Marie: Hey it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be
if you want to create a business and life you love, and I think that you do.
This here shindig is called Q&A Tuesday.
This question comes from Ms. Chelsea and she writes:
Hey, Marie.
Thank you so much for all that you give to us constantly.
I watch every Tuesday and one question I have is, how do you always come up with all this
great content?
Do you ever have days when you just feel uninspired or like you don’t have anything new to say?
And if so, how do you still give us constantly great episodes of MarieTV?
I send my people a weekly newsletter too, but I'm afraid of uninspiring days or future
days where I won't have much to say or will have covered all the topics that I can think
of.
Do you have any tips for how you keep your well from running dry?
Love, Chelsea.
I was so excited to see this question for a lot of reasons.
First of all, I think everybody can relate to this.
I certainly can.
I think anyone who creates anything fears the well running dry.
We've all had that “oh crap” moment, “I'm totally done, I have nothing else to say,
everything’s been done already and everything I create from this moment forward of course
is going to be crap.”
If you’ve ever felt this way, whether you're an artist or another type of creative or you're
a business owner like me, who has to create content week after week, this is the episode
for you.
I'm going to answer this question in the framework of what I do which is creating content for
this show, my weekly newsletter, my blog, all that online jazz.
If you're a creative who has no intention of creating regular content online, which
if you want to make any money you should definitely consider, I think you're still going to get
value from this episode.
The first thing I want to say is I am not some creative superhero.
Sometimes my creative well is as moist as a Duncan Hines cake.
Other times it’s as dry as a saltine in Death Valley.
Notice I haven't taught you anything yet; that’s because tip number one, or shall
we say, tip number dump, is do dumb sh*t.
I just did like five dumb things and as far as I'm concerned, the dumber the better.
Giving yourself permission to be dumb is actually a really smart way to activate your creativity.
I say find a dumb buddy and get stupid together.
Here’s my dumb buddy; she's the dumbest bitch I know.
In fact, she made me say that and she’s making me sing this song right now.
How dumb was that?
Now I'm not necessarily saying you should be silly in your content if that’s not true
to your brand, but being silly while you're creating, that can really open up some new
ideas.
Tip number two – the “magazine rule.”
Retreading old ground is not a sin.
When it comes to content creation, you got to remember not everybody saw that blog post
you did back in 2011; if they did, they probably don’t remember it as well as you do; people
like to revisit the same topics again and again.
I've been doing MarieTV for years now.
Q&A Tuesdays, we revisit the same themes all the time.
You'll also see this in the magazine world.
I’ve been a subscriber to O Magazine for years and I love it, but check this out: De-Clutter
your Life appears on three covers.
I don’t get mad at O Magazine because I'm happy to read that again.
I always need to de-clutter something in my life.
And you know what?
You see repetition in every facet of the art world.
Georgia O’Keefe painted those vajayjay flowers over and over and sitcoms use the same basic
story lines and Taylor Swift is always singing about breakups and rappers are always rapping
about the party and then the after party and then the party after the after party and then
the hotel lobby.
Tip number three, and this is my biggest tip of all, is a mantra I use for a bunch of things
like money and love and ideas, and yes, it’s today’s tweetable:
“When it comes to creativity, there's always more where that came from.”
If you're more spiritual, let me remind you of one of my favorite quotes from my friend,
Marianne Williamson: “God’s the water and you are the faucet.”
This is awesome so you don’t get it twisted and think that all of your brilliant ideas
are coming from you.
It requires a little bit of creative surrender and to get your ego out of the way so a higher
power can come down and work through you.
Before we wrap up, I just want to tell you I so relate to this question.
There are so many times when I feel like I have nothing else to say here on MarieTV,
so to help you and to help all of us, I'm going to do something a little different today
and I want to continue the teaching part of this episode in written form right below this
video.
Thank you so much for that question, Chelsea, I hope it helps.
Now I would love to hear from you.
When you're feeling creatively tapped out, tell me three go-to strategies that always
work for you.
If you want to share more than three, that is awesome, but please make them as specific
as possible.
As always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at the wonderful land of
MarieForleo.com so got there and leave a comment now.
Did you dig this video?
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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special
gift that only you have.
Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.