You are your biggest inspiration

​I had dinner with my buddy Solomon last night. We got to talking about my writing. At one point I told him, if writing about the running side of my life ever got boring to me, I'd have to start making stuff up about it. I told him I'd have to start writing about me winning races or setting world records or something.

In other words, I would have to give up writing non-fiction stories about and dive into the world of fiction.

I was joking - mostly 🤷‍♂️.

The reality is, though, I write mostly to inspire me to live my best life. If it adds inspiration to someone else's life, that's a bonus.

Even so, I think our inspiration comes from the way people LIVE their lives, not how they WRITE about them. More than that - much more - I think our greatest inspiration comes from how we live OUR lives, not from how someone else lives THEIRS.

My buddy Jon Cox talked the other day about the difference between motivation and determination. He said motivation gets us to the starting line, determination gets us to the finish line.

Stealing a bit of his line of thinking - because he's a wise dude - I think other people can inspire us to get to the starting line - I see someone else pull off a great race and think, I want to do that.

So I sign up for that race.

But from that point on, really, it's all about me. It's about how determined am I to make it happen. And I have found, there is no more inspiring way to live life than stepping every step of life - with determination - into something that makes a better story out of my own life.

Someone else inspiring me to sign up for a race is inspiring.

Someone giving me a nudge or two along the way to keep me going is inspiring.

But ME - ME getting my butt out of bed and making it happen day in and day out - that's writing a story jam packed with inspiration - the kind of inspiration that is life changing. Mind altering.

Our life story is our greatest inspiration. If you aren't living a story that inspires you, you need to quit listening to someone else's podcast. You need to quit reading someone else's book. You need to quit going to someone else's self-help workshop.

Because the reality is, you know the inspiring story you want to live in your life. You don't need someone to define it for you. You don't need someone else to write it. You don't need someone sitting around pumping you up 24 hours a day making you believe in a new story.

Because if you feel like you want to write a new story in your life, chances are it's because you're sick and tired of the old one. And if so, chances are that makes you the greatest expert - not someone else - on what that new story will look like.

You aren't lacking inspiration, you're lacking willingness or courage or hope or all three. And I get that.

But the minute you take one step into any of those things, you're going to feel an inspiration like you've never felt before. And the next step will be even more inspiring than the first. And pretty soon, you're writing the most inspiring story you've ever read.

If your story isn't inspiring you, rewrite it. It's your chance to be the most inspirational person your story has ever known.