Hello Artist, welcome to the second week of finding your mojo, your inspiration, your passion for your thing again. Last week’s insight was about changing what media you’re consuming to replace it with the kind of thing you want to do more of. How’d it go? Mine was rocky. Mid-week turned into a horror show. I didn’t fair well after that.

Let’s pick up the pieces.

When I talk about inspiration, I’m not talking an inspiring sunset or movie or book. Those are great and helpful, but if you haven’t created the space within for inspiration to take root then those things fall on arid ground and never last for more than a moment. I’m talking about creating a fountain of inspiration within that you can tap into regularly. Wanting to be inspired, in my experience, means something within you needs to shift.

That usually means changing behaviors, creating routines, utilizing discipline to do so. I hate all that stuff. Wild horses couldn’t get me to do “discipline.” I die inside at the thought of it. That said, it’s really more about routines, or habits. We all have them and if we haven’t thought much about our habits, then more than likely we have many that aren’t good for creating inspiration.

With the right habits, Inspiration comes from within and can be a fount of magic you can always access.

On Tuesday I stayed up late watching the Georgia run-off and woke up in a great mood ready to create. Then the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol occurred and by 11:30 pm on Thursday I was weeping on the floor overwhelmed with despair at the fruitlessness of it all. Friday I had to watch 12 hours of Buffy The Vampire Slayer to stop the suicidal ideation.

All my life I’ve been subject to the winds of mania — deep depressive episodes followed by manic bursts of destructive behavior. More recently that manic behavior has manifested in shopping sprees. And I’m tired of it. I’ve done this for the better part of two decades. Saturday it occurred to me that I could do something else. I could go for a walk.

It cleared out the muck and lightened my load. I no longer felt the need to die or shop to feel better. Changing something simple like walking instead of shopping, broke the pattern, at least for the day and one day is all I can hope to change right now. With any luck, one day can lead to others.

And after the walk something extraordinary happened. I found the courage to approach an old project with new hope. I sat down to write the next scene of a book I’ve been trying to write for six years now. I just never believed in myself enough to keep going.

So, that’s the assignment for the week; change one bad habit and replace it with something good, something relatively easy, but also something that will lead to other good habits: iron, make the bed, dust. You never know, any one of those things could lead you to a seismic internal shift.

If this is helpful to you, follow, subscribe on YouTube and let me know in the comments what keeps you inspired. We need each other right now.