Released On 01 December 2025
Jill's blog: The Lack Of Inspiration
What do you do when you just can’t find the ‘why’? The thing that kicks you into gear and gets you moving in whatever direction you need to be heading. Or any direction at all, really.
That’s where I find myself at the moment in nearly every area of my life.(Including with writing this blog. I’ve got about 8 different blogs started, but none of them have gone anywhere as I just can’t find the wave to ride.) So, I figure in this case I’ll go with the lack of wave. The lack of inspiration.
Perhaps it’s this romanticised idea that life always needs to be interesting. Always needs to be inspiring. Always needs to have a ‘where’ you’re trying to get to. Yet there is much to be enjoyed about the calm of the status quo if you’re willing to let yourself enjoy it. That’s a hard one for me as the predictability of routine really unsettles me.
I’m brilliant with change. I’ve seen enough of it in my *insert number here* years. It doesn’t scare me. It gives me energy and makes me feel more actively alive. Plus, I have a fear of stagnation so anything being the way it is for too long makes me uncomfortable. Makes me feel like I’m not achieving or growing or taking an active role in my reality or becoming the best version of myself.
But that pursuit is, quite frankly, exhausting. Trying to better yourself day in and day out takes something away from the successes you’ve already had. The changes you’ve already made. Is it that moments of calm allow you the time and space to look back over the last years and see how far you’ve actually gone? Which then might require you to give yourself the proverbial pat on the back. Which is another thing I’m not very good at.
Maybe the lack of inspiration I’m feeling is because I’m trying too hard to get to something or somewhere I haven’t established yet. Maybe it’s because I don’t really know what I want and I need to slow down, settle into life as it is and then I’ll magically find the path that’s ‘meant for me.’ If inspiration can be found internally or externally, maybe I’ve not been looking enough at the life around me to find it.
Being a highly independent and self-sufficient person, my expectation is that the inspiration will come from within me. What if that’s not the case? What if the answer to my lack of inspiration can be found by paying closer attention to the calm and the routine rather than fighting against it. And, I suppose, if I am a believer in the importance and benefit of personal growth, accepting the calm is my challenge and doing it will be a way I can grow.
All this to say, I’m not sure where I’m going or how to get there. But I’m going to work to allow myself the opportunity to slow down. To settle in. And maybe the inspiration will follow.
Jill is an American ex-pat living her best English life on the border of London and Surrey. She spends her days pretending she knows what she’s doing, creating some fun things along the way. With a passion for storytelling and the gumption of a New Yorker, she’s raising two cheeky, clever boys with deep imaginations and an annoyingly cunning use of language. With a husband, cat and hamster along for the ride, life is never boring. Even if sometimes a bit too stressful.
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