. Thus caution is needed regarding causal inference, despite use of the experimental method Thrash et al. Although inspiration cannot be directly manipulated through exposure to exogenous stimuli, a researcher may build a case for causality using manipulation of elicitors in combination with statistical controls and cross-lagged analyses, as demonstrated by Thrash et al.
We note that these problems are not unique to the study of inspiration. A related challenge is that it may be difficult to capture authentic or intense experiences of inspiration in a laboratory setting, given that inspiration is elusive for certain individuals or under certain circumstances. One solution may be to, in effect, lower the threshold for what constitutes an episode of inspiration.
Much as creativity is not the same thing as genius Bruner, , inspiration is a matter of degree, and moderate levels might be achievable even in some invasive neuroscience paradigms. A third challenge is the need for repeatable trials and time-locking. Brain imaging techniques e.
One possible method to address these requirements is to use participant self-report indicating the onset of inspiration as the time-locking event.
Suppose, for example, participants invent captions for each of a series of photographs a highly-repeatable activity and report on levels of inspiration at the moment of getting an idea for each caption. Bowden and Jung-Beeman used a method similar to this in order to identify processes that distinguish solutions involving the experience of insight from those that do not.
We caution, however, that inspiration generally is more prolonged in time than is insight particularly when considerable activity is needed to actualize an idea , and therefore methods that capture subsequent variability in inspiration across time—not just the level of inspiration at the moment of insight—will be particularly valuable.
One such method for capturing variability in inspiration across time, while simultaneously reducing the burden of eliciting inspiration repeatedly, is to record electrical brain activity using a non-invasive technique such as EEG during the creative process.
For instance, if researchers record screen capture data during the writing process as in Thrash et al. These ebbs and flows of inspiration can then be linked to variability in neural processes.
The difficulties associated with eliciting inspiration in order to study it at the within-person level may also be addressed by simply focusing on the individuals who are likely to be inspired i. Elicitation may be circumvented altogether by examining structural brain differences between groups known to be high versus low in trait inspiration. Additionally, as individuals higher in trait inspiration tend to exhibit greater levels of openness and extraversion, one might expect, for example, reduced latent inhibition and increased activity in the ventral tegmental area dopamine projections Ashby et al.
Next, we consider the question of where to look in the nervous system. While at present there is no neuroscience of the inspiration construct per se , literatures on related constructs can offer us some hints. Insight relates to inspiration within the tripartite conceptualization in terms of both evocation and transcendence, and within the component processes model as the initial event that often leads one to become inspired by.
Therefore, certain neural components involved in insight experiences may be present at the onset of an inspiration episode.
However, given that the literature on the neural correlates of insight is complex and that neural processes are under debate Dietrich and Kanso, , we caution against relying too heavily upon any one finding in guiding work on inspiration. As inspiration involves not only transcendence and evocation, but also approach motivation, we may also look to the neuroscience literature on states of approach motivation Elliot, There exists a burgeoning literature on approach motivation and appetitive affect, with attention to underlying neuronal circuitry e.
Findings in this area may offer suggestions for the neural underpinnings of the inspired to process. Although the neurological findings regarding certain aspects of the inspiration construct can offer clues, the neural components of these pieces alone are unlikely to tell the full story. After all, we have already argued above that inspiration is not the same thing as insight or activated PA, nor is it the sum of these parts. For instance, an individual could be in an appetitive motivational state at the same time that he or she gets a creative insight, but he or she would not be inspired if the appetitive state reflects anticipation of eating, rather than of bringing the idea into fruition.
The evoking object, in this case, the insight, does not meaningfully relate to the motivational object. The critical question for neuroscience is how processes related to generation of creative ideas recruit appetitive motivational processes, such that individuals respond to creative ideas not with indifference, but rather with a feeling of being compelled to act.
How exactly does the prospect of turning a morsel into a dish fire the soul, as Mozart put it in the opening quotation? In the initial stages of research on the neurological basis of inspiration, it may be useful to begin with a focus on overall inspiration instead of particular aspects or component processes.
Inspiration as a unified concept can be measured quite efficiently using the 4-item intensity subscale of the IS Thrash and Elliot, If necessary, inspiration could be assessed with a single item from the IS.
Such items are surprisingly effective at capturing the full inspiration construct as we have defined it Thrash et al. Writers, artists, and other creators have long argued that inspiration is a key motivator of creativity.
Over the past decade, scientists have tested and found strong support for these claims. Scientific progress has required overcoming a number of challenges, including definitional ambiguity, difficulties of operationalization, ambiguities about discriminant validity, and skepticism about the importance of inspiration relative to perspiration.
By developing an integrative conceptualization, operationalizing inspiration with the IS, establishing discriminant validity, and addressing skepticism with empirical evidence, these challenges have been largely overcome.
Although additional challenges face the neuroscientist who wishes to study inspiration, similar challenges have already been overcome in relation to insight and other constructs. We believe that the stage has been set for a rigorous neuroscience of inspiration. Brain-level explanations of an inspiration episode can then be integrated with explanations at other levels of analysis to produce a richer and more holistic understanding of inspiration. This deeper understanding will aid in determining how and why individuals sometimes feel or do not feel compelled to act on their creative ideas.
Inspiration has the power to effect change not just for individuals, but also for societies. Technological advancements, cures for diseases, and solutions to environmental problems first emerge as promising ideas. It is difficult to overstate the importance of figuring out why, how, and for whom creative ideas to societal problems fire the soul and inspire the idea actualization process. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Here, we refer specifically to the use of this technique in assessing the creativity of products. Two alternate theoretical models, the epiphenomenon model and the self-perception model , which suggest that creativity of the idea influences both inspiration and creativity of the product, or that creativity of the idea influences creativity of the product which in turn influences reports of inspiration, respectively, were also tested using structural equation modeling.
The authors found support for the transmission model of inspiration over the epiphenomenon and self-perception models. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Front Hum Neurosci v. Front Hum Neurosci. Published online Jun Victoria C. Oleynick , Todd M.
LeFew , Emil G. Moldovan , and Paul D. Todd M. Michael C. First, inspiration is evoked spontaneously without intention. Inspiration is also transcendent of our more animalistic and self-serving concerns and limitations. Such transcendence often involves a moment of clarity and awareness of new possibilities.
Finally, inspiration involves approach motivation , in which the individual strives to transmit, express, or actualize a new idea or vision. According to Thrash and Elliot, inspiration involves both being inspired by something and acting on that inspiration. Inspired people share certain characteristics. They found that inspired people were more open to new experiences, and reported more absorption in their tasks. Inspired individuals also reported having a stronger drive to master their work, but were less competitive, which makes sense if you think of competition as a non-transcendent desire to outperform competitors.
Inspired people were more intrinsically motivated and less extrinsically motivated, variables that also strongly impact work performance. Inspiration was least related to variables that involve agency or the enhancement of resources, again demonstrating the transcendent nature of inspiration.
Inspired people also reported higher levels of important psychological resources, including belief in their own abilities, self-esteem, and optimism. Mastery of work, absorption, creativity, perceived competence, self-esteem, and optimism were all consequences of inspiration, suggesting that inspiration facilitates these important psychological resources.
Interestingly, work mastery also came before inspiration, suggesting that inspiration is not purely passive, but does favor the prepared mind. Inspiration is not the same as positive affect.
Compared to the normal experiences of everyday life , inspiration involves elevated levels of positive affect and task involvement, and lower levels of negative affect. Inspiration is not the same state as positive affect, however. Compared to being in an enthusiastic and excited state, people who enter an inspired state by thinking of a prior moment they were inspired reported greater levels of spirituality and meaning, and lower levels of volitional control, controllability, and self-responsibility for their inspiration.
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