Sheryl is filled with TONS of content ideas, but they ‘hover in her brain” - then, another thought floods in & then another…

EVERYTHING seems important to write about - so before she can take action on the idea she’s already had, it winds up sitting in her brain,

replaced by the idea that comes after it!

This creates overwhelm & panic - knowing she’s NOT doing anything with the ideas is frustrating because ultimately, Sheryl isn’t serving her audience.

In today’s Content Creation Made Easy Podcast, Jen live coaches Sheryl to help her figure out how to stop overthinking & start taking action!

We uncover some old, hidden worries about “how to do it right” that have been holding her back..

We discuss personalized strategies to help Sheryl find her voice, be more conversational, and stop over-editing it all!

We also created a system to help her identify which ideas are most important, so she can step out of indecision…

But most importantly, Sheryl learns how to quadruple - or even 10x - her content ideas to keep her - and her audience - out of frustration, confusion, & overwhelm.

If you feel like you need to stop wasting time with your content creation - or need help with the overthinking that’s keeping YOU from taking action -

Listen in!

Because content creation shouldn’t require so much of you - and no one needs ONE MORE SINGLE DECISION to make!

Learn how to make content work for how YOUR BRAIN WORKS….

And to keep it fresh, organized, and easy so you and your audience never gets bored

CONNECT WITH SHERYL

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SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONTENT MADE EASY PODCAST ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLATFORM

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Full Transcript

Jen Liddy

I am really glad that you're here for today's episode of Content Creation Made Easy. This is one of my favorite types of episodes to do. 

It's when I get to coach one of the members from my Content Creation Studio, and I usually invite somebody who's been showing up and doing the work and really like, kind of clawing our way through and mucking through and figuring out to get some clarity. 

That is my guest today, Sheryl Turner, so I want to welcome Sheryl. She is a life coach, and she really focuses on helping women who are classic over thinkers. They overthink everything from people-pleasing to overly worrying, overly feeling fear, second-guessing being indecisive, so if that sounds like you, Sheryl is an expert in that.

Today we're going to get her some peace of mind so that she can experience some joy in her own content. That's what she does for women over-thinkers, and I'm hoping to bring her some joy and accomplishment today when we talk about her content. 

Thank you, Sheryl, for being here. I'm really excited to do this call.

Sheryl Turner

Thanks so much, Jen!

I'm super excited to be here and really appreciate the opportunity to touch on some things.

Jen Liddy

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. 

Why don't you start by telling us what drives you the most bonkers about your content?

Sheryl Turner

What drives me the most bonkers is I have great ideas, and I'm super passionate about what I'm doing and the women I work with. 

I'm able to start a lot of things around content. It's the middle part and then finishing that I struggle with. 

Jen Liddy

Okay, so ideas are not the problem!

I'm going to ask you a bunch of different questions just so I can get the lay of the land. I'm getting the sense that you're one of those classic waterfall ideas like the ideas just come to you like in a waterfall they're just plunging all the time - you're not like an empty well.

Are you ever overwhelmed by the amount of ideas that you have?

Sheryl Turner

Not directly overwhelmed. 

I think the overwhelm comes from realizing that I'm not doing something with them. That really, I'm not serving the people I need to be serving because the idea is just getting stuck in phase one.

Jen Liddy

How do you describe phase one?

Sheryl Turner

Well, I should say phase two.

Phase ones in my brain, well, to get them out on paper, so phase two, and then they just hover there, and then I'll have the next thought about something that's important to write about, and you know, and I'll get it out, and there it sits.

Jen Liddy

Okay, yeah. 

So do you have a parking lot or a library or a vault where you just keep all of your ideas in one place?

Sheryl Turner

Mostly one place, I actually type most of my blogs in word in a Word document that is somewhat organized. You know, it used to be 50 Word documents, but I organize that, and then when I'm out walking, I'll get a lot of ideas, then I will put it in the Notes app o my phone, so that helps.

Jen Liddy 

So inside the Content Creator Studio membership, we talk a lot about what your home base is, like, where you want your content to be published. For you, is a blog your home base? Is that like the main kind of content that you're creating? 

Sheryl Turner

Yes. 

Jen Liddy

How long have you been publishing your blog or working on your blog as your home base?

Sheryl Turner

Well, that's really the big thing is, I haven't been. 

I have the blogs written or started but haven't actually put a plan in place to publish, and I did that mainly because I wanted to be sure that once I started doing something, I was able to do it with and be consistent with it. 

Which is why I joined our group, and that's been great, and then I suppose to connect it to that is I love learning, and I can tend to consume or over-consume information. And realizing that that is also keeping me from actually, you know, going through the process and finishing things too. 

So I've sort of pulled away from going into the membership vault and with all the learning and then just coming to the group calls where I'm able to, you know, I think just give it a much more concise plan.

Jen Liddy

I think that's a great strategy - I use the content vault-like you know, the membership site, all those trainings, those are there for me to direct people to, but I always think the most important thing is to come to a call because especially if you're like sorting through a lot of things and you're an over-thinker like you are let's just like kind of zone in on your stuff. 

We know you have a home base, ideas are not your problem, so I feel like there's some perfectionism happening around, whatever the next step is for you, so talk to me about what happens. 

You have the idea, and you get it down on paper, what's the sticking point for you?

Sheryl Turner

That's also a classic over-thinkers tendency, and perfectionism comes from - well, you were a teacher, right? So kind of going back to how we were instructed in school, there's a right way and a wrong way, grammatically, punctuation and so on and so often have to, I'll write in my formal writing or business writing even. Then I have to go back in and edit to sound less professional, which I know sounds crazy, but it's the way I talk with my friends and with clients.

Jen Liddy

When you think about how you would talk to your clients, it's more conversational and informal, and if you were to meet a potential audience member at the grocery store, and she started talking, you'd go back and forth, and it would be very informal and casual. 

Part of what I'm hearing you say now is, I want to find a voice in my blogs that matches what my audience needs to hear and how I want to talk.

Sheryl Turner

Exactly. 

Jen Liddy

This is really a problem of I haven't quite honed my voice yet, and I've got this holdover from being a learner, and probably as an overthinker and maybe a perfectionist. Like you were a really great student who was following all the rules, and so maybe there's still a little bit of that English teacher with the red pen in your mind when you're writing something.

Sheryl Turner 

Mhm - one hundred percent!

Jen Liddy 

This is all really good to unearth because we now know one of the things we can start to do with your blogging is think of it as more conversational.

I feel like the struggle here is that I've got the idea, I can write it, so I do write it, but then I have to go back and edit it to make it sound more like me, and that's just more time. 

So would the goal be to have it come out the first time as if you were just talking to somebody?

Sheryl Turner

I mean, yeah, I would like that goal - I don't even mind going back to edit it to sound like I found. 

I get hung up there like I can even edit it and do that, and I have, and then it's taking it the next step, which is formatting it, I suppose, and putting it on the blog. And then you know, obviously we've talked in the group about from they're pulling out nuggets for socials and such.

Jen Liddy

This is a stumbling block for you is just getting it out. 

Okay, so then let's talk about what the real problem is, if you say you don't mind the time of going back to edit it to bring in more of a casual Sheryl versus academic Sheryl. 

What's keeping you from doing that? If that's all you had to do, like say that we were going to stop after that, you didn't have to worry about formatting or publishing. What's the stopping point there for you?

Sheryl Turner

That's a good question, let me sort of feel into that for a second.

I think it's which of the ideas are the most important, right? So if I've got a lot, then they're sort of competing for my attention, I suppose. In that way, that's one thing, so that's a perfectionist, maybe sort of thing too. 

That's also, you know, some of that indecision we teach what we're working on in order to learn to write right, so I get kind of hung up on that and don't actually land on one thing that's the most important just for now, just for today.

Jen Liddy

This is such great clarity. 

So, I want to talk a little bit about your audience before we go any deeper. Your audience, they're overthinkers, they're probably worriers, you said they have a hard time making decisions. 

So would you say that your audience struggles to have a lot of extra time?

Sheryl Turner

I would say yes, that these women probably feel like I once did. 

I'm certainly much better in so many areas than I once was, they might use the word overwhelmed a lot and just feeling always feeling like they don't have enough time to do the things that they want to do and that they're maybe always at the mercy of something or someone else and not spending time on themselves.

Jen Liddy 

For you, it would be really important that your blogs be all about them, really speak to something that they're struggling with so that they feel seen. 

Say you had a blog about a topic give me a topic that your audience would really enjoy or need to hear about?

Sheryl Turner

I think two of the key ones can be second-guessing themselves even if they do make a decision, they'll spend time second-guessing that to make the quote right decision. 

We all know there's really no right decision, that was some for so many years, and that's one of them. Then people-pleasing, and maybe those two do tie in, and in some ways, those would be two key ones.

Jen Liddy

So let's say we were talking about indecision alone - these are two huge topics you've just pulled up: indecision, second-guessing, and then people-pleasing. 

I bet that on each of these topics, you have a lot to say, a lot to teach, a lot of stories, a lot of examples, a lot of tools, right? And if we're talking about a woman who is overwhelmed and constantly exhausted because she's always second-guessing herself, would it be beneficial to her to have a small nugget in your blog that she could really resonate with. Rather than trying to teach maybe three or four things in a blog and for you to decide which one of these things is more important? 

What if you had like teaching about indecision, and I have four things I want to say or 10 things I want to say. What if we broke each of those things up into 4 tiny little blogs or 10 tiny little blogs, which works for you because now you don't need to decide what's most important and where does it go, and how do I organize it, and they don't need to kind of sort through all 10 at one time.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, I love that idea.

Jen Liddy

You could basically like quadruple or even 10 times, depending on what you're talking about. It frees you up to find your voice and do all the stuff we talked about at the top of the call, and it gives them the opportunity to just take that bite-sized nugget and say, like, wow, this really resonated with me. 

I'm going to go try this little thing Sheryl wants me to do.

Sheryl Turner 

Okay, so just so I'm clear, so I would take, say, maybe the topic of people-pleasing, and then just break that down into different elements and how that shows up. 

Bring in my stories are a few around that.

Jen Liddy 

Yeah, let's talk about a strategy or system that might work for you. 

So say like, so if you're on board that we're going to give them less, which actually gives them more, right. If you're on board with that, then let's talk about a system that might work for you. There are options, some people love to write with that brain dump mentality - let me get everything I want to say about people-pleasing, let me get it out of my head. 

It just goes like push, and you got a huge, almost like a huge Word doc, that's one strategy. I feel like that might be overwhelming for you because then you have to decide what goes in blog one, what goes in blog two. 

Another strategy for you might be instead of writing anything, I want to talk about people-pleasing and your children, you know, people-pleasing with your children like now we've narrowed it down a little bit. We're not talking about this huge weight of people-pleasing, we've gotten in a lane that's a little more specific, and I have some things to say about people-pleasing when it comes to your children, and I'm going to bullet point them. 

Just bullet pointing, not actually writing anything, and you'll probably come up with 5,6,7,8, maybe even 15 bullets of things you want to say about this one teeny tiny topic.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, that seems much more doable.

I've been doing the braindump kind of thing, and I can sort of separate them into different main ideas, but that's as far as it generally goes.

Jen Liddy

Rather than starting with the brain dump for you, which for you is a little bit paralyzing because now you have to wade through everything. 

We're going to start with just the bullet points, and here's what could happen, say you took bullet point one, you're like, I'm just going to write my blog only on bullet point one. You do it, and you have a lot to say on it, and you realize you're kind of encroaching, or it's getting a little bit long. 

And you're like, now I see I'm starting to bleed into a different bullet point, and I've got that on my list, and I don't have to talk about that here. I can talk about that in next week's blog, so this bulleted list, and again we've got a very narrow lane - it's people-pleasing with your children, right. 

Now, this bulleted list is almost like when you're a kid, and you play bowling, and you've got the bumpers when you're bowling, so you can't go into the gutter. It's kind of like giving yourself those bumpers because you've got the bullets, and you seem likable to talk about it. I just don't have to talk about it here, I can stay in my lane right now. 

How does that feel?

Sheryl Turner

I really like that idea. 

If I tell myself that certainly in other things because that's just how my brain works and learning to appreciate those qualities that are positive about it. I don't have to think about this right now or do this thing right now. I like that because I know already three or four things came to mind, three or four bullets just off the top of my head, just under that.

Jen Liddy

One of the things that might really help you is to have a sticky note or a minder somewhere that reminds you that you're not just doing this for your own ease. 

It actually helps your audience connect with you that much more.

Sheryl Turner

Then do you recommend just keeping it, you know, fairly short, giving tips within that or just?

Jen Liddy

That's a good question. 

I like to keep our audiences in mind, and there are lots of different kinds of blogs you can do. You might have a bullet point that really lends itself to a story. Just a story to connect with people just to get them interested. 

You might have another bullet point that lends itself to a tiny tool, or a tiny how-to for that person, or a tiny shift that the person could make right. You might have another bullet point that lends itself to breaking down some myths or some lies about this thing that are out in the world. You don't have to do it the same way every time. I really liked this idea for you because the more that you trust yourself to write it in your voice, you will learn to trust yourself in the style that the blog shows. 

Like this one is going to be perfect, I have the perfect story for this little topic, or this is something I see people messing up all the time if they would just change this one thing, and I'm going to give it to them in this blog. The other thing a blog could do is share resources right like you could present an issue or a problem, and then you could say you know, when I read this book, it changed my life about this topic. 

You'll get better and better, but having it be small to start lets you build up that muscle in confidence, and you might find like they get longer because you're just feeling more confident and in your abilities, but that beginning, giving yourself some grace is good for you, but it's also good for your audience.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and that I don't necessarily have to incorporate the story and a tool and resources all in the same thing.

Jen Liddy

Yeah, and if you can consider this, your audience wants their life to be easier. 

They want to stop overthinking, and when you try to solve every one of their problems in one blog post, you've not only burned yourself out, but they maybe get through a quarter of it, and they go something like this. 

Oh, this is really good, I'm going to save it and come back to it, and then we know that they never do right. It's actually in service to our audience to give them a little bit less in a more focused way because that's what they can absorb at the time. Especially since you said they're busy, they're overwhelmed, they're overthinking, like what can they handle at any one time?

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, and that was me. 

I mean, I did exactly that, and I would read these great articles. I'm dating myself here, but back in the day when we didn't have the internet to save everything, but just you know, cutting out our big things. I had just a huge folder of things I wanted to read.

Jen Liddy

Can you imagine for your particular audience what that does to them? 

Oh, I should be doing this, I should be reading this, I'm a loser because I haven't gotten back to this. Sheryl told me exactly what I should do, and now I haven't done it, and it makes them even harder on themselves.

Sheryl Turner 

Yeah, and that's probably my key thing around - all of it. 

Is that how much women sort of beat themselves up for all the things and, you know, in a weird way, kind of secretive around stuff like this. 

Jen Liddy

Yeah, like there's shame around it.

Sheryl Turner

Because there's some shame and so also kind of teaching them how to give themselves grace with really literally all of it is important.

Jen Liddy

Yeah, and your voice is so gentle, calm, and knowledgeable, and your audience like they would just like to sop up what you have to say with a biscuit, but they just have to get through it.

They have to be able to get through it, and it has to be readable and consumable for them.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah.

Jen Liddy

What we're doing first is chunking it down so that it can get done. 

What I'd like to talk about is now that we have a system. Does it feel good for you, the system?

Sheryl Turner

It feels great.

Jen Liddy

Okay, so the system, we make the system work for you like we don't, you know, we have to personalize the system. The second thing is, let's talk about Sheryl's voice like Sheryl, the coach, Sheryl, the warm hug, right? Like, what does your voice sound like? 

How can we get that to come out in your blogs? Once you've written it in a more academic style, you can make it more conversational, but wouldn't it save you a lot of time if it could just come out the first time in a more conversational tone?

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, it would. 

When I've done the brain dumps, those probably sound more conversational, but they're not at all cohesive.

Jen Liddy

Okay, so being more so, you're saying your process of being more academic in the writing at first or more formal in the writing at first helps you organize your ideas?

Sheryl Turner

It seems to, I mean, that's just what I'm used to.

Jen Liddy

Okay. 

Well, that might be just part of your process then, but if we're writing shorter blogs, maybe it's okay that then you go back and you make them more conversational after you've written them. 

Maybe that's just like your process like we've just got to honor your process. One of the things I was going to suggest is speaking what you want to say, like actually opening up an app and speaking it, like speaking so once you bullet-pointed in when you pulled a blog topic instead of sitting down to write it through your fingers, you write it through your voice and just I'd be curious to see how that comes out for you.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, me too.

Jen Liddy

An idea could be if you like, if you were going for a walk and you started recording yourself, you could do that but you could also I don't know how comfortable this would be for you. 

You could sit down, open up Zoom, and record yourself just talking through this even if you had your bullet points in your outline, you could speak it. You could either get it transcribed or just listen back to it and see, but these are just practices to see what the next step of the system is for you.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, that's a great idea. 

I've used both actually opening up zoom and doing the voice app when I'm walking but not for this purpose. I can see how that really can help me to both get the thoughts out and then speak in my voice and then when I'm editing that, just pull out the excess redundancies and that kind of thing.

Jen Liddy

Yeah, when I started doing that, I want to warn you it was a little bumpy at first, like if I felt very self-conscious doing it, but it did ultimately helped me. 

But again, these are all experiments that we're doing to find a system that works for you.

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, I love that idea. 

There is a point, I mean, I've wanted for many years since I first discovered podcasts, I really would love to have a podcast someday too. 

Today was a big leap out of my comfort zone, so I like that idea a lot. I feel like just those two things can help me a lot as I'm sort of running it through my brain.

Jen Liddy

What do you need to put in place as a reminder that this is your system, and it doesn't need to be perfect, and it's really an experiment so that you don't kind of fall back into some old habits of overwriting?

Sheryl Turner

I think like I've been doing just with my calendar, I have everything sort of set up to do, and it's just writing the note next to it. Done is better than perfect, and then now just picking one thing, like the people-pleasing with children or at work or whatever it might be and just sticking to that instead of thinking there's a better idea.

Jen Liddy

Well, you'll probably start to notice I just want to kind of bring this to your attention. 

You're going to find that you say similar things, but you're probably using different examples and different stories and different specifics, and that's okay. Your audience needs to hear this stuff 1000 times before it makes sense to them, so don't worry that like, oh boy, I've said some version of this when I talked about it with kids, but now I'm talking about it with your partner that's okay.

People need a lot of touchpoints, so that's something to keep in mind. I want to talk about one last thing that you brought up, which is, now that we've talked about the ideas and the scaling down, and then scan the system that'll work for you. What about publishing because you said one of the struggles is actually publishing them, so talk to me about what that does to you.

Sheryl Turner

I actually don't feel like that part of it would be so much of a problem. 

I taught myself how to use WordPress, I'm able to go into the backend of my website and do things that I need to do that part of it, and it doesn't feel like I don't even know the right word, but it doesn't feel like I don't want to be seen or I'm hiding, or some kind of that part of it is not an issue anymore. 

Certainly, at one time, it was but not so much anymore, and I think it's just it really is just that phase three of taking what I have and just taking one thing and making that even smaller. That also feels like something that, if I'm doing that, that I can be consistent with, which is another piece to the puzzle.

I really appreciate it, this feels like for the first time in quite a long time that I can do it.

Jen Liddy

So happy! 

I would love to talk about what has been most helpful for you of being part of the Content Creator Studio.

Sheryl Turner

Well, I love your content, and I think that that does make it more manageable, probably for the average person for me. When I go through it, I really have to slow down and just do whatever that one section is and then do the work right, not just watch the video and do the work. 

So that's why I set it aside for a while, coming back consistently to the calls, even the ones where we just the 55-minute one.

Jen Liddy

The getting shit done in the implementation hours.

Sheryl Turner

Exactly what it is. 

That helps me a lot because that makes me accountable even though we're not on camera necessarily or we're not talking about all that we're doing. We're just checking in and then doing our own thing that's helpful and then the coaching calls, even if I'm not being coached listening to everyone else, there's almost always some little nugget in there that applies to what I'm doing. 

Then there are sometimes parts of it like wow, these women, I think it's all women right at this point, they're all they're doing stuff, and they're taking steps and further. There's a little bit of that external motivation that I see, you know, they're doing it and especially if I've been in there or they've been in there around the same time I was that they're taking steps. Then this is what I need to do so that I can take mine and, and also to that's through you and your coaching style, which I love, and it's so helpful, and you're really compassionate. 

I heard on our last call just how you broke it down - someone who was using certain words, and you sort of reframed it in a more compassionate way of looking at whatever it was she was talking about, and I took that in for me, so that was helpful. 

Jen Liddy

I'm really glad you're here because I feel like content is a necessary part of the landscape in our business. 

It can be overwhelming, and it can flatten us, and we're all experts in our field, but we're not experts in content and so I really wanted to create a place where people don't have to be experts in content. 

Just take the little nuggets that they need and apply them and tweak, tweak, tweak. I feel like that's what you're doing, and that's why I invited you on for today, and I'm really glad that you let me give you some coaching, and then we were able to create I think it's a really personalized system for you.

Sheryl Turner

I think so too! 

I'm super grateful to have the time one-on-one, and that is that it feels like it fits me in my style to get it done.

Jen Liddy

You'll have to post your next published blog in the group so we can all give you some claps for that.

Sheryl Turner

I will do that.

Jen Liddy

Okay. Anything else I can help with, Sheryl?

Sheryl Turner

Yeah, no, I'm good.

Jen Liddy

My pleasure. 

How can people connect with you to learn more about your expertise? Where can they go?

Sheryl Turner

You can go to my website, which is https://sherylturnercoaching.com/.

Or you can find me on Facebook at Sheryl Turner Coaching or not on Instagram so much, mostly Facebook, LinkedIn, or my website.

Jen Liddy

Go give Sheryl a follow because we're going to be seeing some content coming out from her very soon. 

Thanks, Sheryl. It's such a pleasure.

Sheryl Turner

Thank you, Jen.

Jen Liddy

You're welcome. Bye, everyone.