Oftentimes, when leading life, people require a push. The struggles of life may put someone down and they look for reasons to carry on. During these times, all they need is a motive to face it and sometimes they need a constant hope that will inspire them to get through the struggle of life. However, we get confused with how differently motivation and inspiration works.
Motivation comes from the word, ‘motive’. It is like giving someone the reason that helps them push abilities and achieve something while believing that they can surely reach their goal. Inspiration on the other hand is what incites a person. It can come in any form- through a song, a sentence, a word, or a person. Inspiration continues to drive you to your purpose.
The difference has a thin line. They both have their respective importance in our lives and we need both motivation and inspiration to lead a life with a strong faith. But what are the things that make it easy to differentiate between them? Give this article a read as I discuss the differences of motivation vs inspiration, it may enlighten you.
What Is Motivation?
Motivation is what motivates. It is something that influences people to move and take all those steps needed to reach a certain place or achieve a goal immediately. When you are motivating a person, you give them a reason to get out of a comfort zone and they do it happily, with a kind of positive push.
Motivational speakers give people prime advice about life, about the alternative paths to take. They paint a picture that shows the hard realities of hitting a target but they do it in a manner that makes the listener believe that they can surely make it no matter what.
Before a game, often coaches boost the players with positive words, which works as motivation before the game. They hear those positive words and step into the field feeling pumped and confident.
Sometimes motivation comes from hearing someone’s real-life struggle story. It generates hope in the psyche of the listener where they feel upbeat to face failure and struggle before a win; the mind of the one listening gets the courage to act a certain way to get to their life goal. They may think, “If he can make it, so can I” and that is a motivation for you!
Motivation mostly gives a person an instant boldness to give actions in life the best shot for mostly a specific and immediate objective.
What Is Inspiration?
Inspiration has no limit. It gives someone a lifetime of encouragement or a lifetime of hope. It is something that gives a constant optimism and strength to carry on with whenever life seems hard.
Often, people talking about their life can also inspire a person to live life similarly, to be able to overcome hardships the way they did. The brain automatically generates the strength to elevate a person’s thought process with much more positivity and hope for the future.
You get to see in movies that during graduation ceremonies, people give speeches about what helped them get through. They mostly talk about who inspired them to finish college, or continue with life or even be strong. They may mention a teacher who inspired them, a friend, or a book they read during their time there.
Many people call their parents an inspiration. Some people consider the birth of a child an inspiration. Someone’s love for someone can also be a reason to feel inspired.
However, inspiration can come from other sources too. Someone may be very much appealed by the beauty of the place they live in, it could be the process of nature that inspires, a flower, a bird. What truly reaches your heart and makes you content and willing to carry on with life, is an inspiration.
Writers need to feel the passion inside them when they write a book. Most writers wait for inspiration before constructing an effective theme for their readers. Once they get a hold of it, the inspiration influences the entire flow of writing.
An artist can see someone with a beautiful face, even though he may not draw that face, but it could be the reason that inspired him to draw an abstract painting. A poet can write an epic based on their beloved, and epics often take time, but the inspiration helps them thoroughly to continue.
Inspiration helps a person carry on with long-term aspirations. For example, if a person is inspired by the hard work their parents put in the family, they may long to become a successful person for their sake, to give them a better life in the future.
Inspiration is ambiguous; the levels it can influence and reach is enormous. You may have certain goals, but when you have someone or something that pushes you to keep going, you might end up setting new goals because of it.
The Difference Between Motivation and Inspiration
Motivation helps you reach goals within a certain timeline. It could be something immediate. It could help for things like an interview for your dream job; a game you need to win; a speech you need to give for your presentation; proposing to the love of your life or even when you want to put forth or start a business.
Those who often want to lose or gain weight need motivation and the before and after progress results often gets them motivated. When they watch videos of those who have successfully reached their desired weight, it motivates people to try and do the same.
Motivation mostly impels the external factors. It initiates confidence or the rage to finish a certain task and challenge oneself to finish it through any means. It often pushes a person to reach their limit and helps maximize productivity and performance.
The impulse gets the most attention during the time motivation works inside a person. It provokes the way something was perhaps getting delayed into finally taking off. It helps the person set a time for their goals, to get face to face with their weaknesses and emotions.
A person often needs the motivation to step out of their comfort zone. The fear and lack of confidence gets boosted the best when a person is given a motive or reason to overcome it. Motivations cause a push for plans made for the near future or an upcoming task and help the active state of mind to be sure of achieving it.
Once motivation makes its way, any failure in life will fail to stop you from giving it another shot.
Inspiration, as we have already mentioned, is more long-term. It is a continuous reason a person has in their life to do what they truly want to. If someone has a future aspiration or dream, the inspiration helps them pursue that dream.
Inspiration creates an internal stimulation– a mental drive to innovate, to imagine, to create things. It helps people to express and push on their desires. It gives people a vision that gets stimulated with the help of what is inspiring them. It helps people gain insight, plan with more precision.
Inspiration not only helps a person overcome fear, but it keeps helping them without a reminder or renewal as it hits on a more personal level. It sticks with the person once it has inspired them. Inspiration settles in the mind of a person for plans of a distant future.
As soon as the mind gets hold of something that deeply makes it happy, it will take advantage of its presence and create the flow of activities that you end up doing.
Why Do You Need Motivation?
As life goes on, people need reassurance sometimes. The hardships of life can put someone down and discourage them to think out of the box or explore their abilities. Motivation helps with the lack of confidence. Motivation pushes a person to challenge themselves to achieve things they were doubting themselves of achieving.
Some special activities in life need boosting. That boosting helps realize reason and motive. Motivation helps in increasing the zest for things in life, it enhances well-being and the understanding of what you want to do. It fixes how people behave and feel.
Therefore, you need motivation in stewarding your purpose in life in a better way.
Why Do You Need Inspiration?
Inspiration is important in life so that you can always recall your purpose during the time of difficulty. What inspires you is what sticks with you internally. It has influenced you so much that it keeps pushing you into always looking at the bigger picture.
The mind needs inspiration. Without it, there would be no urge to reach goals, to create new goals, or even work to slowly get towards them.
It changes the point of view of a person, stimulating the thought process into believing in possibilities and ambiguity. Thus, inspiration is what keeps people afloat when they think about giving up. It helps in changing the way people perceive their abilities.
Books You Can Read for Motivation
There are many motivational books you can check out to be able to understand better how it works. We have listed a few below that have great reviews and are mostly best sellers.
- You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
This book is a must-read. It is one of the best motivational books. The author, Jen Sincero gives many tips for the readers to understand their limits, habits, and frame of mind. In a very positive way, she gives numerous bits of advice to her readers into achieving the desired success.
Jen’s target is to help readers accept things that cannot be changed and to focus on things that can be.
- Make Your Bed by William H. McRaven
The book starts with a simple message, asking readers to start changing the world by making their bed at first. A piece of very precise advice but William H. McRaven makes sure you get her point.
He shared 10 principles that helped him get through many challenges during his career that he faced when he was in Navy Seal training. The book contains the tales of his ways of dealing with the problems he encountered.
The practical wisdom in the book will motivate you on many levels!
- Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg
Charles Duhigg’s remarkable book gives about 8 productivity notions to motivate people into accomplishing things in life. This book puts more emphasis on productivity than staying busy, teaching success through smart steps for working.
More often than not we work to just keep busy than keep busy to work. This book aims to change this mindset and allows the reader to learn how to motivate themselves to reach higher goals.
- Mindset: The New Psychology for Success by Carol S. Dweck
In this book, Carol S. Dweck, discusses the mindset of people. She argues that our mindset predicts how our life will go, how we will succeed, and how our achievements will be. Her belief that she tried to portray in the book is that our mindset influences our future steps and how we walk towards our goals in life.
A motivational book like this can help you reach goals for the near future.
- Choose Yourself by James Altucher
This book is one of the best motivational books. This book helps you understand why to choose yourself, as you should. It will push you to invest in yourself and to reach your goals with the most effort and precision.
The author has emphasized self-growth, which surely is something that will help you grow confidence and will motivate you.
- Screw It Lets Do It: Lessons in Life by Richard Branson
This book will charge up your enthusiasm. Richard Branson has written about how he embraces change. Reading this book will give you a view into the life of another person’s journey.
This book will motivate you to challenge life and step up the pattern you use in life.
Books You Can Read for Inspiration
While it cannot be put into a box what inspiration really emerges from, however, there are books that really have the power to influence the readers. Below we have listed a few of those books that have great reviews and have their eBooks available on Amazon.
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Fankl
The author of Man’ Search for Meaning- Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist. In the book, he gave a detailed discussion on his experience while residing in the Nazi death camps. The sufferings he faced taught him about spiritual survival. He argued about how ignoring suffering is not being real.
This book is very inspiring and something people of all generations will learn from to understand the value of life. It will help the readers not to dwell in sufferings but move forward with a purpose.
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This book is about the journey to self-discovery. The story is about a shepherd boy who wants to go around the world looking for treasure. But what he discovers is very much different than what he expected to find.
This book will inspire you to go where your heart desires, pushing you to pursue your dreams. Paulo Coelho’s writing touches people’s hearts and leaves a huge impact. Try giving this a read.
- Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
This book’s message is to remind people how they have the power to control the way they think and feel. Everything people do is also within their ability and if there is anything in life that they want to achieve, they have the power to do so.
If you seek inspiration, this book can be the one for you!
- The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama
The Art of Happiness encourages us to work on the art of self-reflection. As you do that, you will find what is happiness for you. Once you discover what that is, you will find the purpose of your life.
This bookwill give you a vision and will give you the ability to find clarity in life so that you can arrange the steps you are planning to take.
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwart
Dr. Schwartz’s perspective on life is that, if you want to achieve all that you desire, you will have to change the way you think and how you behave. That is exactly what he has mentioned in his book. The author puts forth a message of personal reflection and change.
Personal reflection can help you get inspired in life.
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
This book will help you find the courage within you and will help you re-discover yourself. It will make you understand your self-worth.
Brene Brown helps people get prepared for the changes that occur in life through this book. It teaches you to accept who you truly are while letting go of who you think you are expected to become.
Conclusion
While assembling every important detail and difference of motivation and inspirations, we tried our best to trigger the aspects you need to reflect on in life. This is the only life you get. If you require something to help you see your purpose clearly, we hope our article will meet you halfway, or perhaps meet you exactly where you are at right now.
Try to find what you need from the two- motivation vs inspiration. See what your life requires. I hope you find your purpose and can reach it with ease!
