How you can create a cycle of inspiration by being more open to experiences

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams

In many countries across the world, September is a month when colleges and schools re-open after the summer holidays. Social media was replete with kids going back to school to learna and educate themselves in the intricacies of the world. It is a cycle of inspiration when teachers and students are reunited in an unwritten bond of mutual sharing and learning. Students want to get better. Even teachers want to get better at what they do. Perhaps they inspire each other?  

September is also an interesting month in India. It sees the convergence of the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi; the Jain period of Paryushan and fasting; the Mount Mary fair, and soon, the observance of Eid. It is in some sense an inspiration that millions of people will seek divine guidance and blessings for their wishes and well-being. How so many belief systems live and celebrate together is a miracle and something short of inspiration. 

What made the last week even more special was the US Open; watching the all Italian women's final, where two underdogs made their way to the finals. Then you had the grace of Roger Federer battling it out with Novak Djokovic. Then Martina Hingis at age 34 paired up with the Indian tennis stars Leander Paes and Sania Mirza to win both the mixed doubles titles. Watching players at their calibre must have got a few people to start exercising and maybe even inspired them to reach beyond themselves.   

You may have heard about Aylan Kurdi, the little boy wearing red and blue, who got the world riveted on the refugee crisis. Young Aylan’s image would have inspired many European hearts to open and subsequently give refuge to the people fleeing from harm. He has become an icon of inspiration and change. That is exactly the topic of this week's column - inspiration. 

Inspiration is a tripartite play of the “evocation” of an act of human excellence, a sense of “transcendence”, when border after border opened up, and a sense of “motivation” to do something good; three components which make up the psychological construct of inspiration. 

What exactly is an inspiration? The English word, inspiration, comes from the sense of divine guidance and from the Latin word  inspirare; which means to breathe into. In Old English, it was derived to mean "divine guidance". 

Inspiration has always played a back seat in the field of Positive Psychology. However, two eminent Psychologists, Todd M Thrash from the College of William and Mary and Andrew J Elliot from the University of Rochester wrote a paper called; 'Inspiration: Core Characteristics, Component Processes, Antecedents, and Function”.  

The authors said that inspiration has three components. To test this, they developed a very simple scale, which you can use to gauge how often you feel inspired and does the inspiration drive you to achieve something that you thought was beyond your realm of possibility. They asked simple questions like:

1) I experience inspiration.
* How often does this happen? (Frequency)    
* How deeply or strongly (in general)? (Intensity) 

2) Something I encounter or experience inspires me. 
* How often does this happen? ? (Frequency)
* How deeply or strongly (in general)? (Intensity)

3) I am inspired to do something. 
* How often does this happen? ? (Frequency)
* How deeply or strongly (in general)? (Intensity)

4) I feel inspired. 
* How often does this happen? ? (Frequency)
* How deeply or strongly (in general)? (Intensity)

They then correlated these statements with various personality traits of the research participants. 

First, is transcendence; where a human being is oriented towards witnessing something more important than their usual day to day lives. It is a state where a person can see better possibilities. Think about it, what inspires you? It could be a complex rendition of your national anthem. It could be the work of an artist. It could be the road of recovery from an accident or a dreaded disease. 

How do people become more transcendental? The core was an inherent and internal desire to get better at their work. People who were intrinsically motivated were found to experience the state of transcendence. On the other hand, people who were more competitive in nature, and heir sole goal to outperform a competitor had a reverse effect. 

Scott Barry Kaufman in his blog explains, "What makes an object inspiring is its perceived intrinsic value and not how much it is worth or how attainable it is".

The other day, I was talking to a client about inspiration. He said something very interesting. Art does not inspire me, he said, but I get inspired by Foot and Mouth artists, who have no hands but paint with their feet and mouth, adapting their available resources to lead a life of self-dependence.   

Second, is evocation. Inspiration just happens and is unwilled. You are suddenly witnessed to it, and it is almost as if you were not responsible for it to happen. You could be sitting in a coffee shop, and someone might feed a stray dog some biscuits. It just warms your heart. It just floats into your periphery of your vision. It need not even be real. Just watching Martin Sheen, play President Bartlett, in West Wing deliver a rather cerebral analysis of the Bible can give you goosebumps and nudge you towards being a bit more open to opinions. It just happens and involuntarily, just opens you up. It comes from nowhere.

So what is the key to evocation? Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot in their research found out that it was nothing but an openness to experience which mattered. People who tended to be more open to experiences, were inspired more often and with higher intensity. 

We now have figured out what are we inspired by, so let's move on to the second part, what are we inspired to do?   

Third, inspiration involves motivation; where a person may express a new desire to make a positive change, and is motivated to take action. It pulls us out of our mindset of misery and scarcity into a glorious region of possibilities. A dear friend from Chandigarh is flying to Mumbai to run the Marathon. She is driven by her own mastery at becoming a better runner. I bumped into an ex-colleague at 6 am, when he was preparing for the Amsterdam marathon. They were pursuing their own personal mastery and their personal goals. It made me aware that my T-shirts are a wee bit more “snug” than usual. That inspired me to shed the modak laden weight and my gym bag was packed and all the Ganesh sweets were given away. Inspiration motivates you to get off the couch. For some people, going to a temple and being consumed in the presence of a spiritual presence is inspiration enough to be more charitable.

Therefore, the key takeaway is that you cannot force yourself to be inspired. What you can do it to is to open yourself up to new experiences and to interpret the experiences you see in your everyday life. I am still inspired by how science enables 300 people to get into a metal tube, full of wires and jet fuel, to fly at 700 kmph and leap across the Atlantic Sea.

Yesterday, at 8 pm, it was a lean time at Starbucks. The manager of the outlet took this opportunity to train his staff on the intricacies of a certain coffee and the paring of a coffee with a chocolate cake. You could sense his passion to his craft. I am inspired by what a human mind can achieve.  

The second takeway is to open yourself to the concept of mastery and learning. If the sales folks from a competitor can transcend from being a source of ridicule (they are throwing discounts) or envy (we do not get such lucrative salaries) to becoming a source of inspiration and pride, then possibilities open up. When you open yourself up to learning and being inspired by your competitors, possibilities open up. Stuart Fletcher, a CEO of Bupa, a multi-billion dollar heath insurance company used to call it, steal with pride. 

The author is the founder of The Positivity Company. This is part of a series called 'Positive Mondays' which describes how positivity has a multiplicative effect, simultaneously impacting all work and life outcomes.