3 Simple Ways to Overcome Writers Block as a Blogger

I’ve written a blog post every single day for 99 days straight now.

Although I’ve been blogging for over 9 years now, this is the longest I’ve ever blogged consecutively every single day since I started blogging.

I think the longest I’ve previously gone for was 58 days straight.

The biggest challenge with writing a blog post every day is finding something to write about when you’ve got writer’s block.

For me generally Blogging isn’t a problem.  I can often think of something to write about in just a few minutes and then away I go.

However, once in a while, like for the past few days and especially tonight, I’ve had “Writer’s Block” or “Bloggers Block” where I sit in front of my computer, staring at my screen and I don’t know what to write about.

This week especially I’ve been a bit “stuck” for a few reasons.

Firstly, I have a list of ideas for shooting more “Driving With Paul” videos that I want to get recorded, but I ran into a small snag a few days ago.

For some reason the brand new GoPro Hero 3 camera I bought had some kind of issue with the battery and after a few days the battery no longer held a charge.

I could charge it for an entire day and as soon as I unplug the camera from the computer, the camera won’t even turn on.

Anyway, I had to return the camera and I got a new one, but I haven’t had time to get it setup and charged yet so I haven’t had time to shoot any new videos.

Secondly, usually I find it easy to Blog when I am in “Output Mode” and difficult to Blog when I am in “Research mode”.

What I refer to as “Output Mode” is when I’m living my life, doing something, experiencing something, or using certain products or services, or producing some sort of results in my life in some area.

When I’m in this “mode”, I’ll often get ideas, inspirations, learn new things or come to certain conclusions about things that I can then share on my Blog.

However, when I go into “Research mode” like I have been in the past few days, it gets a lot harder to write Blog posts…

… why is it harder?

Well, “Research Mode” is basically when I am doing research on something new, like as an example right now I am researching a whole bunch of information about weight loss products and supplements and various companies that sell them.

When I’m in “Research Mode” my mind goes into a state where I ask myself a question about something and then I begin to research the answers to those questions.  When I get those answers, usually my mind will come up with follow-up questions related to those answers and I go back into searching for those new answers.

Sometimes I only go into “Research Mode” for a few minutes, or hours, but other times I could be in this mode for a few days, or even weeks when I’m trying to figure something out.

Again, going back to my example from today, I’ve been researching all these different nutritional companies and products specifically related to weight loss, and my research isn’t complete yet as I still have questions that need to be answered, but not all my questions CAN be answered just with online research.

Sometimes I need to contact someone or a company to find out answers to certain questions, so I can’t always complete my research by myself, especially when it’s like 1am in the morning like it is now.

When I’m researching something like this, I can’t really Blog about it just yet because I still haven’t gotten my answers so it would kind of be a pointless Blog post to write about something I don’t yet know about.

Of course I CAN Blog about something else, but when I’m in “Research Mode” my mind is so focused on researching whatever topic I’m researching that it has a hard time shutting that off to now start thinking about and writing about something totally different.

It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely a bit harder, hence the “Writer’s Block”.

Another reason I’ve often found it hard to Blog on a specific day is when something really exciting or really stressful is going on in my life, but it’s not something that I want to share on my Blog for whatever reason…

… on days like that it’s not always easy to focus myself to write something else…

… but, here are 3 little tricks I’ve learned that can help you overcome Writer’s Block.

#1 – The 3rd Party YouTube Video Trick

Stealing copyrighted content from another Blogger and just copying and pasting it on your Blog is a big NO NO.

You DON’T want to be doing that.

Firstly, it’s a really douchey move to steal anyone else’s content, but secondly it provides no value to your audience anyways, so it’s pointless.

You might as well not write any content at all if you’re going to just copy and paste someone else’s Blog post.

HOWEVER, taking someone’s YouTube video and embedding it on your blog is not only perfectly OKAY, it is actually encouraged by the people who create the content!

For example, if I upload a public video to YouTube, and if anyone wants to take that video and embed it into a Blog post they’ve written with maybe a bit of text written above and below the video, I’m perfectly fine with that.

In fact I’m not just fine with it, I encourage it!  If you want to embed my videos in your Blog, go right ahead!

The reason being is that by embedding people’s videos in your Blog content, you are helping them get more publicity, both to their video and their YouTube channel.

So, one of the cool tricks you can use to get a Blog post written on a day when you’re totally STUCK, is to head over to YouTube and just search for some keywords related to your Blog’s Niche market and find a video that you like…

… then, WATCH the video from start to finish and if you like it, then write a very quick blog post where you just write a few sentences about the video and then embed the video on your Blog.

This way you’re getting your daily Blog post written, you’re providing value to your audience by sharing relevant content with them, AND you’re also helping the person on YouTube to get more views to their video by exposing their content to your audience.

It’s a win – win – win situation.

So if you’re feeling really stuck, try doing that.

Just  make sure the video you pick is relevant to your audience.  Don’t just post some totally unrelated video just because it got a lot of views because it was funny or something, unless of course that fits with your Blog theme.

Here’s an example of a post I recently posted that used this technique.

#2 – The YouTube Video List Trick

Another variation of the YouTube video trick is to go and find 3-7 YouTube videos that are related to each other in some way, which cover a specific topic in more depth, and embed all of them into one “List Post”.

For example, in my post yesterday I went onto YouTube and found three free audio books that I recommend people listen to if they want to be rich.

I then took those three YouTube videos and embedded all three of them into my Blog post.

This can also be very valuable to your audience as you’re saving them the time of having to go out there and find those videos on their own, not to mention the fact that they might not know what to look for in the first place.

This technique is similar to the first one, but just goes into more depth by providing multiple videos.

#3 – The “Current Situation” Blog Post Trick

The “Current Situation” Blog Post Trick is basically where you don’t really have anything to share with your Blog audience that’s like an insight or a how-to or a conclusion or result that you’ve produced, because you might be in “Research Mode” or just stuck in some area of your life and spinning your wheels.

In such situations, what you can do is you can start writing a Blog post from the perspective of “Here’s where I’m at… I’m currently stuck with… or … I’m currently trying to figure out…. or I’m currently struggling with… something or other…”

Meaning, if you’re confused about something or you’re stuck or struggling or trying to figure something out, then you can make THAT the subject of your Blog post!!!

In fact, if you look at this Blog post it’s kind of written from that angle.

I don’t really have anything mind-blowing to share today but I still wanted to write a Blog post, so I wrote a Blog post telling you about how sometimes I get stuck not knowing what to write about…

… now I did include a few “solutions” to this specific challenge, but you could write a Blog post that doesn’t offer any solutions.

Your Blog post could simply be a post where you’re sharing with your audience the fact that you’re stuck or confused or uncertain about something…

… and the cool thing is that sometimes your audience will actually engage with you and they might actually be able to help you with your present situation!

I’ve written posts in the past where I was stuck on something and I ended up getting comments and emails from people offering their suggestions and opinions on how I could potentially solve that challenge.

So in that way your Blog can actually be a tool for YOU to get some help, and not just a tool for you to help others.

So, if you’re stuck and don’t know what to write about, try one of these three simple strategies and get your Blog post done! 🙂