Inspiration is not guaranteed: Plan to do these three things to start
Inspiration is wonderful. When it comes, but what if it doesn’t? It could be a long wait until it turns up so what do you do? Well, then you can make a plan!
Planning.
The word can make grown men weep or push back significantly. Especially if they are the creative type. My husband comes to mind. He is very creative and a plan for his writing was the last thing he needed at least that’s what he told me. His over-planner wife.
Just looking at my Google calendar, with all its colour blocks from one end of the day to the other gave him the creeps.
That’s way too restrictive! He would lament. I need to create when I feel inspired!
That sounds great, to non-planners, but there can be problems with this approach. According to Leonard Bernstein
“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…
The wait is simply too long”
For the writer, you can insert yourself and any activity you do that currently relies on you being inspired, like creating your online content perhaps?
So what approaches could you develop?
A to-do list could be a good start. However even though you may get some things done, rarely do you get all of them done. At least in my experience, you keep adding to the list daily. You have no idea of how or when you will be able to complete it.
To-do lists can make you feel like a failure, even when you have done 7 out of the 15 things on your list. Adding to that feeling of overwhelm that you are trying to reduce.
The next thing you could consider is to add your to-do list to your calendar. This is better but you still have to find a place for each item. Often what ends up happening is that you add too many things in your week and you still only get 7 out of the 15 things on your list completed. Then you carry over those things to next week.
Now. I must admit that was me. I had the tendency to book up every single minute of every single day.
Jamming in every single thing that I could think of that I thought needed doing, without giving myself space for those times when things would go off track. And they did. As you know life doens’t always go the way we want it to go.
Then I would beat myself up for not finishing everything. I would fill up the next week before it started and had no time for new ideas or opportunities.
Next! You can create a plan that works.
A plan that takes into account everything you need to do but in a way that reduces your overwhelm and inspires you.
When you have a plan that works, it’s easier to see the big picture and how you can move your business forward.
You can see what needs to be prioritised, which is so important in feeling accomplished.
When you get distracted or life throws you a curveball YOU can get yourself back on track, give yourself time for rest and relaxation because you have a plan.
So what are some things you can put into your plan to help reduce overwhelm and create more time in your week?
Here are 3 simple ways to start.
1/ Make Appointments with yourself.
Just as you would make appointments to see your clients, for your weekly massage or any other appointment. You can make appointments for your own business activities.
it helps bring structure and organisation to your day. Make appointments for both working on and in your business.
For example, in your business, you probably do the following already:
schedule appointment to see your clients,
schedule appointments to see your bookkeeper or accountant.
schedule appointments to chat with your own coach.
What you may not make appointments for is:
to check your inbox, read, answer, file or delete emails
to check your social media and engage with your prospective audience online
to plan your online content for the week
Imagine though if instead of waiting for the inspiration or for the time to become available, you actually scheduled time to do the above activities.
Developing an approach where you set a time each day/week/month you know these activities will get done. When you know they will get done it brings a sense of peace to your mind. It also frees up your mind to focus on other things
The best side effect of doing this is it can reduce your overwhelm considerably.
Work on your business rather than in it
2/ Working on your business.
Let’s think about getting creative.
As mentioned above many creative types feel that planning is too restrictive. They need to FEEL inspired to create great works. You now know that while it’s wonderful when it happens, it can’t be relied upon to show up often enough.
It’s comforting to know that many of the great creatives of our time actually set times every day to do their work.
Maya Angelou, booked a hotel room every morning to write. Jerry Seinfeld set aside time every single day to do his comedy writing. He actually had a calendar where he placed a big red cross each day to create a chain of work that he didn’t want to break.
If it worked for these people it can work for you as well.
Book in a brainstorming session for yourself. This can be the ticket to freedom. Brainstorming gets all of your ideas out of your head and onto paper (or your digital equivalent). Once out it frees up space for new ideas and you can go back to them whenever you want to use them.
My clients love using my Brainstorming Checklist to start generating ideas for their online content. But don’t limit yourself, the checklist can be used for other things in your business. If you have a problem you need to work out a brainstorming session can work wonders.
I recommend setting aside 90 minutes for a brainstorming session each quarter, to work on your online content ideas You can do it more often if you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of your own content to share.
Make it easier on yourself
3/ Set up Automations
Automations are things that once set up go out, well, automatically. Yes it’s true, setting them up does takes some time but it will make a world of difference.
Simple things like automatic email replies for your inbox. Letting people know your hours, and when they can expect to hear back from you means you don't feel like you have to respond to emails every time they drop into your inbox. Most email providers let you do this quite easily.
We spoke about appointments previously. If you have a lot of appointment to set up for yourself, with clients, especially those initial contact discovery calls, then a scheduling tool like Calendly can help immensely.
These stop the back and forth emails. When someone contacts you, send them the link to book a time that suits them and you. You can even put the link on your website, in your emails and on your social media posts so people can set up their appointments from your online content, How good is that?
For your online content, there are so many tools you can use to organise your content and make sure it goes out regularly and consistently.
For your social media posts, there are free tools like Facebook creator studio that you can post to Facebook and Instagram. I've also used Buffer, Later for free scheduling to LinkedIn and Pinterest.
For your Emails to your list, (these are different to your inbox) These are the emails you send to people who have bought from you or signed up for your free lead magnet. Your email list is something you own and a great place for sharing your content. I have used Mailchimp in the past, Sendlane and now I use Convertkit.
For your blog posts, platforms like WordPress or Squarespace will allow you to draft your blogs and schedule them to go out when you want them to. If you are one of those people who has a wonderful ability to simply write, then this is a great option. Write as much as you like, then keep your blogs as drafts until you wish to share them according to your content plan.
Where to Start
Having a plan doesn’t guarantee your life will be smooth sailing from now on, but it will get you back on track quickly.
Doing just one of these three things can start you on the way to a plan that works for you and your business. Bringing you newfound freedoms.
Your action step is to choose one that you feel would benefit you the most right now. Once you have done that you can come back and choose another.
1/ making appointments with yourself, that give you structure to your day.
2/ booking in a brainstorming session to generate great content ideas
3/ setting up some simple automations to give you back your precious time.
As a health coach you know how much easier and faster it is to get results when you have a person in your corner supporting your journey.
If you want someone to help you get the results you're looking for and create a plan for your online content then I would love to chat, book in a call to see how I can help you today.
This blog post contains affiliate links, that if you buy from them, I will earn a small commission at no extra charge to you.
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
