My brain is on overload today. I’ve spent the day doing one of two things — fighting through the Christmas shopping crowds, or listening to the amazing speakers at Ross Goldberg’s Marketing Masters Seminar. The seminar’s been great and I’ve got so many ideas from the speakers for products to create, articles to write, seminars to plan, and general improvements to make to my business. So today I have no shortage of ideas of what to create. But there are days that I do need come up with something, and I don’t have a room full of people to bounce ideas off of. I used to let those days really get me down, and I’d just not write anything and go for days without a fresh piece of content. And if you’ve seen any of my old sites you’ll know just how infrequently they got updated.

There are a few tips you can use to help jump start your creativity when you need to find something to write about. For me brainstorming pretty much involves a yellow legal pad and my favorite pen. Some people use software and follow a mind-mapping process, but I’m much more of a scribbler. (If you could see the draft of this article, you’d know what I mean.)

These are some of the things I do to brainstorm when I’m in need of an idea:

1. Write everything down. Turn off yoru inner critic and write down every single idea that pops into your head. Don’t discount anything at this point, no matter how far-fetched it seems.

2. Along the same lines and #1, write quickly and don’t stop to think about what you’re writing. I don’t know about you but when I’m in creative mode, I tend to write a lot faster because my hands need to keep up with my brain. If you can use a voice recorder to get your ideas out, that’s even better because we can speak much more quickly than we can write or type.

3. Let your thoughts flow. Let them wander where they will and you’ll notice that your thoughts flow into one another. One idea may spawn several more related ideas and you’ll end up with something you may never even have seen coming.

4. Once you’ve gone as far as you can, and you think there can’t possibly be even one idea left in your brain, then write for five more minutes. You might be surprised at what you come up with whn you stretch yourself just that little bit further.

Using these tips has never failed to produce at least one idea for an article or report for me. I hope that you can get some use out of them as well.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think or how you brainstorm. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Losing your motivation or inspiration is never a fun experience. It’s just something that happens to all of us at least once in our lives. The trick to getting past it is to find something that will help you to get moving again. The last thing you want to do is allow yourself to get stuck in an extended period of the blahs.

One of the things I’m most thankful for is that even though I seem to manage to get myself uninspired more than is probably good for me, it doesn’t usually take me long to find my way back. I just use one of these simple ideas to help me get my inspiration flowing again:

1. Go for a walk, or just sit outside and enjoy nature for awhile. Whenever I’ve feeling really uninspired I head for the river to sit on my favorite rock and just soak up the sun and the fresh air.

2. Listen to music. Turn on the radio or fire up your ipod and listen to your favorite tunes. Get up and dance if the music calls to you. Moving your body to the bead of a great song is an excellent way to shake the cobwebs off your inspiration and get you ready to create again.

3. Draw, paint, or color something. Even if you’re not the world’s greatest artist, just the act of creating something with color can help to release whatever is blocking you. One of my favorite ways to get inspired again is to fire up photoshop and mess around creating patterns and graphics out of old photos.

4. Read something inspirational, such as a biography or a self-help book. Finding out how others have handled their loss of inspiration can do two things for you — reassure you that you’re not alone, and give you more ideas of how to jumpstart your own inspiration.

5. Have a pep talk with yourself. Look in the mirror and talk to yourself. Give yourself some encouragement and remind yourself of all the things you’ve accomplished so far in your life.