How I Found the True Source of Inspiration

For roughly half a year or maybe even more, I have been thinking about inspiration and where it might be coming from.

Like many other authors, who have several books under their belt, or in their portfolio, at least once in a while, I get a question of where I get my ideas from.

And as many others before me, I had difficulties in giving a precise answer.

“Here,” “There,” “Everywhere,” “I don’t really know,” or other similar answers were not awfully helpful.

So, I decided to explore the topic of inspiration and try to understand where it came from.

I even started a writing project called Gameful Inspiration, the research for which I hoped would give me more concrete answers.

While writing other books and articles, revising and preparing some of them for publication, and attending to other projects and commitments of my day, the question about inspiration surfaced once in a while, and I searched for books on inspiration, in general, and for writing and games, in particular.

I downloaded multiple samples of books hinting in their titles or descriptions that they addressed the topics of inspiration and creativity one or another way.

I didn’t manage to read into all of them until this day. In those I started to read, I found many messages that resonated, but where I still couldn’t find the answer to the question about the source of inspiration.

Was there any at all?

There should be, shouldn’t it? The flow was there, at least from time to time, so there should be a starting point for this flow somewhere, right?

I had fun creating new content and sharing what I already had on turning our lives into games and other themes. The positive feedback motivated me to continue and also write more of the new material on the topics that resonated with many.

But what prompted all this inspiration?

As it often happens, the answer came from an unexpected place.

I found it in a book, but this is not why I consider it unexpected. I often say that books are my favorite teachers, and as you might have seen above, I often turn to books when I am searching for an answer.

The place was unexpected because the book I took to read was not among those multiple samples, which I thought would provide me with the answer on inspiration, and maybe even would, have I read them to the full.

The book, in which I found the answer was one of those good book-friends, which I liked and appreciated but which I haven’t read for a while but started thinking about more and more, and finally picked up and read again. The book is The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time by Dr. Robert Maurer, Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program at Santa Monica, UCLA Medical Center, and a faculty member at the UCLA School of Medicine.

This book came out before the one I had read to the full previously, which was One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life is about the personal application of kaizen. I am utterly interested in kaizen because it is an integral part of the Self-Gamification, the approach which I defined, and that includes kaizen in addition to the other two well-known disciplines and philosophies — anthropology and gamification. And Self-Gamification is about turning our own lives into fun games; thus, my interest in reading the One Small Step Can Change Your Life came naturally.

This brilliant book was where I learned about kaizen and saw the unfolding of its magic. Inspired by the insights in the book, I recognized that I was already applying kaizen to some extent even before I heard the word or learned about the concept, and with that realized why it worked for me. With the help of the book, I deepened my knowledge and tested and discovered the magic of the smallest possible — even a few seconds long — steps.

I put off reading The Spirit of Kaizen for some time because it concentrated on the work environment and its management aspects.

However, I knew I would read it to the end someday because even if it was much about teams and not exclusively about the person who read the book, the aspect of starting with motivating ourselves the kaizen way before motivating others was clearly visible.

After I enjoyed reading chapter four on how to increase quality by slowing down and solving the big challenges by focusing on each of the small ones coming our way, I opened the chapter five titled “Develop New Products and Services.”

And that was the place where I found the answer to my question about where the inspiration came from. In fact, I discovered that there is only one place where it could be found.

I haven’t been searching for this answer specifically while reading this book, and maybe this is why I discovered it. The reason for it might be because the answer reflects this seemingly accidental scenario of me reading this book simply because I wanted to read it and not to answer a specific question.

Here is the answer, which I’m so glad to have stumbled upon:

True creativity doesn’t make a great story.

Inspiration is much more likely to develop from the habit of consistently paying attention to life’s small moments.

— Robert Maurer, The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

I gasped when I read it. It was so simple and so true. And I could clearly recognize that this was where my inspiration always came from. From here and now, from being present, paying attention to details, being curious and open for discovering something new or anew in everything, at any moment, of which I become aware of, however tiny it might seem to me.

I could also see how blind I was to this truth, even if my experiences were so telling. I saw that I believed the myth of the sudden Eureka moments coming seemingly out of nothing.

I’m glad that Robert Maurer prepared me, along with other readers of his book, for the quote above by opening chapter five in the following way:

Are you curious? Are you sure?

Most people believe they are curious because they sometimes ask questions. The accountant, the doctor, the lawyer, and the parent all ask questions … but the purpose of most questions is to elicit specific information in order to achieve a solution. That’s an important skill, but it’s not curiosity. It’s problem solving.

— Robert Maurer, The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

I chuckled when I saw myself being portrayed in this observation, and how I often thought that by putting purposeful questions, I was being curious and thus on the way to find inspiration. But I wasn’t. The second part of this paragraph opened to me in which moments I was genuinely curious.

Curiosity is the ability to engage your interest in whatever is happening at the moment, no matter whether the moment is large or small, dramatic or tedious, pleasant or painful. And it’s curiosity that leads to the inventions.

— Robert Maurer, The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

This brilliant pearl of wisdom goes along with the following quote, which I brought up in the following story:

It is by Mitchel Resnick, the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Lifelong Kindergarten research group.

Creativity grows out of a certain type of hard work, combining curious exploration with playful experimentation and systematic investigation. New ideas and insights might seem like they come in a flash, but they usually happen after many cycles of imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting.

— Mitchel Resnick, Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play

Thus, if you ever feel like lacking inspiration, all you have to do to find it again is to engage fully in this moment of now, whatever it might be, and however much you might fear or resent it.

Studying yourself and the world around you at any moment of now non-judgementally and with utter curiosity, as anthropologists do, when they observe and engage with the cultures they want to study, will take you onto a beautiful and inspiring adventure beyond your expectations and pre-planned questions.

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About the author:

Victoria is a writer, instructor, and consultant with a background in semiconductor physics, electronic engineering (with a Ph.D.), information technology, and business development. While being a non-gamer, Victoria came up with the term Self-Gamification, a gameful and playful self-help approach bringing anthropology, kaizen, and gamification-based methods together to increase the quality of life. She approaches all areas of her life this way. Due to the fun she has, while turning everything in her life into games, she intends never to stop designing and playing them.