The Five Senses Challenge

Our promise: If you meet this challenge, you are getting content done every week. That puts you ahead of most people.

If you are making content for your business, it means that your weekly content commitment is on a big fat list with a lot of other priorities.

It’s one thing to say on Monday, “I’m going to carve out 2 hours on Wednesday at 9am for content creation,” and quite a different thing when Wednesday morning actually comes. Before you even sit down at your desk, the attention leeches are slithering around you - the bill you still need to pay, the client who texts at 8:50 with a pressing question, the lead that pings you on social…

This makes content consistency a real challenge. But the leeches have another, less obvious effect: they make your content suck and (even worse) they make the experience of making your content suck.

Why? Because mindset is a critical part of the creation process. All these attention leeches are, in truth, important priorities for your work. But most of them require an entirely different kind of attention than creating content. 

Today’s exercise is all about putting yourself in the right mindset to perform. If you make the effort to calibrate your attention to the task at hand, and get yourself in a creator mindset, you will massively improve the quality and efficiency of your content. And, bonus, you’ll have a lot more fun making it.

Now let’s get into it…

The “Five Senses” Challenge

1. Take a nice long walk outside. About 20 minutes (1 mile) minimum. Naked ears. No music, no podcasts, no earbuds, no distractions.

2. Breath deeply while you walk. Notice what’s around you. Identify one thing you see, one thing you hear, one thing you smell, one thing you taste, and one thing you feel. (e.g. the taste of the ocean on the wind, the smell of fresh cut grass)

3. Come back and immediately brainstorm your video. The mindset you have created is the most important part of this exercise.

4. Pick one of those five things you noticed that lingers with you. Does it remind you of a story? Is there an analogy that comes to mind?

5. Let this be the spark that ignites your piece of content. Create what it inspires you to create.

6. It doesn’t matter whether you actually talk about the spark that inspired the video or not. You know your audience. You know how to deliver value to them.

7. But make sure that whatever you felt when you were seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, or hearing that thing… let that feeling drive your video. Convey that feeling as best you can and make your audience feel it too?

8. If you can complete the whole video in one sitting, awesome. Do it right then. But everyone has a different production schedule. No matter what, make sure you complete the thought that will become your video before you leave that post-walk session. 

9. Now finish your video and post it!

How did you do?

What did you notice about yourself during the walk?

What was the experience like trying to work after taking the walk? Notice if things flowed easier, or about the same. Notice if you encountered new and different sensations.

Did distractions hit any differently after the walk?

How well does your video convey that feeling you experienced during the walk? And how does that change the energy and quality that the video embodies?

How does your video compare to your other work. Is it better or worse than some of your more planned videos? How about your performance - better or worse?

Here’s mine from last week’s “Reflect to Connect” challenge

@spontaneous_content

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How does that hit you? What could I have done better? I definitely have some notes for myself, but I got it done. Step one, baby!

Until next week, be spontaneous.

Best, ae