What to Do When You Have Nothing to Say

I woke up this morning with nothing to say.

Uninspired.

My mind is full.

My thoughts are cluttered.

My ideas are muddled and disorderly.

Every keystroke is painful and cumbersome. 

My language feels clumsy and contrived.

This very sentence feels tired and formulaic.

I should not be writing this post.

There are two schools of thought on what I should do next:

1. Stop writing.
2. Keep writing.

The first school would have me stop altogether. If my work doesn’t have meaning, if there isn’t a purpose, if it’s not adding immediate and intrinsic value to my target audience then I should NOT create it.

“The world doesn’t need more shallow, surfacey, regurgitated ideas.”

“Make an impact or be quiet.”

Doubt and Fear give each other a big high-five in celebration of canceling another idea that will never reach the world.

This is a scarcity mindset perspective, the purest perspective.

This perspective is destructive and self-indulgent. The EGO I must have to demand my work has meaning in order to hit publish.

What should you do when you have nothing to say?

KEEP WRITING.

KEEP WRITING.

KEEP WRITING.

KEEP WRITING.

KEEP WRITING.

You have to work through all your boring, tired and contrived ideas to get to the good stuff.

You think The Muse rewards someone who waits for a good idea to begin putting in the work? Hell no.

She rewards the workers. The grinders. The stubborn A-holes who don’t know when to quit. 

Tinker.

Experiment.

Test.

Create.

Share. 

And if what comes out the other end is terrible. Do it again.

When I’m uninspired I tend to listen to a lot of hardcore ’90s gangster rap. Many of my better ideas were derived from the lyrics of Gangstarr, Mos Def and the Wu-Tang Clan.

…which is a fun fact to share. 

But if I’m being honest, I’m just too stubborn not to do the work.

Be stubborn.

Yours in strength,

Hanley

P.S. if you enjoyed this article, you’ll love the podcast.

Photo by H A M A N N on Unsplash

Ryan Hanley

Ryan Hanley is the founder and chief strategist at Hanley Media, a boutique communications and marketing strategy firm helping organizations match ideas to the audience they inspire.

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