You fantasized of creating your first online course. You enthusiastically announced it to your network. You have several great ideas circling around in your head and you want to get them out into the world. You know your content and can recite it in your sleep. You started working on your course, but it has been a while because now you are stuck. You are apologetic whenever anyone asks you how it is going. You feel as though you've let yourself down. 

In reality, this is part of the course creation journey so there is no failure and nothing to apologize for. In this post I'm sharing five tips to help you get unstuck and back on track when you are creating a course. 

Tip 1 

Don't make your first online course, your signature course. If it makes sense for your topic, make your first course a mini-course. This makes a task that seems insurmountable a lot more manageable. In your business, would it be more sensible to create several mini-courses and then sell them as a bundle later? Remember, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Once you complete it, you will gain momentum to continue with a larger course. 

Consider starting out with an introductory course where your students just put a toe in the water. Dipping a toe in the water might not sound exciting, but it could be a big deal if you do it right.  When your students begin to notice changes, begin to learn different ways of thinking or different ways of looking at their problem, and begin to dabble with exercises to get them accustomed to the idea that change is possible for them, that's a great introductory course. It gets results, but it is not the total transformation. 

Tip 2 

Rather than dwelling on being stuck, try shifting your focus. When you are stuck, you are not in a good position to think creatively and clearly.  Put your course content aside for a bit and work on other course-related tasks such as the email sequences,social media ads, sales page. It even helps to work on a simple, unrelated task such as walking the dog, cooking dinner, laundry. Then return to your work. The brain break may be just what you need to sort things out. 

Tip 3 

Snooping on someone else’s course both related and unrelated, could be inspirational. You will not be taking their ideas--just getting a fresh perspective on things.  Study how their course is assemble and sequenced and see how you might do the same with your course.  You may get more confident that you are able to do what they are doing and fire you up.

Tip 4 

If the amount of work that is involved in creating a course is overwhelming,  hire contractors or virtual assistants.  For you, that may look like simply hiring your teenage cousin to conduct research. Or perhaps someone to collate some of your existing podcasts for re purposing into course content. This frees up your time to work on tasks that are important to you and in your zone of genius. Leave the mundane, repetitive tasks to someone else. 

Tip 5  

When you are thinking about launching your course, it can get super overwhelming with everything you have to do. Break up the tasks into main categories. It also often comes down  to having some sort of checklist or guide to walk through the process. When you have a step-by-step guide through the process, you always know what to do next because you’ve planned and scheduled it.

The good news is that it becomes easier to create a course once you have a few of them under your belt. My first course was both fun and painful to create.  I may have given up had I not enrolled in a paid program that walked me through it.

My coach, Marisa Murgatroyd, says:

THE best accountability happens when you have actual skin in the game… and that doesn’t come from those at your current level of progress. It comes from investing in professional support..

(CLICK to Tweet this quote)

Even though I had a lot of feedback and insight on how to do it, there were still times when I had to wing it, which I would never suggest anyone do. Once I began to create a few additional courses over the years I definitely saw that the process was clearer and I also understood what my audience wanted and needed much better.