Where you (really) need to look for inspiration
You sit down to write, work, paint, and your work feels forced. It feels like a chore. You don’t remember the last time you checked in with your heart or your gut if you were working on something you cared about.
Have you seen my inspiration?
Maybe the last time you saw it was three years ago at the start of your last creative project. You turned around for a second and when you faced back to your work it was gone.
If you’re having trouble finding inspiration for your writing, your problem might not be that you haven’t found something to inspire your topic.
It could be you.
You can only inspire others when you’re inspired.
When you’re looking for inspiration in all the wrong places.
Maybe you’re looking outside when you should be looking inside.
If you’re feeling a lack of inspiration in your writing or in your craft, ask yourself this:
What makes your heart want to explode?
Or what lights you up (in a totally feel-good way)?
By starting with you, and not what your readers what to hear, you can create from a place of inspiration rather than creating just because you're supposed to make something today.
Start with what leaves you feeling inspired. When you’re inspired, those feelings will come through in your writing, in your art, in your talk, or in whatever work it is you put out into the world.
What would you rather write a blog post about?
Something that you could talk about all day long if given a chance. Maybe it’s goats in pajamas, GMOs in our food, or social media.
Or…
Something from a list of SEO-approved topics that you were told you must have on your blog or else the Google will punish you with 10th-page search results for forever and ever.
I have to tell you, as much as I teach batch writing and am a huge fan of writing a bunch of content in one sitting—it only works if you’re feeling inspired about your topic. Because if you’re not inspired, it will fall flat.
If it feels like vanilla to you, it will most certainly feel like vanilla to your reader.
I have a list of almost 100 topics to blog about. These are all just ideas, little fire-starters. Each Monday when it’s time for me to write a blog post, I open up a blank Google Doc and start writing about a topic that’s been on my mind lately, or I scan my list of potential topics for one that stands out as something I want to write about.
I know a topic is worth writing because it’s something I’m excited about. And that excitement reaches through my Google doc and grabs the right readers.
Take your inspired energy and turn that into a story. Maybe your story is a book, an ebook, a canvas, blog post, TED talk, or important pitch. Bring your inspired energy to your medium, and it will give your work legs to throat punch the right people.
Your audience will feel it.
Besides, what does the world need more? A passionless series of words on a topic you give exactly zero shits about or your fired up, energized, can’t wait to get to the page to get to work and get it out of your work?
Do that.
If you nodded along while reading this you might also like these articles:
10 free (or cheap) things to do when you've run out of inspiration
The easy way to turn your blog post into an email newsletter
And if you need someone to kick your butt to get you writing, you might be a great fit for Write Like a MOFO
