Difference Between Motivation and Inspiration

Introduction

If you see around there are many sources that can help you get creative. It can get you motivated and help you work towards your goal. Two things highly value and change our daily lives. These two things are Motivation and Inspiration. Motivation helps a person to achieve short-term goals. Inspiration is the one thing, that redesigns your daily life values.

Inspiration vs Motivation

Inspiration and Motivation are two very important concepts that guide and affect people's personal and professional lives. While often considered the same things, these concepts have a subtle difference. Coming to inspiration is the process of getting an individual to feel a particular way or an urge to do something. While motivation is the process of giving a reason to an individual to do something. This concept is more of a deliberate process because external factors compel the individual to act upon it. To get a motivation, you need to have a motive, that motive can be in anything- the options are limitless and highly dependent on individual cases. On the contrary, there's the inspiration that carries quite a lot of ambiguity and can also be used to describe several things that are not completely similar.

Difference between Inspiration and motivation in tabular form

Classification	Motivation	Inspiration
Description	Call it a desire or spark inside a person to work towards a specific goal.	The act of doing, that is creative and can change a person's values.
Force	It creates a driving force inside the person.	It creates a pulling force inside the person.
Span	It is Short-lived and goal-oriented.	It is everlasting. And it goes over a long time that can change a person's worldview.
Source	It comes from an external source, a reward, or a consequence.	It comes from an internal source or the feeling from within. Though, the external source triggers the creativity inside.
The impulse to act	The action taken is deliberate. As it is the feeling that gets you to take an action instantly.	The action taken is spontaneous or over a long period.
Reason	Mostly go through self-imposed traumas, peer pressure, and societal expectations. These are some reasons that stimulate a person to do something.	Mostly comes from nature, it affects deeply and can create a larger impact. It also comes from values that a person holds.
Impact	It creates a small impact and it affects a person for some time.	It creates a large impact and can change the personality of a person.
Sense of feel	Compel	Propel

Motivation

Motivation is the driving force that inclines and encourages individuals to act upon achieving their goals. It can be described as the internal and external factors that vitalize a person’s desire and energy to pursue and persist in a particular activity or behaviour. Motivation can come from various sources, such as personal aspiration, social recognition, financial rewards, or the desire for personal growth and development. It mostly gets influenced by external factors like the environment, social support, and the availability of resources.

Motivation is crucial to achieving success in various aspects of life, including education, career, health, and personal relationships. There are different types, such as positive and negative. Positive motivation helps you to go for the good thing in life. It gives you a good environment which helps you to grow in life. Whereas, negative motivation comes from fear or force. It is like a punishment-to-yourself method that is associated with the fear of failing. Unlike positive motivation, it is a situation where a person slogs hard to avoid the feeling of a tyrannical outcome.

Motivation comes when you start with a new habit or behaviour, not before that. There is a misconception among people that motivational videos or inspirational books can motivate you. Setting attainable goals always serves as an effective motivation tactic for teams, they give individuals a motive to strive towards providing a reason behind the work they do or actions they take. You can implement objectives for your entire team or work individually with members to develop goals specific to their interests and needs. 

Being motivated and influencing your surrounding, helps to generate a positive attitude and always boosts you up. Ways to motivate others are;

• Provide incentives or rewards
• Develop and communicate goals
• Offer more responsibilities
• Maintain open communication
• Provide advancement opportunities

Some multiple theories and models explain the behaviour of people and how motivation works.

1. Maslow's Hierarchy suggests that people are motivated by a series of needs that must be satisfied in a specific order. Starting with physiological and safety needs followed by belongingness and love needs, and self-actualization needs.
2. Self-determination theory: This theory suggests that people are motivated by three innate psychological needs, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When these needs get fulfilled, people experience intrinsic and higher levels of well-being.
3. Goal setting theory: This theory proposes that setting specific challenging goals can increase motivation and also performance as long as the goals are achievable.
4. Expectancy theory: This theory offers that people are motivated by their beliefs about relationships and roles, efforts, performance, and outcomes. If the belief inside an individual is pure and they expect good outcomes, then it helps them to stay motivated. And a famous quote to portray this theory is "Think good, get good."

Understanding motivation is important in a variety of settings, such as education, healthcare, sports, and business as it can help individuals and organizations in achieving their goals and improving their performances.

Many factors leading to motivation, are:

• Personality: different people have different personalities which have different motivations and responses differently toward the reward and punishments. An example we can give here is that some individuals may be more motivated by social recognition while others may be more motivated by financial rewards.
• Culture: Cultural values and beliefs can influence them, which can change their perception towards visualizing things. For example, a few cultures may prioritize social relationships and group harmony, while others may support individual achievements and recognition.
• Leadership: A good leader always plays an essential role in motivating their surrounding and keeping a positive background.
• Environment: The physical and social environment can affect the mental peace and motive to do something.
• Goals: From the type of goal to the way it is set can impact motivation. For example, goals that are challenging yet achievable can increase motivation, while goals that are too easy or too difficult can decrease your motivation.

Understanding the factors can help individuals and the organization, create a more motivating environment and improve performance. Tailoring rewards, providing feedback, setting achievable goals, and always creating and having a positive attitude toward the workplace culture is very necessary. Everyone should understand that having a motive is so important in one’s life.

Inspiration

Unlike motivation, it refers to a process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something often involved strong emotional or creative responses. Inspiration derives from many places from nature to literature or art to music, or an individual to idea. Whatever the inspiration is it has to generate a spark of creativity, innovation, and motivation. A good inspiration often gives you the motive to do something big. Inspiration is closely related to creativity as it often involves new generations and original ideas. It is a key to personal growth and development that depend on us and how we act upon it.

Inspiration can also be influenced by one’s mindset and attitude. A growth and positive outlook let a person trust in themself, which is often achieved from the hard work a person puts in. It often leads to greater aspects and creativity. It often leads to greater aspects and creativity. On the other hand, a fixed mindset which is the belief that one's abilities are set in stone can limit the process of thinking and creativity of an individual. Inspiration can also be beneficial in the context of learning and education. When an individual is inspired by the work, they get more engaged, motivated, and enthusiastic about learning. Teachers and educators play an important role in our life, by creating a stimulating and supportive learning environment that brings so much effective boost up.

Inspiration is a thing that brings change. Several movements and groups have considered world issues and made certain changes to ensure a happy place. By inspiring others and taking support, these movements have brought significant changes and influenced people. Inspiration nurtures a belief in organizations and creates a link with others. When a group of individuals have a common goal or vision, creates an effect due to which all of them come together and work. And this makes them believe that their purpose is greater than life and that they should induce their full potential. Inspiration can also have an effect, which inspires and creates a non-negative impact on others, or when people inspire and take up their passions, they can also use the motivation they gain.

Types of Inspiration

1. Natural Inspiration- This nurtures the inspiration for creating, which generally, comes under writing, painting, music, or drawing. They propel from the people they follow, from the people around them, from the people they come across, and from their regular tasks.
2. Spiritual Inspiration- It is based on spiritual or religious belief, which defines the meaning and purpose of life. It involves meditation, worshipping a god, or praying to achieve a greater knowledge of oneself.
3. Personal Inspiration- It comes from within oneself, where the inspiration is you. It often leads to acting and being creative. Sometimes, it is derived from role models or mentors that help a person to get inspired and act unknowingly.
4. Scientific Inspiration- It comes from new theories, ideas, or discoveries among researchers or innovators. It helps them to pursue more of these research and innovations.
5. Nature-inspired Inspiration- When artists and scientists derive inspiration from the beauty it possesses, complexity across the roads, trees in the garden and vice versa. Many things around nature attract artists to get new ideas and derive creative works.

Differences between Motivation and Inspiration in points

• Motivation is like the middleman in all the things you get inspired to do. Motivation comes for a short time and helps you to do the thing that you are inspired for. Whether it is a career that you want to pursue, where your role models are the inspirations. And motivation that comes from inside you, when you want to achieve something in a short time.
• Motivation comes from a particular thing. For example, doing a tough assignment before the deadline as you are highly motivated. Inspiration is more of a general thing. For example, you are inspired by your father, so you want to become just like him and it takes the time of your life.
• Motivation is the thing that helps to achieve short-term goals and helps you take immediate action. Though the case of Inspiration is not similar, it is more of a creative space, which does not get you to take immediate actions but sets the motto of your life.
• Motivation is everywhere, but inspiration is less. Many are not aware of what are they doing. It takes time for people to understand the actual distinction between the two terms.

Conclusion

In the end, the article explains to you through both the terms Motivation and Inspiration. It talks about the depth behind every feeling that we have while doing something. It talks about those points, where Motivation and Inspiration are different terms. They have different purposes and different goals. It also talks about various models associated with motivation and the types of inspiration, a human feel. It also talks about the multiple effects visible in a person and how it is rewarding. If you look around these two terms have so much influence in your life that whatever you do in a short time (from small to the smallest task) is motivation and whatever motivation you gain in daily life is because of the inspiration inside you.