How do you inspire creativity when you’re in a creative funk? What are the things you can do to get that spark back? In this episode, Krissy Chin flies solo as she examines three ways you can inspire creativity when creating content. Krissy discusses how writer’s block can choke creativity and we hear several ways she gets around these roadblocks and gets back on track. Listen in and learn more content creation tips for your business with Krissy.

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Three Ways To Inspire Creativity To Make Content Creation Easy

As creators, we are constantly needing to come up with new content. Content creation can be super overwhelming. It can feel daunting at times. Maybe you have a podcast with weekly episodes, write a blog or go live on social media and repurpose that content. How do you make sure that you come up with enough new content? Not just any content. We want good content. How you grow your email list and create super fans is with good content. It can't be mediocre.

You have to stand out from everyone else. The best way to get great content is to make sure that you are inspiring creativity. You are living in these creative moments so you can create great content. This is what we are going to talk about, how to inspire creativity so that we have an endless flow of content to build an engaging email list and a community of superfans.

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A lot of people who are at this stage, where they are being intentional about content creation, also find themselves being strapped for time. You have committed to creating something maybe once a week. This is someone who is likely in the launch or the automation stages of their business. We talk about these stages a lot in the Scale to 6 Coaching Community. When you are in one of these stages, you start realizing how helpful it would be to automate more of the things that you are doing. How helpful it would be to hire someone to take some of those simple tasks that you are doing, that are time-consuming and have someone else do them for you so they can be taken off of your plate?

If that's you but you aren't sure maybe what to automate or what you could have someone do for you, I have a great new resource for you, 50 Things to Automate or Outsource in Your Business. Go to TheKrissyChin.com/automate and you will get that download straight to your email. It's super helpful. It will be sure to help you win back some of your time, which I know is one of your goals.

Let's get to this episode. I want to talk about inspiring creativity. There are many reasons why this is super important. Creativity can help give you new ideas for maybe your free content or paid content. It can help you overcome roadblocks when you get into your creative space. We know as entrepreneurs, we hit roadblocks all the time. It's super important to be able to move through those roadblocks quickly and your creative space will allow you to do that.

I remember as a kid when we would build forts. We lived in a unique neighborhood where we had lots of kids our own age. We have this little mini-foresty area behind our houses. We would go back there and build these forts. I always remember going for it or I guess I don't remember ever standing there thinking, “We are going to try and start to build this but we are going to come up with a lot of roadblocks. How are we going to make the roof on it?”

We had an idea and we tried to execute it. If a problem came up, then we tried something else. We’ve got into our creative brain. I also witnessed this often with my kids as well when they are building forts or doing anything. They get this idea in their head and go for it. As we age, when we get older, that creativity is lost a little bit or a lot. We gain more responsibility. We are taught to be less creative.

Years later, you are an entrepreneur and you have to be creative. You have to re-tap into your creativity often so you can overcome this stuckness or not being creative. Lots of people get writer's block, sit there, and not knowing what to do. Let's dive into these three helpful ways to re-spark that creativity so that you can be more productive in your business, come up with more content, new content, overcome roadblocks quicker, and all of the good stuff that you need to run a thriving business, working less, enjoying and earning a whole lot more.

Make Time To Get Into Your Creative Space

Oftentimes, we are so busy in life with hustling kids around, taking appointments, getting the little details completed in our projects that our minds can't quiet down and think of new creative ideas. For me, the places that I have come up with brilliant ideas, at least I think they are brilliant are when I'm taking a shower, driving, laying in bed before I fall asleep or cleaning the house. It's all of these times where I'm in my own space with the world outside at a distance. My mind is able to be quiet, and then it starts to wander.

It goes down these little rabbit holes of ideas that lead to other ideas. Knowing that I come to these creative spaces in these different times, I try and be intentional about giving myself time to be in these moments, to check out what's going on and be in this space. Planning to take a shower and giving myself plenty of time to do my hair and my makeup because half of the time I will be stopping, taking notes between blush and eye shadow.

It takes me extra long because I am working through, processing these ideas and taking notes. Making sure that I give myself a full hour to get ready, knowing that this is my creative space. I remember hearing Sara Blakely, the Creator of Spanx. She was telling her story about how she came up with the name Spanx. She said she always got ideas in the car. She would go out and drive for no reason except to think and have ideas come to her.

Sometimes taking action causes new inspiration.

I don't remember the full story but she went out driving and the name Spanx with an X came to her. I can't remember if she saw something on a license plate that sparked the idea or it just popped into her head but it was while she was out for an intentional thinking drive, I like to call it, that she thought of the name for Spanx, which is a huge company.

What I want to ask you is when do ideas come to you? Have you taken the time to stop and think about when these ideas come to you? If you have or when you do because that's what I'm going to have you do, then it’s the hard part, making the time to be in these creative spaces for yourself. Can you identify those a few times? Make sure to build it into your calendar so that you can take yourself to this creative space. Extra-long showers, taking a drive, getting to bed earlier because you will lay in bed and be thinking about things, sitting out in nature. Whatever it is that helps you spark the creativity inside you, I want you to dedicate some time to it.

Listen To Your Idols

The second thing that you can do to help spark creativity is to listen to your biggest idols. Every time I drive up to the lake, I turn on a podcast. I'm in my car. Right there, I'm in one of my creative spaces. Most of the time, I don't have another adult to talk to. I've got the kids plugged in the back seat. I'm already in this space where I have room and space to think but I know that if I put on a book or a podcast about business or something I'm interested in, then it's going to turn into more thoughts and ideas.

It's going to do that more if I just turn on music because if you know me, then you know that I will be singing along to that song, whether I know the words or not. I will make up the words if I need to but I am a singer. When I'm singing, I can't sing at the same time and think of new ideas. That's why a book or a podcast has to go on for me to get into this creative space. I'm driving up to the lake house on a super hot sunny day. My sunglasses are on. I started this book called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

As the narrator is reading the words, my mind starts taking what he's saying and expanding on it. I start putting my own spin on it as I think about the next layers to what he's describing. If he states a thought, I pause it and continue on like, “Here are my thoughts on that.” I let it go. I voice memo on my notepad what I'm thinking. I get to the end of that. I un-pause the book and listen more. That sparks even different thoughts and ideas. I keep pausing the book and have new ideas and expansions of what I want to say and talk about it.

Before you know it, I've got almost all of the content for this episode. If you don't know the book, the entire premise of the book is to talk about how there are no original ideas. Everything that we do and create is stolen from one thing and turned into another. The greatest of the greats steal the pieces that they love the most. They use and transform them into their own masterpiece. I find this a very useful tool to create as well.

If you are feeling like you are stealing other people's things to make your own, I want you to go read the book because it will make you feel better about it. It will give you some ideas on how to do it in a way where it's okay. You are not just taking someone's thing and saying the same thing but you are turning it into your own new thing. Who are the people that you listen to that challenge you to think differently, expand your thinking or say things that get your wheels turning and thinking about new things?

I would love to know who is inspiring you, who you are listening to, and who do you know you can turn on and get the wheels turning. Maybe aren't listening. Maybe it's a book that you are sitting down and physically reading. Maybe it's a blog post you are reading. If you are like me and this gets the creativity flowing, then make some time and space to listen to some of your greatest mentors.

I have an episode every Wednesday that comes out. Maybe you are inspired by some of the things that I say. You put me on your calendar every Wednesday. My only warning on this is don't get lost in consumption. Use listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Use it to spark creativity, and then let yourself create from it. Make sure that taking action from the consumption happens.

Take Action, Even When You Don’t Feel Inspired

The third thing to help inspire creativity defeat off that is to take action even when you don't feel inspired. That's the key here. When you are feeling like you don't have a creative bone in your body, you don't know what to do, that can still be a time that will turn into inspired creativity. Sometimes action causes new inspiration. I was feeling completely uninspired to cook dinner. I dislike cooking. I don't know much about it. It takes a while. It's never that good when I'm doing it and probably because I don't practice it very much. I have made a mess that I have to clean up.

It's not one of my favorite things to do. This is what I love doing, not cooking but we needed to eat. Grandpa was gone, who cooks a lot for us. My husband was out of town. I felt super uninspired but I started pulling stuff out of the fridge mostly to see what we had as leftovers. I'm lazy like that. I ended up piecing together some different leftovers. I made some new vegetables because no one likes to eat leftover vegetables.

I shockingly put together a good meal from different things that were in the fridge. This might not be the best example for you but the point is that, once I started, I’ve got more into it. I started getting more creative on what I could piece together. I’ve got more inspired to put the effort into it, even though I was like, “I have to come up with a dinner idea or dinner.” I used a lot of old and new things. It turned out to be edible. It was good. The kids ate it. I ate it. We survived. This happens with my work stuff all the time.

Set that goal, figure out what you need to do to reach that goal, then act, put one foot in front of the other and take the next step.

I have to record a new episode. I sit down. I'm feeling so uninspired. I try to use my first two strategies first. This doesn't happen super often, to be honest, with those first two strategies. I already have ten-episode ideas written down but sometimes I have the idea written down, and then I have to go elaborate on it. It's like, “I have to record this episode. I don't feel like I'm in that space to say all of the things. What am I going to say?”

I sit down and start writing. Before I know it, I have an episode written to record. I learned this strategy from the amazing Amelia Forczak who is a ghostwriter when we were working on writing the outline of my book together. She said, “When you have a goal, maybe it's 20,000 words and you have a deadline to write, let's say it's six months and you plan to write five days a week so that's 150 days to write, which means you only need to write about 133 words a day out of those five days over the next six months to reach your goal of 20,000. Regardless if you are inspired or not, you sit down and write. You write those 133 words minimally, which is not very much.”

She shared that when she does this, she's pleasantly surprised that when she goes back to read the content, it's pretty good. She doesn't have to scratch the content that she wrote when she sat down uninspired to write. If you get writer's block, maybe you are writing a blog, maybe you have to prep notes for a podcast episode or a live, whatever you are doing, start writing. You might think that it will be flat, uninspired and won't be good but I bet you, it will be better than you think it will be.

We can get caught up in this idea of what it needs to look like or feel like that we often don't act. We are waiting for that perfect moment where inspiration strikes like lightning but that's not always the case. Sometimes we need to do a little instigation to get it to come about. I'm creating the Build a Profitable Course. I've got time dedicated each week to take action so that I can move towards getting that released for those out there that are interested in this topic.

Whether I'm inspired or not, I have time dedicated in my week to work on it. I sit down and work on a section of it. Often, I get in this zone and then I end up working longer on it. Maybe even going into some of the next lessons that I wasn't planning on doing because taking action started getting that creativity flowing. I have even gone past the time that I have written down as long as nothing is pressing that I have to do after. I have gone over my timeframe.

I have gotten more than I thought I would because I sat down when I was feeling uninspired and took the action. Set that goal, figure out what you need to do each week to reach that goal, and then act on it. Put one foot in front of the other and take that next step and that next step. That's something my dad always said, “If you don't know what to do, you do the next thing and the next thing.” For me, that is taking action on something, even if it's ugly action and it gets scratched later because it was no good. That happens at times too but at least I’ve got clarity that it wasn't the right direction that I needed to go.

Being decisive and taking that next action is what I talked about in a couple of episodes. If you missed it, go back and watch it or listen to it. I talked about the cost of being indecisive. That cost that it has on your business, how to be more decisive and how to take quicker action. If you need help with being more decisive, taking quicker and better action, go read that episode.

That's it for me. You now have my three secrets to inspiring creativity that results in endless amounts of great content. A huge thank you to everyone who is reading and allowing me to do what I do. It lights me up inside to serve you in this way. I want to thank you for showing up, trusting me to guide you on your path. If you are not on my email list yet, get on there. If you downloaded that freebie, 50 Things to Automate or Hire out in Your Business, you will be on my email list. I don't spam, I promise.

I give you updates or tips, things I don't talk about on my social media. I share this weekly episode with you so you have it right in your inbox to click on and jump to. If you reply back to emails answering my questions or with questions, I respond. It's the best place for you to connect with me. Go to TheKrissyChin.com and it will be pretty close to the top where you can even put your name on the email list if you want to do that. Until the next episode. Get out there and do something that inspires you.

Important links

• Scale to 6 Coaching Community
• TheKrissyChin.com/automate
• Spanx
• Steal Like an Artist
• Build a Profitable Course
• Episode - Past episode