As you know, The High Vis podcast is here to help you be more visible, get booked by your dream clients, and give you a good dose of behind-the-scenes goings-on in my business. So with that in mind, I want to share a recent discovery I’ve made, and that is that I am, in fact, a creative person, and news flash! As a business owner, you are too. You see for so long I didn’t believe I was creative, but I actually spend a lot of my time creating – be that writing blogs, creating social media content, making this podcast! And I don’t think our need for creativity and inspiration gets talked about enough. Now shout if this sounds familiar! I find that I’ll go through bursts of creativity and then beat myself up when I don’t feel creative or when I don’t know what to post, or what to say and nothing is coming easily. 

So how can we find this elusive inspiration that helps us find ideas for our content? 

Well, in today’s episode I’ve got a few prompt questions for you to get the creativity flowing, so you can find your sources of inspiration and start planning your content. 

• What are our values? How do we communicate our values? 
• What do we enjoy about our business? How do we show what we enjoy?
• What are the things you sell? How often do I actually show those / talk about those products or services? 
• What is satisfying about your work? How often do you show that?
• Where is your audience hanging out? Being visible doesn’t mean being visible all the time on every single platform
• What are the 3 things I want to be seen for?
• What or who inspires you in your business? How often do you talk or share about that?
• How can you be inspired by the people you love following on social media?

Visibility is all about connection – connecting with our audience. We don’t know what will work until we start trying out ideas. No one starts out perfect. Do not allow your idea of perfection to get in the way. Perfection is completely relative, it means something different to everyone.. You will never attain it if you are waiting for it to happen before you take action. Perfectionism is even worse, and I say this as a recovering perfectionist – it comes from a good place, we want to be of benefit but if we wait for things to be perfect before we show up, we aren’t helping anyone, let alone ourselves.

Related episode 16 – How to never run out of content ideas again

They say no man is an island but my spin is that no woman deserves to do this on their own, we often can’t see the wood for the trees. I’m a big fan of reaching out to those I trust whether it’s in membership communities (like The Visible Vibes Community) or accountability buddies, or friends in the know. Being unafraid to have conversations and find out what others suggest has only ever proven fruitful and often not in the way I’d expect.

So we can stop overthinking it. So often we are attaching way too much of our sense of self-worth to everything we put out into the world. And that’s great, it shows we care. But we need to create habits from promoting our business, otherwise, we’re just going to be relying on how we feel all the time. And that ain’t a great way to run a business even when it’s not 2021. See also: stop worrying you’re giving too much away in your social media + blogs. Even if someone avidly read every word and put it together, they still wouldn’t know half as much as you about what you do + the way you do it. So keep putting stuff out there. See what works.

Thanks to lockdown we were encouraged to take up hobbies, and actually, I’ve found that pursuing these has really helped inspire me and clear my head. By reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, music, watching movies, documentaries, things I enjoy, food I like making, I’ve been able to feel more fulfilled and therefore be more inspired. Where do you feel inspired? I really don’t think this is talked about enough generally as human beans, but particularly as entrepreneurs who spend so much time in front of a screen. We feel that if we aren’t in front of a screen or tending to other responsibilities in our lives like pets, kids, whatever, then it’s a waste of time. I’ve recently got into journaling and making some of my own sauces and condiments and it’s little steps but oh my goodness so good. Also? Turns out reading the actual books that I’ve bought helps too, who knew!? Lol. Read something recently which you love? Talk about it on your Stories, see if it gets good engagement. It’s a great testing ground for content ideas. I spoke to a few friends before recording this podcast and a couple of common ones were going for a walk, as nature can be a source of inspiration, or clearing your head and giving yourself that bit of space to allow creative ideas to come. I’m going to the seaside on August Bank Holiday for a mini-break and cannot wait. Being near water always inspires me, I used to live on a boat on the Thames and I swear it made me more creative.

Related episodes 10 – The Not so Secret Formula to being more visible

For maximum inspiration, do listen to the full episode here on Spotify or here on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we can’t wait to feel confident to then start doing what we want to do, we have to try things out. It’s all part of playing the game of ‘where we want to be’. This is a great time to start building a stash of content ideas, and a great time to get creative, and start experimenting with your content to see what works for you so I hope this episode inspires you to take action! 

I’d love you to pop me a DM which one thing are you going to try to be more visible today? You can find me on Instagram @Maddy.Shine

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Thank you and love,