The important difference between “work” and “inspired work”

Right off the top, I want to be clear. In general, I do not use the word “work” derogatorily. My view is that there is no distinction between the concepts of “work” and “inspired work”. When what we do in the world is aligned with who we are within, then I perceive them to be the same. However, for the sake of making my point in this post, I will use the individual word “work” here in the disparaging sense. At least I will try, as it counters everything I believe to be true.

Not-so-inspired work

If I polled the current workforce, I believe I would find that the majority of people still think of work primarily as “the thing they have to do to make money”. Not only does this mean they are forcing themselves to do something they don’t actually want to do, it also implies some kind of sacrifice in the doing of it.

A typical workday might involve performing mind-numbing tasks, attending pointless meetings, or following nonsensical orders from “higher-ups”. These actions are usually performed in isolation, severed from any connection to something more meaningful and far-reaching.

What makes it worse is when workers have little to no opportunity to make best use of their strengths, gifts, and talents. Often, what is required of them in their work barely scratches the surface of the magnitude of what they have to offer. For the most part, they go largely unseen for their unique value and unacknowledged for the important contributions they have to make.

For the most part, workers go largely unseen for their unique value and unacknowledged for the important contributions they have to make.

For many, they have accepted this as their fate and can sleep at night (or at least find a way to pass out). For the few, they lie awake in the dark fearing they are missing their calling in life. A bleak reality begins to creep into their consciousness that the work they are doing is perpetuating a lie – a lie of their lack and insignificance. If they attempt to suppress this rising awareness, often their state of health will deteriorate until they become physically or mentally unwell. If this condition is allowed to persist, their desire for life begins to wane and despair sets in, or worse.

The reason we get ourselves into these types of situations is because we have attempted to deny an undeniable truth – we are here as creative beings and our role is to create. Our actual work is to create both the life we want to live and the world we want to live in.

This act of creation requires us to open our hearts and receive the natural flow of creative life-force energy and to allow that energy to fuel our actions in the world. Fundamentally, this is what inspiration is.

Your energy is the key

Even though being inspired is our natural state of being, it usually takes considerable effort to remember how to access our internal source of energy. For the most part, we have been conditioned to seek energy outside of ourselves in forms such as money, happiness, or validation. Many of us have outsourced our energy to the degree that we have completely forgotten it was ours to begin with.

One of the key differences between the so-called undesirable “work” and what I suggest to be the more desirable “inspired work” is that the latter is created through our connection with source. For our inspired work to come into existence, it requires us to be in right relationship with our own energy, which is what I refer to as the “inner work” of work.

One of the primary tasks of our inner work is to remove the internal barriers to receiving our own energy. To accomplish this, we look to reveal the self-limiting identities, beliefs, and behaviour patterns that are blocking its flow. Although the energy of source can never be shut off, we can certainly tighten the valve through our adherence to self-diminishment and fear. To become an open channel for the unadulterated gushing flow of creative life-force energy, we have to reorient ourselves to living in alignment with our truth and our heart’s desires. It is through the passion of serving our own purpose, vision, and mission that our energy arises to serve.

Each of us can build a synergistic relationship with our energy by the nature of the following:

• Believe the energy is yours by birthright and is here to serve
• Allow yourself to feel everything so that you are in a state of non-resistance
• Recognize and claim your inherent worthiness
• Release the notion than you have anything to prove to anyone, including yourself
• Align with the truth of who you are
• Treat yourself with the respect and dignity you deserve
• Act with compassion from a state of self-love
• Honour your individual sovereignty
• Embrace your role as a very important creator on our planet

I’m not suggesting the above are simple or easy tasks. Many of them require a lifetime (or lifetimes) of work to fully embody. However, this is why it’s so important to discover, create, and live our inspired work – it supports us in our journey to the realization of all of the above.

Inspired work

The relationship between “inspiration” and “work” is also natural. When you are inspired, your work simply becomes a vessel for the expression of your creative life-force energy. Through this open channel, you receive the seeds of new ideas and you have the autonomy to choose which you want to plant and nurture to life. You have complete creative freedom as to what you decide to bring into physical reality.

Your creative capacity is not just limited at birthing ideas, you also have the ability to open channels to receiving unlimited income. Though, money is not the driving force behind what you do, it’s simply the natural result of your actions. You do what you do is because you are guided by principles that are grounded in fundamental truth. When you align your work to your purpose, vision, and mission, everything you do has meaning because it is in service not only to yourself, but to the entirety of humanity. You act in conjunction with your own inner guidance, trusting your own self to lead the way. You may still have difficulty sleeping at night, but that’s only because your mind is so flooded with exciting new potentials that you want to spring out of bed and move into action.

There is no typical workday with inspired work as each and every day brings novel activities and fresh challenges, but you revel in these experiences because you know you were born for their very reason. You effectively employ your strengths, gifts, and talents in service to the solutions and are rewarded with genuine fulfillment in your doing so.

You effectively employ your strengths, gifts, and talents in service to the solutions and are rewarded with genuine fulfillment in your doing so.

Your questions of self-worth and self-doubt slowly ebb away as you stand confident in your own value. You don’t need anyone or anything to validate your existence as you see and acknowledge your own contribution. You realize that you may not have chosen the conventional path, but you did choose the path of living a life true to yourself – you are living your inspired life.