Inspire yourself, to improve yourself

Inspiration is great, but there is more to being inspired than just looking through pretty pictures, you need to take action & learn from it. Being inspired enables us to push our skillset further by discovering new things & by seeing what the rest of the world is doing, we can create our own unique ideas.

Being connected to others in your field will motivate you to improve, and prevents you from being swallowed into your own closed-off world, if you’re not learning new things, you aren’t inspired enough.

Open Your Mind To New Ideas

To quote usability guru Steve Krugs book: Dont make me think

We’re creatures of habit If we find something that works, we stick to it. Once we find something that works — no matter how badly — we tend not to look for a better way. We’ll use a better way if we stumble across one, but we seldom look for one. - Steve Krug

Don’t be content doing the exact same thing for.. oh let’s use 5 years as an example, this does not give you 5 years of experience, it gives you one, if your job has been to design the same company newsletter for 5 years.. have you learnt or tried anything new after the first few months?

I have run into several people who have had years more ‘experience’ than me in the industry and yet they know less – just the other day I spoke to a Web developer who has been using table layouts for 7 years and doesnt understand divs’s.. which will soon be replaced by HTML5 markup anyway, my point being: dont get to a point where you think you know enough and fall behind – Keep Learning.

One could argue that doing the same thing repeatedly makes you an expert in a niche, this is not always the case, and there is always room for innovation and improvement.

There are plenty of fantastic places to find inspirational resources that will help you grow, create new designs & learn new techniques so you don’t have to stagnate.

Somewhere Something Incredible Is Waiting To Be Known

There are thousands of others out there just like you, who learn from each other by sharing stories, ideas and designs – take part in the discussion, engage with likeminded individuals or groups and you will find more meaning in what you do.

This can be achieved by blogging, commenting, twittering, browsing social media websites, viewing designs and sharing ideas amongst other things while learning and growing at the same time!

Inspiration Can Breathe Life Back Into What You Do

Not looking at what the rest of the world is doing should be a criminal offence if you work on the web, you are shutting yourself off from a gold mine of information that others create every day, thus stifling your ability to generate new ideas and diversify.

This ignorance can also cause you to fall way behind others, and possibly loose out on business, this is especially true in the Web world where things move and change faster than a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus.

Start looking at all the great content out there you will find a renewed passion for what you do. Take full advantage of the wealth of information freely available to help you grow.

Questions you should be asking yourself by now:

• What’s the rest of the world doing in my field, am I up to date?
• Am I too content with an outdated way of doing something?
• What inspires me, what motivates me to improve?
• What have I learnt lately, do I try to learn new things?

Places to Find Inspiration

I have written articles on where to find inspiration for Web design, typography & graphic design, illustration & digital art, if you design, blog or develop. Believe in yourself, and keep learning (cheesy huh? – but true)

What does Inspiration mean to you, and how does it improve you?

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