I see it every week, tweets from people that say things like, “Someone help me get excited about updating my blog.” Or “I guess I’ll be spending my night updating my blog.” I thought I would give you some techniques that I use to get inspired to update this blog.
Here at bitrebels, our blog is updated every four hours. I write one, sometimes two articles per day, including the weekends. That is a minimum of seven posts per week. It’s a lot of writing! You know that if you want to have a successful blog, you have to update it often. How does a person stay in a state of inspiration that much of the time?
Here are tips 7 to help you get inspired!
1. If you dread doing it, then don’t do it. There is this strange obligation that people feel to update their blog, and many times they feel so guilty, they just don’t do it. That is a heavy burden to carry on your shoulders. There are many other ways you can get your message to the world without regularly maintaining a blog.
You can still build an online reputation by submitting articles to the article directories (this doesn’t have to be done regularly like a blog), write reports to publish online or write press releases when something newsworthy happens in your business. There are many other creative ideas so you do not have to maintain a blog if you dread it!
2. Start your love affair with words. If you can fall in love with words, you’ll fall in love with writing. Certain words make my whole body shiver. Words can turn you on, turn you off, take your mind to places you’ve never been before. It’s quite a ride. Discover the magic of words, and you will look forward to updating your blog.
3. Remember your “why.” Why did you start writing your blog in the first place? What was the purpose? You were obviously inspired enough to get started, so try to navigate back to that place where you can answer the question of why. This may be enough inspiration to get you going again.
4. What should you write about? Here’s a trick that I use, and it works well. I am always asking myself, “What will I write about next?” Usually within a few minutes of my asking that, I will be inspired by something in my daily life and get an idea. I immediately record that idea in a word document on my desktop where it stays until I am ready to write. If you don’t record your idea, you will most likely forget it when you start writing. If you update that list throughout the week, it’s so easy. When you are ready to write, just choose something off your list. Voila!
5. You have no ideas at all? That happens sometimes to everyone. About once a month I will get an awful case of writer’s block. It drives me bananas! The only way to make it go away is to sleep. However, most of the time when you don’t have ideas, it’s not writer’s block. In my opinion, it’s because you are not in “clock time,” you are in “psychological time.” It is always a struggle to be creative in psychological time.
Here is the difference: In psychological time you are thinking about the past or the future. Whether you are worrying or anticipating, doesn’t matter, you are in the past or the future. Most people are in psychological time a large portion of their lives. Get into clock time. Clock time means that you are here, right now, in this exact moment, paying attention to what is going all around you right now. You notice the smells, the tastes, the sounds, how your skin feels, you are in the here and now. That is where you will be able to effortlessly be creative. If you can get into clock time, you’ll notice the wonder of the world and ideas will just come to you. Try it.
6. Every post doesn’t have to be profound. It’s nice when you are able to hit a cord with readers and start a conversation of comments and a ton of retweets, but it is better to update your blog often to stay in touch with people than to only write when you think an idea is profound. Nobody expects you to be perfect except yourself. Relax a little. Have fun. It doesn’t all have to be life changing stuff, really.
7. Listen to really great music while you write. Music is almost as inspiring to me as words. Listening to certain music will open your mind and let the creativity flow out. It’s a huge part of my life and I cannot imagine ever writing a post without having the music on. If you are not inspired by music, find what takes you to that creative place and go there.
My friend @mmarkows sent this quote in a tweet, and it describes how I feel about writing: “I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” – Isaac Asimov
Above everything else, remember not to take yourself too seriously. I’ve learned this recently, right here on bitrebels.
Keep it lighthearted, keep it fun. Here is a funny song called, “I hate your blog.” This cracks me up.
I hope these ideas have given you a bit of inspiration for updating your blog. Once you have, leave us a link to it below in a comment so we can all check it out! Good luck!
