Water Cooler: Strategies to foster inspiration

Inspiration is often thought of as a serendipitous, fleeting and perhaps even spiritual experience requiring a muse or a “lightbulb” moment. While it’s impossible to pin down such a nebulous concept into something definite, researchers have been able to point out three concrete features that commonly coincide with inspiration, making it something that can be better understood from a psychological perspective and possibly fostered through specific behaviors and ways of thinking.

Two important psychologists in this subset of study, Andrew Elliot and Todd Thrash, have led a lot of psychological research on inspiration, noting that very little empirical research had been previously dedicated to the concept. They and many others have created many studies over the past two decades to evaluate what inspiration is, how it works, what situations cause it to happen and who seems to experience it most often.

From their research they have been able to identify three core characteristics of inspiration: evocation, approach motivation and transcendence.

Evocation is the experience of calling forth an emotion, memory or feeling to the consciousness, such as the smell of a summer morning recalling memories of catching the bus to summer camp as a kid, or a moment in a dramatic scene of a play that is able to make you strongly feel an emotion.

Approach motivation is a psychological concept defined as the urge or propensity to direct your behavior towards doing something you desire, whether that be fulfilling an artistic vision or tackling a goal. It is in contrast to the idea of avoidance motivation which is to change your behavior to maintain distance or move away from something undesired.

Transcendence is typified as moments of clarity with other cares falling to the wayside, as well as a state of sensing significance and holistic consciousness. It can involve the feeling of expanding beyond personal boundaries or your own routine thinking.

By noting these general characteristics involved in becoming and being inspired, psychologists have been able to provide research-backed suggestions for fostering inspiration in one’s life. Of course inspiration in its nature will always be serendipitous and is far too complex to be forcibly manufactured by some easy life hack, but there are things you can do to aid it.

Try to get into a good head space and don’t pressure yourself. One study by Thrash and Elliot found correlations between the personality trait of openness to experience and the frequency of inspiration, suggesting that inspiration was better fostered by those who can be accepting of what would come rather than those with a strong need for control. This implied traits like optimism and self-esteem helped create trust that inspiration would come and acceptance for what it would be. Letting go of willfulness, competitiveness and fear of failure seems to be positively associated with more frequent inspiration.

They also found that inspiration seemed to correlate more with intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation, meaning those who felt an inner drive often found inspiration more than those driven by external factors like financial gain, social status or a promotion. Something you can do to help create intrinsic motivation is to look to your heroes and discuss work and ideas with peers in your field. This helps promote thinking related to your work, promoting inner motivation and new ideas.

As unromantic as it may seem, another trait associated with frequent inspiration was work mastery. Try to develop your skills, not only because it is important in its own right but because getting good at what you do can promote inspiration through building confidence and aiding the development of creative and critical thinking.

Inspiration, albeit spontaneous, does not mean it is as passive as many have romanticized it to be. Through implementing these strategies informed by psychological studies, it may be possible to encourage inspiration to visit more often.