Out of Inspiration? Take a Walk

You know how when someone walks into a room that already has two people and wants to kick one of them out, they say, “Take a walk. I need to talk to your friend here”?

Sometimes when you’re facing a white page trying to find inspiration, making that extra mug of coffee or wiping the dust off the keyboard won’t lure ideas out. So maybe it’s time to kick yourself out of your hobbit hole and take a walk. And if you are ready to lug things around you could carry your journal, a pen and a camera though your phone could probably play the functions of all of those.

I tried that today and by the time I was done from my walk I had a list of ideas to explore. Of course this list brought on a different type of problem; there were too many ideas, the question was which one to tackle first? And naturally that can be a procrastinator’s cue line to tackle none and go to sleep. But that mostly happens because we want whatever we create to be perfect and that daunting standard we set for ourselves becomes the very thing that stops us from doing anything at all. So another thing to remember is that anything imperfect is better than a perfect nothing.

Before I leave, a couple of days ago, the health and sports officials in the UAE launched ‘Start Walking’ campaign; a public health awareness campaign by the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre (ICLDC). Their message according to Khaleej Times was “A 30-minute brisk walk everyday can help, manage, reverse and even prevent diabetes. So, start walking.”

So now that you’re done reading this, take a walk. If you don’t get inspired, at least you could lose a few calories.