Feeling Inspired? Use These 5 Tips Keep the Passion Flowing in Your Piano Playing!

Many of us are coming away from this current Olympic Season feeling encouraged, revived, inspired, and ready to accomplish our goals. 

It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it!? Our confidence is up, we have more energy, and we're more likely already putting in more effort into reaching our dreams. 

Inspiration grows whenever it is nourished.

If you're a fan of the Olympics, then your own inspiration has been nourished simply by seeing these athletes, who are really people just like you and me, accomplish incredible circumstances to achieve more than they actually ever dreamed of.

How can we not be inspired? 

We always hear that hard work, commitment, and more hard work, are what it takes to accomplish any dream we have. But sometimes, we forget about inspiration, and how that effects our ability to stay on course and "finish the race" so to say. 

Harnessing that present inspiration is important because the more you learn how to hang on to it,  you'll be amazed at how much more passionate and committed to your goals you will be. 

One of the challenges with inspiration, is that it seems to fade as time goes by. 

Remember the last time you felt inspired by someone or something? Now think back and try to remember how long you held on to that inspiration and how long it had a positive impact on your piano playing? 

Maybe for the next month or two you practiced much more regularly, you learned more scales and pieces than before, and you really learned some great new techniques that enabled you to perhaps play a more difficult piece. But then...slowly as time passed, so did your drive and excitement, as well as some confidence and faith in yourself!

The key to holding on to your inspiration and keeping it alive in your daily life is nourishing it. 

It's just like playing the piano... the more you practice, or "nourish" your piano education, the better you're going to do. 

The more you feed your inspiration and keep it alive in your heart and mind, the passion and drive you feel when you first get inspired, will stay with you and feed your life in an incredible way. 

Here are 5 ways that you can hang on to and harness Inspiration in your life to make you a better piano player!
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1. Figure out what inspires you, first of all. This is as important as knowing what to eat to feed your body. If you eat McDonald's every day, you're going to feel horrible! If you eat healthy foods, you're going to feel great. Think of what feeds your energy and stimulates you to want to overcome your fears, and actively move towards accomplishing a goal. 
2. Once you've identified several things that do inspire you, start including those things in your life. This is vital to keeping that energy of inspiration ignited and active in your own activities. What you feed, grows. Think of it as taking a mental and emotional vitamin each day. So whether it be other piano players, teachers, political leaders; anyone or anything that brings inspiration to your life - connect with that thing or person, and keep that connection going. 
3. Use your inspiration to set more goals. When you're rocking along on Inspiration Lane, it's much easier to establish new goals, or change your existing ones, to better serve your plan. Many times, when we are functioning in a high level of passion we don't hear those negative voices nearly as much in our heads and hearts. With more clarity in our thinking we can tweak any plan to be more accessible and serve us. The more goals we achieve, the more inspired we feel!
4. Share Your Knowledge! Teaching, mentoring, offering to help someone learn something that you know how to do, like playing the piano, will keep your inspiration at a high level, even when you don't realize it. Not only do you become inspired by teaching someone else something new, you get even more from watching that knowledge grow and change another person's life. It's the wow factor, actually. 
5. Serve - just one word...with powerful results. When we use our piano playing to serve others, we step into a different realm altogether. When we serve, it isn't about is, it's about others, and the big picture. Giving of yourself, especially when it comes to music, plants all kinds of incredible goodness that will bring rewards for years to come. It's hard to describe the feelings that come from "giving" your music away. It teaches us about compassion and all the good things in life. This kind of inspiration changes the world. :)

Are you feeling inspired about staying inspired?

Find what inspires you, incorporate those inspirational things and people into your life, re-evaluate and tweak your goals when you're the most confident and the least worried, start teaching your music to others, and then start giving it away. 

Last but not least! Be inspired by your own accomplishments and by yourself! 

If you looked at yourself the way your loved ones do, you'd most likely see someone different from how you think they see you!

Be gentle on yourself - always. 

Be honest and praise yourself for your hard work and growth. Self-criticism destroys inspiration. 

Accept that some days you won't "feel" as inspired as others, but you can still stay energized by using some or all of the ideas listed above. 

Be confident...you don't have to be perfect. We're all human, growing, learning, and inspiring each other as we go along this path of Life. 

And remember, that the more inspired you are and stay, the more of an inspiration you will be to others!

Stay Tuned to LessonsOnTheWeb to learn much more and achieve your dreams of playing the piano!
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