How to be inspiring

Do you ever wonder if you are an inspiring person? Or what it takes to be an inspiring person? I think most of us love inspirational people who come through in the clutch or perform at exceptionally high levels because it motivates us to excel as well. Watching other people rise to great challenges or overcome fierce odds compels us to do the same in our own lives.

Here are a few thoughts about becoming an inspiring human being.

First, inspiring people seldom feel like great inspirations. When someone is paying a severe price or fighting for their life in a crucial, defining moment they rarely see themselves as inspirational; they usually see themselves as barely holding on. This makes sense of course since it is in those kinds of overwhelming moments that truly inspiring decisions and actions emerge. So don’t worry if you do not feel very inspiring at this point in your story. The first step to being inspiring is not to feel inspiring, rather, it is to get inspired.

This is simple but worth pondering: a person can rarely be inspiring unless they are inspired. One must be inspired to overcome a challenge or accomplish a goal before they will ever do anything inspirational. People have to be motivated, determined, and engaged to be inspiring. Furthermore, if we break down the word inspiration we see that it has the idea of respiration—or breath—in it. Thus being inspired means having life or breath flowing through you. Inspiring people are alive people. They are fully present in life while pursuing their hopes and dreams.

Finally, inspiring people are committed to doing good. In Jeremiah 32:30 God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about His people and said, “I will never stop doing good to them and I will always inspire them.” Doing good and being inspiring are inseparable.

Inspirational living usually doesn’t happen on a stage and there isn’t always a crowd cheering us on. Most of the time, inspirational lives are forged in secret as we fight to stay inspired while faithfully doing what is good. However, if we consistently live this way, other people will eventually take notice, and we might even become inspirations to ourselves.