How Writing Articles Made Me An Idea Generation Machine

Photo by Mauro Sbicego on Unsplash

I am writing this article midway through writing another article that was spurred on midway through the writing of my first article for the day.

Are you seeing the pattern?

In the last week of writing on this platform I have noticed that I went from having little to no idea of what to write about to now having over 15 article headlines with 100 words or about each in the bank ready to be expanded upon to form the articles that you will hopefully read in the coming days and weeks.

I am coming up against quite a nice problem though. The problem of seemingly having too many things to write about and not enough time to post them all.

For every article that I post I am generating at least 2 further article concepts.

Now poor me, right?

I know that many of you have struggled constantly with the inability to generate ideas to write about, I used to be in the exact same boat.

Here are 5 things that I did to overcome that obstacle:

1. I am not caring about the quality of the ideas
2. I am not concerned if they are only marginally different ideas
3. I am not phased if they are simple or complex ideas
4. Writing more as the antidote to idea generation
5. Thinking on what you want to read

This feeling of not being phased is what I have focused on most. Becoming aware of how my previous mindset was what held me back the most. I have become increasingly comfortable with the idea that the idea might not be good, it may not be the next Pulitzer Prize winning article. I don’t care about the attention that it receives because I am developing this skill and I am becoming aware that repetition and consistency in this craft is the only way that I will be able to develop and hone the skill of writing enough to see the fruits of my labour.

Another facet of being unfazed is my attempts to write for me rather than for others. I would previously spend so much time in analysis paralysis by reading and learning about what articles seemed to be doing well on platforms and the potential that I could achieve in this medium if I emulated them. What I wasn’t doing though was being genuine and authentic to who I am. I was trying to write unique and personalised articles about topics or concepts that were already written about by authors who I am not. This lead me to attempting for hours to develop ideas and titles for articles that hadn’t appealed to me and I had no business in attempting to write on.

So I went back to the drawing board and began again with a mindset of thinking about what I want to read and how can I write those things.

If I wanted to read about consistency, I would write about consistency.

If I want to read articles about solo travel experiences, I wrote those articles.

I automatically found that they came flying out of me. I have so much that I wanted to read about and think over. I am constantly researching and am generally curious about a broad range of topics. The arrogance in thinking that I was alone in thinking some of these similar thoughts is baffling to me as I look back.

Of course other people have similar curiosities. Why can’t I be the one to fill that void of curiosity with my articles.

So that seemingly simple shift in how I approached what I write has tremendously eased the anxiety of what to write and has slowly but surely seen me achieve results in the last fortnight that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

I am sure of that.

So ultimately, writing in a fashion that is unashamedly you, with your former self in mind is a clear sign that you can do this and that will hold you in great stead moving forward. Because when there are setbacks, which are unavoidable, the sense that you are writing for you and others like you is what will help you to persist because you know that you are providing value for yourself and others like you.

Doing so is a great gift, don’t be ashamed to keep sending it out into the world.