Just Ask!

As a songwriter, I have been known to experience writers block on occasion.  On July 20^th 2011, I was struggling to find a reason to write, yet was feeling a strong urge to do so and didn’t want to ignore the feeling in my gut.  Typically, when I’m writing a song, I have a melody in mind or a thought or situation I’d like to build upon and it usually just goes from there.  However, this particular day I knew I was feeling creative but couldn’t find the spark within me to get the ball rolling.  So I took my urge to Facebook and entered a status stating: “Feeling inspired to do some writing today… Anyone have ideas about song ideas/ themes/ words to build a song around?? Want to see if anything someone says triggers different parts of my creativity!!”

My status update resulted in many subsequent comments from various Facebook friends that did just what I was hoping, inspire me!  It appeared to be fun for the people answering too.  There having fun with it made it a more meaningful process as well. The very comment that struck a cord with me was from our very own NACWE founder Diane Cunningham with the words: “Invite. Connect. Find. Love. Seek. Follow. Capture.”  My response back was: “Thanks Diane… I write a lot about Dreams/ God’s mission for me/ Love/ relationships too… I’m liking the word Seek and Capture for some reason. I’m gonna play with it. Capture what I wonder?? Hmmm….. I really like invite too.. Any more ideas on this??”

What I learned from that day is, what is meant to resonate with us will when we are truly interested in seeking answers. So whether we are writing songs, articles, or copy for products and services, we must not be afraid to ask for help in jolting our own creativity every now and then.  The creative process can then be less about putting pressure on ourselves and more about just having fun!

If you are anything like I am, you put a great deal of pressure on yourself to be at your most creative all the time.  You also tend to have high expectations of yourself when it comes to your business. Sometimes, we simply need a boost in the direction we are heading to get clear and let the magic happen.  I am glad I asked that question that day.  Without it this particular song would have never been born.  How awesome is that?  What question will you ask today to become more inspired and clear?