Do you find occasionally that you need something to give you a bit of a jump start, or perhaps more often in fact, you need to find something to inspire you to 'get on' and do something? The jump start could of course be related to any number of things, including getting going in the morning, bringing the car back to life when the battery has gone flat or a moment to help you crystallise some ideas into motivating you. What source of inspiration helps you take action to get something resolved or perhaps encourages you to complete or continue with a piece of creative work?
I certainly quite regularly need to find something that will be the catalyst for getting the creative juices flowing. Coffee is one of my favourite things in the morning. A cup of freshly ground coffee first thing as I get into the office is like throwing a switch to make the lights come on. As I sit and review what needs doing, drinking my coffee, my thoughts start turning to where I need to apply my focus and the process of enjoying the coffee allows me to start considering what and where I might need to get some inspiration to get something started or completed.
Using a 'jump start box' on one of our project vehicles, when I've forgotten that I've left a vehicle door open for most of the day whilst we've been working away on something in the workshop, is a similar process. It's obviously a much more physical and clearly defined process of applying the additional battery to get the vehicle going, but it's a process all the same, i.e., you know that you need to use the 'jump box', so you apply it to the battery that's gone a bit flat. More recently we've had to do this a few times as we've been very busy with a number of the internal mechanical engineering projects which do consist of a number of older 'classic' vehicles.
Identifying the need to use something to inspire you to get going is really important and a good self discipline to develop. Sometimes walking away to do another task is as good a response to resolving a problem as doggedly refusing to leave that something alone. More often than not, I find inspiration in some other mechanical challenge, the time away and being distracted by solving another issue, contributes to finding a resolution to the original problem. It could be just the fact that you have stopped and taken the time to look around you, does the job to kick start the process.
I also look to other aspects of life and what I find around me as a 'jump starter' too. People are often incredibly inspiring and can be a real source of motivation when discovering the journeys they have taken through adversity or challenges that they have faced. What works for them individually and keeps them committed to the task, can also be such an encouragement to me too.
Communication with each of our client/customers so that we can start getting to know and hopefully understand the challenge that is being approached, what concerns them, what they want to achieve and so forth, gives us the empathy we need to 'jump start' the task with our own journey, to assist and support them to a successful conclusion.
