The Real Reason You Don't Feel Inspired
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There are lots of things my kids fight over: the TV remote, the front seat, the last slice of pizza… but their fiercest battles are always over the same thing: the charger cord in the car. The moment I pick them up from school, the battle begins: “My phone’s at 3%!” “Mine’s at 2!” “You had the cord on the way here!” “That’s because you stole it last night!” It’s Lord of the Flies, but with USB-C. Meanwhile, I’m sitting at a healthy 82%, because I did something truly revolutionary: I charged my phone at home. Home! The land of plentiful power, where outlets grow wild and free and charging opportunities are abundant. I don’t have to fight over the cord in the car because I already took care of the problem hours earlier. And this, strangely, is how inspiration works too. Most people try to charge their creative batteries right when they need them: when they're staring at a blank page with a deadline looming. But by then, it’s too late. Your inspiration is at 3%, gasping for life, and you’re scrambling for a cord that isn’t there. If you want a full battery when it counts, you have to start charging before you sit down to create. That means noticing things throughout the day. Capturing ideas as they show up. Saving sparks instead of letting them vanish. The good news is, this is easy to do. All day long, you walk past things that could charge your creative battery. You watch inspiring videos, read interesting articles, and overhear surprising comments. But if you don’t capture those inputs, you forget them. They slip out of your head as fast as they arrived. Inspiration wasn’t scarce, you just didn’t save any. A notebook, a voice memo, a running list in your notes app… the tool doesn’t matter. What matters is the habit. And when you build that habit, something magical happens: Your creative battery stops hovering at 3%. Your problem shifts from “I don’t have any ideas” to “I have too many—how do I pick one?” Then, when a moment arrives that demands creativity, you’re not scrambling for power. You’re already charged. But something else happens, too. You begin gravitating towards a more inspiring life. The act of capturing ideas becomes addictive, and it pulls you toward the places where good ideas hang out. You start spending less time doomscrolling and more time noticing the stuff that makes you feel alive. Do me a favor today: pick a capture tool and start using it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a notebook, your notes app, a voice memo to yourself… just pick one, and start dropping things into it. Begin building the habit today. I promise your future self will thank you. -Kyle P.S. What’s your capture tool of choice? |
Kyle Scheele
One useful idea about creative leadership, once a week
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