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Creativity is just like a muscle, if you want it to become stronger and more responsive, you’ve got to exercise it. Creating content for your marketing strategy is a weekly, and sometimes daily struggle. It’s especially difficult for the encore entrepreneur who has established patterns and systems that need updating for an online style of business. So what can we do to become more creative?
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Are you a creative person? What creative work have you produced lately?
I believe everybody is inherently creative. Those who say they are not are repeating a lie that somebody else told them.
I’m Shelley Carney. I’m a Podcasting & LiveStreaming Host, Coach/Consultant, Personal Development Expert, Interviewer, Author and Presenter. I’ve been livestreaming content for the past 5 years and I’ve done several challenges where I put out a live stream video every day for a month. Coming up with content every week, and sometimes every day, can be a challenge. Writer’s block can pop up along with impostor syndrome. I look at how many views or likes I get, or don’t get, and think that it’s all too much effort and not worth it. Does this sound familiar?
Why Should We Create?
LiveStreaming Requirements
Once you’ve made the decision that you’re going to produce content consistently to grow your online presence, you’ve got to push yourself to stay with it. But how do you keep coming up with new content week after week?
Committing to yourself and others that you will produce content on a consistent basis will push you to make a habit of looking for ways to express your creativity and come up with fresh ideas.
New perspectives will challenge your audience to not only pay attention to what you have to say but to consider other possibilities they hadn’t thought about before.
Teaching from your heart, sharing your life, and openness to try are attractive qualities that will bring your viewers back to listen to you again.
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”
—Edward de Bono
5 Steps to Strengthen Your Creativity Muscle
What steps can we take to improve our ability to come up with fresh ideas and new content every week? These activities should help you feel inspired and ready to write:
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
—Mary Lou Cook
Input Activities
Fill your cup and feed your soul. You cannot give what you do not have. Allow yourself time to bring information from many sources into your mind. Then your subconscious can work on bringing it all together. Some helpful input activities you can use throughout your day include:
“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.”
—Bruce Garrabrandt
Habits and Deadlines
Just like exercising a muscle strengthens it, these habits will strengthen your ability to create content:
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
Use Your Physical Environment
Your physical body affects your mood and energy. If you’re slumped in your desk chair feeling tired and uninspired, get up and walk, wave your arms over your head, dance, and smile. Your body will tell your mind that this is fun and your mood will lift. So move your body.
Take an alternative route to work, school, your friend’s house, or on your daily walk. This keeps your mind elastic and firing neurons.
Find a novel way to use an item you use every day. Hold up your toothbrush and ask, “What else can I do with this?” Try to come up with at least 5 alternative ways to use it, even if it seems silly!
Tell a story about what you see out the window. Do you see any people or animals? What is the weather like? How many adjectives can you think of to describe what you see?
Use 10 original words or metaphors to describe how you feel. Metaphors can simplify concepts to make them easier to learn and they are great to add to any presentation you give. Practice coming up with metaphors and they will become more profound every day.
Pick up something around you and relate it to your customer’s greatest obstacle or need. Imagine you are going to speak to your ideal customers and use whatever object is at hand to explain how you can help them overcome their challenges.
Don’t wait for inspiration to come to you. Call it to you when you need it by practicing creativity building every day.
“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.”
—Jack London
Change Perspective
If you hope to catch the attention of prospective viewers and stop the scroll, you’ve got to challenge preconceived notions. What are some “truths” that everybody thinks they know about your industry? For instance, as a Life Coach, I’ve always promoted the idea that everybody can benefit from a life coach. What if I turned that around and stated, “Nobody can benefit from a life coach.”? That could wake up a sleepy brain as I try to come up with why that could be true and it can do the same for my audience.
Imagine a new outcome. Visualize reaching a goal you want to achieve. What is your usual response to this vision? Now visualize a completely different outcome, as if a new opportunity popped up in your life halfway to that goal and changed your trajectory. Perhaps your goal is to get 10 new clients to buy your services by the end of the month. Imagine a new outcome of changing what you offer and getting 1 client that turns out to be famous and shares your offer with the world. Pretty cool. Now you try – I’d love to know what you come up with!
Challenge accepted ideas. This works amazingly well in the diet and fitness industry. There is always some new idea or fad that comes along and people who have been following one way of doing things will think about changing it up if they might get faster results.
Ask “What if?” followed by something you think is too good to be true. What if I try live-streaming a video every day for a year and I grow my business ten times as big?
Brainstorm options. If you are deciding which direction to take and you’ve got it down to left or right, try coming up with several more options. How about up or down? Around or through? What choice are you trying to make right now? Come up with more options no matter how outlandish they may sound to you.
“There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.”
—Mark Twain
Look for Prompts
You can find prompts anywhere. Just look for questions and come up with creative answers. Look for quotes or stories and finish them freshly. Here are some more ideas for prompts:
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
—Pablo Picasso
The most important part of being creative is just getting started. If you have an office or space in your home where you can get to work without being interrupted, that’s a splendid start. Keep that space stocked with the tools you need to create, such as your journal, laptop, notebook, pens, the book you want to read, your reading glasses, and whatever else will keep you from jumping up before you can get into the flow.
LiveStreaming and Podcasting
If you’ve been putting off the idea of live streaming videos or podcasting because you’re worried you will run out of creative ideas, then get started on strengthening your creativity muscles today. After a few weeks, you’ll see that you really can be creative every day. So don’t hesitate, get started now:
What if you try it and it’s the most fulfilling and fun experience you’ve ever had?
Or
What if you don’t try and you miss out on the best time of your life?
Supportive Facebook Group
Please join our Facebook group for more helpful training and resources. We designed this group for Encore Entrepreneurs and Legacy Livestreamers – people age 50+ working from home using live streaming, podcasting, and blogging to expand their brand and business and share their wisdom with the world. We’ll show you how we take one idea and turn it into a social media storm of content and how you can do it too!
Leveraging Your Content Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/leveragingyourcontent/
Connect with me! Schedule a free consulting call to define your social media goals, assess your specific needs, and clarify your best options.