Inspiration Overload

You know about information overload, right? That moment when you are overwhelmed because you know too much! The same can happen when it comes to inspiration! Today, I will talk about how inspiration overload affected me and how I got over it.

You are thinking about making a quilt and the first thing that you do (to look for inspiration), if you are anything like me, is to scroll through Pinterest. You see so many designs that you like that in the end you just close the window and get back to some other task that you were doing. How often has this happened to you?

Like when you are looking for information and you get too much of it – most of it undesired and unnecessary! More often than not, you have to filter out the information that you do not need and it takes time and energy. You have to filter out based on relevancy. It is not an easy task.

Same is the case with inspiration overload. You get so much inspiration that you have to start filtering it out. Especially when you are a creative entrepreneur and you need to be original!

Some time back, I decided I was going to do more. I had big plans. I had looked up people who inspire me and how their careers had shaped and prepared a path that I would take. It was a pretty picture. But it had too much in it. I was inspired by too many people. I was trying to do too many things. And many of them did not go along with each other.

I had too many ideas for quilts. Too many UFOs (for the quilting muggles UFO = UnFinished Object). I had too many half written blog posts saved as ‘Drafts’. My Pinterest boards were haphazard and confusing – just like me. 

What happened? I burned out. I just stopped blogging. I went from writing 195 blog posts (2012) to 108 (2013) to just 32 (2014). Was I creating less? No. I was making a lot of quilts. I was COMPLETING less. I had more quilts in the making  than those to show my readers. My brain was like a dragonfly. I was just flying everywhere tiring myself out but going nowhere.

I realized that things needed to change. But had no idea what to do.

Then, in February 2017 (yes, it took me close to four years to get out of it) I decided to take action. I am sharing with you the steps that I took to finally create order among the chaos that my mind was!

1. I curated my Pinterest boards. Pinterest was the first source of inspiration for me. So naturally, it was also the first thing I tackled. I spent my time getting rid of the boards that we not in alignment with what I really wanted. I also deleted a lot of pins. I lost a lot of followers. 237 to be precise. But I do not think it has made any difference to me in the long run!

2. I started reading more books. And not the fiction type. I started reading more self-help kind of books. I signed up for Kindle Unlimited and that opened up the doors to thousands of titles to me. I just speed read through a lot of them and if I liked what I saw, I went in deep. I read books that had nothing to do with inspiration and creativity but more to do with discipline. I knew I had a creative mind and I also knew that with a little bit of discipline, I would become original!

3. I started meditating. I knew I needed to ground my mind if I wanted it to function. I started meditating after I read Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning. Even today, I try to include at least 30 minutes of miracle morning into my schedule. Even if it means doing Surya Namaskar while my tea boils!

4. I started journaling. At first, I started with just brain dumping. But as the days passed I got more and more creative with it. I journaled almost everyday. Most of all, I journaled when I was feeling my best or my worst. For years I have had two separate journals for the same. I always write about all the positive things going on in my life in one journal and the negative ones in another. So that when I am feeling low, I can go through my positive journal and cheer up. I wrote, I sketched, I analyzed and I dumped my heart and my brain in it.

5. I focused on the big picture. I looked at my life forward and thought, What legacy do I want to leave behind? I thought about what I wanted to be known as. I knew I could not just stick to doing one thing all my life. I needed something else too. I analyzed my strengths and my weaknesses. I zeroed in on the direction I wanted my life to go in. And I painted a picture of success. I use that for my visualizaion everyday. I close my eyes and run a reel of what my life could be. It keeps me motivated. 

6. I made a plan of action. I made a list of goals for myself based on my dreams. And I made a plan of action to achieve them. I made a detailed list of things that I should do to achieve my goals. Some of my lists ran several hundred items long. I decided my ‘focus’ for every quarter and made even more lists. I created a plan of action for  my life – business as well as personal. Having that plan helps me when I need to take decisions. Be it small ones like whether I should eat that extra scoop of ice cream that I am craving or major ones like whether I should take up more responsibilities in the organizations that I volunteer with.

Now that I have been following my plan of action, things are under control. Sometimes it was very difficult. I have always been impulsive. The biggest struggle was to wait. Wait to publish that blog post I wrote. Wait before I shared that picture on Instagram. Wait for the right time to take on more on my plate. Wait for a full month before launching my website!

Having more discipline has helped me with not just dealing with inspiration overload, but also using it to my advantage. Are you overwhelmed with inspiration? What do you do to overcome it?