When Inspiration [Doesn’t] Strike

If you follow me on Instagram and watch my outfit of the day videos, you may have heard me talk about feeling uninspired lately…like REALLY uninspired. What’s with that?! There are so many cool and interesting and creative people in the world, so it seems like I should be constantly experiencing that spark of inspiration too. But here’s the thing: it’s near impossible to feel bubbling with creativity all the time. And that’s totally okay! It just means you have to find new and exciting ways to turn on that proverbial light bulb. *Which* brings me to today’s post—let’s get inspired.

When Your Muse is No Longer A-muse-ing

It sucks when you feel that inspiration fleeing—whether you can’t put an outfit together, your English paper isn’t flowing like you want, or you don’t even feel excited to get out of your bed in the morning, that dullness and lack of energy makes it very difficult to be productive. Not to mention, it makes for a boring life! You need a new muse, and below are five ways to get the juices flowing to do just that.

Get Lost (But Not in a Rude Way)

When I’m feeling less than creative, one of my favorite things to do to escape that slump is to get lost—on purpose. Roam the streets near your school, take a different way home than usual, or even just get lost in your own thought. I’ve found that the spontaneity of experiencing something or some place new often recharges my creative juices and gives me new material with which to work. Because you never know what you might find! I recently did a little exploring with my aunt and discovered an adorable boutique near my campus. Boom—instant outfit ideas.

Become Visionary

Nothing says inspiration like something that’s extremely aesthetically pleasing. So let’s get old fashioned and break out a pair of scissors, recycled magazines, and any other scraps laying around to make a vision board. Here’s the thing—you don’t have to create a masterpiece because, most likely, you’re not feeling artistically inspired in the first place. But the goal is to just find snippets of pretty things and images that you love…once you tack them onto a board or piece of paper, the colors, photos, and meanings behind them will (hopefully) refuel some inspiration. Let your passions guide you!

Save Me

Did you know that when you’re scrolling your Instagram feed, you can save your favorite images? You just click the little banner-looking button at the bottom right-hand corner of the photo you want. I’ve known about the feature for a while, but I’ve only recently started using it to curate an online gallery of incredible, gorgeous photos. The creativity and innovation of influencers on Instagram constantly amazes me, so the save feature grants the power to hold on to those brief moments of inspiration as I’m scrolling my feed and view them again later. I can go to my “saved” folder and be reenergized by the ingenuity any time I like, rather than trying to find the images in a sea of content after the fact.

Pin It For Later

And of course, we can’t forget the inspiration hub that is Pinterest! I recommend creating a secret board just for you to focus on sparking creativity. Rather than searching directly for what you need inspiration on—an outfit, for example—search for other topics, like architecture, interior design, flower arrangements, landscapes, and art, within whatever theme you want your outfit to be. For example, a street style look might yield searching for modern home décor. I’ve discovered the best way to find inspiration for a particular topic is to actually browse elsewhere in other aesthetically-pleasing fields. This allows you to draw even more ideas from varying aspects and combine them to create something awesome!

Digest and Reflect

This is my most important tip…Like I began this post, we live in a world that’s constantly inundated with creative people and projects, which is especially emphasized by social media. I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I do when I wake up in the morning is immediately check my phone and take a quick scroll through my feed. This is the absolute worst thing you can do for your creativity! Yes, Instagram and Pinterest can serve as great sources of inspiration, as I mentioned above. But when you first wake up in the morning, you should instead spend a few moments just being present and reflecting on your day to come. Nothing kills your creativity like being flooded by other people’s ideas all the time, every day, starting with the very moment you wake up. How can you ever feel inspired yourself when you’re constantly being fed the thoughts of others? You and your brain need some quality alone time to capitalize on your own feelings, before social media and the outside world make suggestions for what you should do.

In the past, I’ve tried to wake up and spend a few minutes digesting and reflecting as I lay on my bed—thinking about whatever crazy dreams I had the night before and what they might mean, reviewing what tasks I have to complete in the coming day, dwelling on whatever thoughts are circulating my mind. What I found is that…I would accidentally fall back asleep. So now instead of laying in bed to contemplate these things, I wake up in the morning and immediately (before grabbing my phone) spend two to three minutes writing these thoughts down into my notebook. People who practice journal writing often call these “morning pages.” Having that alone time allows me to focus internally and instead avoid that feeling of overwhelm that develops when everyone else is inspired but I am not. I highly encourage you to give this a try! You have more ideas than you probably know, they’re just drowned out by all the outside noise.

Of course, I always feel extremely inspired when I travel–but ain’t nobody got money to do that all the dang time. That’s why I wanted to share quick, simple ideas you can implement right now, without spending a fortune, to escape a creative slump. Where and how do you find inspiration? I’m always looking for more tips! Let me know if you give any of these a try, especially writing the morning pages—I love hearing your feedback.

Enjoy your Thursday and have a wonderful weekend!

Miles of smiles,

Grace

Floral Blouse: Nordstrom Rack, $20