How often has a movie inspired you to start a new habit, hobby, or go somewhere new? Movies are powerful mediums to inspire change. Here are 10 movies to inspire healthy living and creativity.
A healthy mind is a creative mind. Healthy living is more than just eating healthy food and getting your steps in. For creativity, healthy living revolves around awareness. Knowing what you need both physically and mentally helps you find balance and support for the stress that comes up in the creative process.
A major part of building healthy habits is cultivating motivation. To keep healthy habits going, one must know why they’re working hard, especially with healthy habits that don’t always show the results right away. One way of supporting motivation is watching movies. Watching inspiring movies can light the fire and remind you why you’re working hard. They can also teach valuable creative lessons to think differently about how you can support healthy and creative living.
Karate Kid Series
A martial arts master agrees to teach karate to a bullied teenager.
Creative Lessons
Always Get Back Up
- “Life will knock us down, but we can choose to get back up”
Learn the Fundamentals
- “First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, daniel-san, not mine.”
Hard Work Pays Off
“Man who catch fly with chopstick, accomplish anything.”
Find Balance
- “Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life! Whole life have a balance, everything be better.”
The Only Thing to Fear Is Fear Itself
- “It’s okay to lose to opponent! Must not lose to fear!”
Rocky (1976)
A small-time boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight a heavyweight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.
Creative Lessons
Hardwork + Passion + Determination = Success
- “Going in one more round when you don’t think you can. That’s what makes all the difference in your life.”
Winning Isn’t Everything
- “I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance.”
If You Want a Strong Body, You Need a Strong Mind
- “Remember, the mind is your best muscle. Big arms can move rocks, but big words can move mountains.”
Being Knocked Down Doesn’t Mean You’re Out
- “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
Peaceful Warrior (2006)
Based on a book by the same name, Dan Millman is a gifted athlete whose desire for success drives everything he does. When a mysterious stranger opens Dan’s eyes to a new vision of strength and understanding, the Olympic hopeful finds that he still has much to learn and more sacrifices to make.
Creative Lessons
There are no ordinary moments
Be present in the moment
- Where are you? …. HERE.
- What time is it? … NOW.
- What are you? … THIS MOMENT.
Love what you do
- “The warrior does not give up what he loves, Dan. He finds the love in what he does.” – Socrates (Nick Nolte)
- “The accident is your training. Life is a choice. You can choose to be a victim or anything else you’d like to be.” — Socrates (Nick Nolte)
You Control Yourself – Master You
Don’t Pin Your Success on Outcomes
A Warrior Acts; Only a Fool Reacts
Knowledge Is Knowing — Wisdom Is Doing
You’ll Never Be Better Than Anybody, the Same Way You’ll Never Be Any Less
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
To everyone’s surprise, including his own, Po, an overweight, clumsy panda, is chosen as protector of the Valley of Peace. His suitability will soon be tested as the valley’s arch-enemy is on his way.
Creative Lessons
The Power You Seek Outside Lies Within – Believe In Yourself
- “There is no secret ingredient. To make something special, you just believe it’s special.”
Nobody Is Ordinary
- “Your real strength comes from being the best you can be. Who are you? What are you good at? What makes you, you?”
Enjoy the Present
- “You are too concerned with what was and what will be. There is a saying: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”
Nothing Is Impossible
- “If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than who you are.”
Never Stop Learning
- “There is always something more to learn even for a master.”
Pumping Iron (1977)
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno face off in a no-holds-barred competition for the title of Mr. Olympia in this critically-acclaimed film that made Schwarzenegger a household name.
Creative Lessons
Always Strive to Be Better
- “The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”
Believe In Yourself – Confidence Is Key to Success
- “Never feel sorry for yourself. Remember, if you are training hard, he may be training twice as hard. You just gotta keep coming back stronger.”
Block Out Negativity
- “If you want to be a champion, you cannot have any sort of negative force coming in and affecting you.”
Soul Surfer (2011)
Teenage surfer Bethany Hamilton overcomes the odds and her own fears of returning to the water after losing her left arm in a shark attack.
Creative Lessons
Don’t Let Anything Stop You From Following Your Dreams
- “I was born to surf. This is why I wake up at the crack of dawn every day. This is why I endure belly rashes, reef cuts and muscles so tired they feel like needles. And I’ve learned life is a lot like surfing. When you get caught in the impact zone, you need to get right back up. Because you never know what’s over the next wave. And if you have faith, anything is possible, anything at all.”
Trust and Have Faith That Things Can Get Better
- Bethany Hamilton: You know how you said it’s hard to see things clearly sometimes when you’re too close? Well, I’ve been trying to get some perspective, I’m literally trying. Sarah… how could this be God’s plan for me? I don’t understand.”
- Sarah Hill: I don’t know why terrible things happen to us sometimes. But I have to believe that something good is going to come out of this.
Surround Yourself With Friends and Family to Help You Through the Hard Times
- “Love is bigger than any tidal wave or fear.”
Cultivate Compassion and Serve Others
- “If by losing my arm, I’m then able to share my story with people who are suffering pains and losses, it makes it all worth it.”
- “Surfing isn’t the most important thing in life. Love is. I’ve had the chance to embrace more people with one arm than I ever could with two.”
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
A down-and-out golfer attempts to recover his game and his life with help from a mystical caddy.
Creative Lessons
Stop Thinking and Just Be
- “The meaning of it all is that there is no meaning.”
Stop Trying to Control Life and Just Let It Happen
- “There’s a perfect shot out there tryin’ to find each and every one of us… All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way, to let it choose us.”
Remember to Play
- “God is happiest, when his children are at play.”
Be True to Your Authentic Self
- “Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that’s ours and ours alone. Something that can’t be learned… something that’s got to be remembered.”
Remember the Titans (2000)
The true story of a newly appointed African-American coach and his high school team on their first season as a racially integrated unit.
Creative Lessons
Change Is Key to Success
- “I’m not gonna talk to you tonight about winnin’ and losin’. You’re already winners ’cause you didn’t kill each other up at camp.”
Attitude Reflects Leadership
- “Attitude reflects leadership, captain.”
- “Whatever kind of ambition it took to do what you did around here, this world could use a lot more of it”
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough…
- “Sometimes life is hard for no reason at all.”
Redirect Anger Into Productive Action
- “You got anger, that’s good you’re gonna need it, you got aggression that’s even better you’re gonna need that, too. But any little two-year-old child can throw a fit! Football is about controlling that anger, harnessing that aggression into a team effort to achieve perfection!”
Run Fatboy Run (2007)
Five years after jilting his pregnant fiancée on their wedding day, out-of-shape Dennis decides to run a marathon to win her back.
Creative Lessons
Running Away From Your Problems Doesn’t Solve Them
- “When bad things happen, you can’t just run away. Because running away solves nothing.”
Focus On Things You Can Control, Ignore The Rest
- “I know doing this thing isn’t going to change anything or make anything better, but um. I would just settle for your respect. I’d settle for you smiling about the time we had together and not think it was a waste of time.”
The Ultimate Motivation Is Self-Motivation – Prove to Yourself You Can Do It
Wild (2014)
A chronicle of one woman’s one thousand one hundred mile solo hike undertaken as a way to recover from a recent personal tragedy.
Creative Lessons
A True Journey of Personal Transformation Comes From Within
- “I’d finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.”
Find Your Best Self – Stop Regretting the Past and Move Forward
- “Here’s some questions I’ve been asking myself. What if I forgive myself? What if I was sorry? What if I could go back in time? I wouldn’t do a single thing differently. What if all those things I did were the things that got me here?”
Never Give Up
- “Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid.”
- “Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves…”
Life Is an Adventure
- “I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.”
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
