Hey everybody
Last week I shared my story about how I had stopped posting on Steemit 6 months ago and why I am back.
To tell you the truth I was not expecting to have so much feedback from you guys. Thanks to all you for your comments and support, especially @birdlover, @linncoyle1, @glenalbrethsen, @givowayne, @asolopreneur. Now I know for sure that coming back was the right decision. As I promised at the end of that post, here are a few thoughts of mine about inspiration.
I am very glad if my experience motivates some of you to keep posting on Steemit when writing gets more tough than fun. When the first excitement has gone, you start calculating how much time you spend on your posts and how much you are rewarded for (this calculation is often disappointing for all minnows, let’s face the truth). And here comes the magic word we all have in mind when we deal with any creative stuff:
We often accuse the lack of inspiration when we stop writing, painting or doing anything where our mind and soul are both involved. The fear of the blank page, we all know what it is like. I am not a psychologist but I’ve been dealing (and fighting) with the inspiration for the last 5 years when I stopped being an employee and decided to work on my own.
You know the most crazy thing I’ve found out during all this time? It is 10 times harder to get things done when I am my only boss and my only deadline. It is crazy because it should be just the opposite, right? Well, we should be more motivated and more inspired when we work on our own project, when we fix ourselves the price for it and we can work on it on our own rhythm. But the human being is terrible. Without an external pressure we get lazy. And also very tricky. We find tons of reasons for not doing something. And we only want reasons which sound good. “I don’t have the inspiration” sounds much better than “I am lazy and disorganised”.
But honestly, if you have to be at work every day at 9am, how many excuses you can find per week to miss at least one day? Not even one, because if you start missing even 1 day each week, you will probably get fired. Do you think about the inspiration when you wake up and go to your office? Probably not. You have to do it and you just do it. That’s it.
On Steemit we are all masters of our lives
Whatever we do in our professional life, on Steemit we are all our own bosses and we create our own project. Nobody will fire you for not posting. Nobody will accuse you of neglecting your duties. But your business just won’t work. And vice versa, more you work on it, better it becomes. It has its ups and downs, you make mistakes, you learn and finally you find your style, your public and your… inspiration to go on.
Here is probably the biggest illusion I’ve always had about the inspiration. I have always waited for it to start something. But the reality is that the inspiration doesn’t come first. It comes when you start acting.
Ok. But how not to give up when we don't have time and no ideas?
All motivating posts for newbies tell you more or less the same: be patient, be yourself, write about the things you love, don’t give up even if you earn nothing for great posts you spent hours to work on. It sounds great but not always easy to do. Moreover, we all have a life to live outside the platform - family, children, friends, studies, work, housekeeping, whatever.
Store your ideas
A lot of work, family stuff, headache. A lot of things may make it difficult to be here as regularly as we would like to. Even if you are not posing for a while, write down all the ideas for your future posts (topics, keywords). Sometimes we get a great idea in the middle of something completely irrelevant, try to write it down as soon as you can on paper or in your smartphone. Even if you come back to them in 2 or 3 months, you will be happy to have them once you have time to post something. (I discovered great ideas I had have in Summer I completely forgot about. Will definitely use them for my next posts.)
Organize your ideas
It is a good thing to create a google document for all your notes, which will be always updated and accessible from all your devices.
It is very common to write there all your ideas, to copy useful links, to write your drafts.
The same for pictures. Create a folder where you will stock all pictures you like and may use for your future posts. It’s even better to sort your pics by their content: nature, food, art, travel, etc.
When you have all pictures stored in the same place, it takes you a few seconds to find the one you need, to upload it into postimage (or whatever you use) and to get your post ready to publish.
Remember your past experiences
Our life is not a movie, we don’t live amazing experiences every day. If you can’t find things to write about in your actual life, think of your past. Remember great places you once visited, interesting courses you attended, people you met. You can inspire people by the things you did, not only the things you are doing now. Another good thing about writing of your past experiences: we all have tons of pictures stored for years somewhere in the computer with a notice “to keep in order”. Well, it’s time to have it finally done.
Socialize
You don’t have time for writing big posts, no worries. Meanwhile, read other Steemians’ posts, comment, reply, upvote. Even if not writing posts, you will stay active, you won’t miss anything and you will very probably get your ideas from interaction with other people.
Thank you very much if you have read until the end. I have written this post because the inspiration thing made me leave the platform a few month ago. And now I realize that it was completely wrong. The inspiration doesn’t come by itself. We create it by doing something.
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