The gap between thinking and creating

Welcome to this week’s episode of Digital Creator!

In this episode, I’m talking about:

• The reason your best content ideas can crumble when recording.
• What Yale researchers discovered about how our brains trick us.
• 4 proven strategies to turn your mental content ideas into reality.
• And much more!

Transcript

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Speaker 0 0:07

let's play a game of have you ever , have you ever had a content idea that sounds so amazing in your head and then , as soon as you start putting it into motion , you start talking on camera or on your podcast , it just falls apart . When you hit record , it's like in your head , you can picture yourself delivering a perfect performance . You see it all . You've got the idea . It's basically already posted , maybe even hilarious jokes added in . All of a sudden you've up-leveled your content in your head Timing's perfect , flawless transitions but the second you hit record , it feels like your brain starts buffering . There's a psychological principle called the illusion of explanatory depth , and it's wild . When I found this out , I was like I got to make a quick episode on this . So in 2002 , yale researchers discovered that our brains create simplified , perfect versions of things we think we understand . Have you ever confidently tried explaining how to tie your shoes , only to realize you don't really know how to explain it ? I ran into this the other day with my daughter , who is not having full-on sentence conversations yet , but I found myself wanting to say things out loud when I'm doing them just to communicate to her and start to just kind of describe the world around us . And as I was tying my shoes , I'm like this is one of those things I can show you easier than I can tell you . I couldn't imagine trying to even describe how to tie shoes on a podcast episode . Maybe I should try that sometime . So back to the study .

Speaker 0 1:39

These researchers at Yale found that our brains create the simplified , perfect versions of things we think we understand . And they found that this was a shortcut for our brain to help our cave dwelling ancestors make quick decisions without getting lost in the details . And our brains still work the same way today . So when you plan content , it skips all the nitty gritty like the words , the transitions , the tone . It's like watching a trailer instead of the whole movie . You think you have an idea of the whole movie and these days , man , I watch trailers and I'm like I don't even need to watch the movie . Almost the same thing with some content ideas in our head where we have such a good idea and it plays out so perfectly . I'm like I don't even need to create it . It's so good or it's so fleshed out . We think we have a deeper understanding than we actually do . And if you want a fun little example of this movie trailer idea . Think of your favorite movie and then try to recall every single scene in order . It's pretty fuzzy , right ? So if we apply this phenomenon through the lens of content creation and our content ideas , our brain will show us a highlight reel and then tells us yeah , we got this , to save ourselves the trouble of going . You know what ? This idea is falling apart and it was not nearly as good as it was . In my head .

Speaker 0 2:53

I put together a few ways strategies , if you will , quick ones on how we can win this battle and we can actually take our ideas , and they end up being better than the initial idea . So there's four I came up with , and if you have a bonus fifth one , please let me know . Number one outline your main points . This is where you would slow down and shape your idea . I've done this a million times I come up with an idea and I just got to record it . I got to get it out . Sometimes that's really worked in my favor , especially on TikTok videos , where my quickest video that I've made has generated the most views . But if I looked at the success rate of slowing down and shaping my idea before I press record , I would say it is far slower than I would like to admit . It's interesting how , if we just outline our main points , it causes us to think out our ideas more and really go more in depth and make our content better than just hopping right in .

Speaker 0 3:46

Second , one is part of a letting go part one and part two . Let the details flow naturally , instead of trying to force something to be as good as your initial thought when you're outlining your main points . Don't try to pressure yourself into making it something that you think it needs to be . Instead , just let it be what it's going to be . And the letting go part two of this is embracing the imperfections . Some of your best details when you're outlining your main points or during your recording will be in the imperfections . And the funny thing is we often don't notice all of our imperfections . Like , I think I have an idea about my imperfections , but there's stuff that I don't know . You don't know what you don't know , and so , instead of trying to track down your imperfections , just let them go . And the fourth tip here is keep your good takes and don't judge too soon , even if things don't seem perfect to you .

Speaker 0 4:32

If you followed this idea of slowing down , shaping your idea and putting a little effort in the front end on the research area . Over time , I believe you'll look back and see it was exactly what you needed to do in order to make big improvements across all of your content , because , from everything I can see , the most successful creators use their mental version , that initial idea , as a storyboard , not as a script . So , to wrap this up , when your content doesn't match your mental masterpiece in your head , that's a perfect version that never actually existed . It's just your brain's highlight reel , and we want to make your actual version better than the highlight reel . And I'll end with a question have you ever had an idea that felt genius until you had to explain it ? I'd love to know . Catch you in the next one .