Re-Igniting Your Inner Spark
Simple Solutions for a More Inspiring Life
‘There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your heart, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?—Rumi
Have you ever experienced feeling mentally flat?
I ask because I certainly was not so long ago.
What I came to realize is the secret to re-igniting your inner spark isn’t a deeply immersive dive into the past or making major changes: it’s tweaking one essential element that drives your work
Whatever occurred was definitely subtle. Looking closely at my journal one morning, I was more than a bit bewildered as I realized that over the past several weeks I had barely made any more than just perfunctory entries. As I thought further about it, there was the further realization that not much else had actually been completed either.
Whatever had been lighting my imagination up must have started flickering out at some point and somehow, I hadn’t noticed.
This matters to me because extensively writing in my journal has been a longstanding habit of mine. As I write in the morning my energy begins to build, sparks begin to pop and I often feel lit up. It’s where the good ideas normally begin to show up as I unload whatever is on my mind. It’s also a non-negotiable intended to keep myself on track and accountable for accomplishing my daily priorities.
Since we do everything pretty much the same way, this was alarming. Life is too short to not be as fully engaged as possible in your highest priorities.
I began to wonder how or why the feeling of being flat might have happened. Was it writers block or some form of burn out? Could it be that I have actually arrived at that next stage of my life and had exhausted what worked so well in the previous phase? Was I spending more time ‘researching’ than actually doing the work? Was I bursting through my old comfort zone and this was another clever way my subconscious mind was putting on the brakes?
My belief is that whatever is happening is doing so for my benefit. So-What is actually good about being aware of feeling flat?
Rather than distract myself by wasting valuable time and energy digging deeply into how or why that hadn’t happened, I instead chose to get to work.
What needed to change in order to get back on track and keep moving forward?
What I found was that making just a few simple adjustments made a tremendous difference in how fully I quickly re-engaged with my work as well as my deeper thoughts.
I began by looking at the most obvious place- my Opening Pages.
These are my first thing in the morning journal entries where I empty my mind of lingering night thoughts and open my mind to the day ahead. Opening Pages are intentional journaling. It’s where those sparks begin to pop as thoughts and inklings of ideas show up, where like magic something really worth writing about appears on the pages.
The opening pages are essential to me. They are the repository for many of my dreams and whatever lingering thoughts are worth writing down. After that, I have a short list of questions I ask myself as prompts to turn my thinking towards my priorities for that day. If I haven’t got much else to write about, I have those prompts to get my mind focused.
But that morning, there was barely anything remotely engaging written on those pages for the past several weeks. How could that be?
I realized that I have been asking myself those same basic prompting questions for a number of years. I could easily see that I was barely answering them, let alone really digging in to my answers to get a better understanding of where my mindset was and needed to be. My nighttime journal recaps the day and prepares my mind for the following day. Those pages were drearily similar to the opening pages.
Rather than being engaging, the questions seemed to have barely registered.
I wondered if since I had been using the same prompts for so long that maybe they were not giving me the impact and the sparks I needed
What if I asked myself different questions in the morning?
.Instead of asking “What am I grateful for?” I now ask “What is one small everyday thing I often overlook that I am deeply thankful for right now? Why is that important?”
Instead of asking “ What is the most important thing I need to do today?” I now ask “ If I was to accomplish only one thing today-what would it be? Why is that the most critical thing to focus on now? Why else?”
Instead of asking “What do I ache for?” I now ask” What deep, genuine desire or unmet need is my heart reaching for? Why? What else?”
The results were immediately different. I had new answers. My energy was back. I was finishing more of what I started and finding new ideas to work on.
By making one little change I was feeling immediately more energized and fully engaged with my life. Sparks were beginning to fly and I am lit up with future possibilities. I’ve added a reminder to re-phrase my morning and night questions every three months so that my journals remain a fresh source of possibilities.
How about you?
How could changing one little thing spark up your days?
What one thing would that be?
If you want new results in your life and work, when would be a good time to get started?
This really resonated with me, Stuart, especially the part about subtle shifts making a huge difference. I recently had an experience where, through meditation, I heard this whisper say: “you’re depressed.” It stopped me in my tracks. It didn’t look or feel like the depression I once knew, but the moment I recognized it, I felt empowered to respond rather than spiral. Like you, I didn’t need a huge overhaul, just a gentle course correction. Thank you for the reminder that spark often returns through small, intentional changes.
Re-Igniting Your Inner Spark is a gentle invitation to listen inward, not with urgency, but with care. Stuart Kimball doesn’t offer grand solutions he shares a moment of quiet reckoning, the kind we often overlook. His journal, once a source of clarity, had grown silent, and instead of forcing meaning, he paused. That pause becomes the heart of the piece. The shift he describes changing the questions we ask ourselves is subtle, almost tender. It’s not productivity he’s chasing, but presence. The writing honours the flicker before the flame, the breath before the breakthrough. It reminds us that renewal begins not with noise, but with noticing. And sometimes, one honest question is enough to bring us back to life.