Inspire Your Uninspired Mind

gif of lettering piece that says "I hope your day is as nice as your butt"

Follow Your Foolishness

I don’t know about you, but I can get sucked into my Instagram ‘Explore’ feed and before I know it hours have passed and my thumb in cramping from the same scrolling motion. Mine is all animal videos, calligraphy and cake decorating (why?). I find this stuff super enthralling to watch, and there’s a reason for that. These are things that inspire me or that I’m interested in.

So, sometimes when I have no direction for my next project I let some outside influences push me in a direction. Hence, my quote for this week’s piece. It’s frivolous and funny, and it caught my attention this week. Instagram, Pinterest, a great magazine or book… whatever plants the seed for you.

Put Bad Words Down

If you’re writing, or even just making a comment for your photo, sometimes it can be hard to perfect it. My advice: put words on the page. Do some bad writing. At least it’s putting ideas down. Even if you write the “oops” and “<<that’s dumb” as you go - it will give you something to go off of later. In college, my writing motto was “draft drunk, edit sober” and it worked! My uninhibited drunk self would just put all the ideas down and then sober Elyse would go in and make sense of them all. I’m not necessarily saying you should get drunk and start writing, but you should definitely not inhibit yourself just because the best ideas aren’t coming to mind right away.

Let Your Influencers Influence You

You’ve heard the saying, “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery?” Well, sometimes that imitation is a version of inspiration. If you follow people within your industry that are really good at what they do, there’s a reason! Check out what they’ve been doing. Or maybe you’re the one who has a lot of imitators. Good on you, if that’s the case. Go check out what your followers do, maybe that will be the spark for your own great new idea. Nobody likes a copycat, but it can be a good place to start your own unique thoughts.

And lastly, stop being so hard on yourself! In the age of social media and comparison it can be hard to find your own voice and feel like it holds a flame to some of the amazing talent we see every day. You are also talented and unique, and there are things you do that others can't compare to. Trust yourself!