Here Are The Six Critical Writing Lessons I’ve Learned After Publishing My 200th Medium Article.
And how they can help you save time, make more money and give you energy.
Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
Writing online has changed my life for the better.
And it has the potential to change yours too if you absorb these lessons.
Here are my results (so far):
I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars.
I’ve built a six-figure consulting business.
I’m building a LinkedIn Branding agency.
I’ve connected with people all over the world.
I’ve become a magnet for amazing opportunities.
But more than the results from my writing is the person I’ve become.
“The major value in life is not what you get.
The major value in life is what you become.”
Here are the hard-earned lessons I wish I knew earlier.
It sounds cliche as hell, but your mindset is everything
Whether you believe you’re a right writer or not, you’re right.
The story you tell yourself is the story you become.
Don’t believe you can become a writer? Then you’re not going to be.
Want to become a writer? Then start today.
It’s that simple.
There are no physical barriers stopping you from being a writer, only psychological ones.
Consistency beats talent when talent is not consistent.
I got below average in English in high school.
I never studied English or writing in college.
I didn’t have the right ‘skills’ or ‘qualifications’ to be a writer.
Yet, from the introduction, I’ve had some great successes with writing.
Everything I do in business is based on my writing ability.
But how did I overcome the talent gap? Consistency.
I sit down and write every day.
I don’t care where I am, what I am doing, or who I am with.
I feel sad. I write.
I feel angry. I write.
I feel unmotivated. I write.
I say f*ck off to my emotional state for the day and just get down to business. No excuses.
These results are from a bloke who doesn’t really understand the difference between ‘has’ and ‘as’ (it’s true).
In short, if a total nobody like me can do it, so can you.
Routine is not something, it is everything.
Your daily structure produces scalable results.
If you can sit down at the same time every day and write, success becomes a guarantee, not a lottery.
So many of my friends are better writers than me. I would kill for their natural talent. But they can never build a routine for writing.
They would get bursts of energy to write. Do it for a couple of weeks. Then quickly flame out and not write anything for months or years. They would repeat this cycle until they got frustrated and quit.
My success comes from showing up every day and not quitting. It’s a stupidly simple strategy and it works.
Flow is the only way you grow.
A distracted mind produces distracted writing.
You don’t need to lock yourself in a cave, but you do need to put yourself in an environment where your writing can thrive.
Flow is a state of optimal performance arousal. A hyperproductive state where high performance and high-quality output feel easy. Ideas come out like a roaring river.
It’s a superpower we all possess, but few access it every day (or ever).
The 1% of writers who make a living off their writing understand this. They exploit flow. The 99% of writers who don’t make money get distracted by notifications, social media and the news.
Schedule flow into your calendar. Limit distractions. Let others know they can’t reach you during this time.
There are three archetypes you need to master.
The archeologist — brainstorming ideas
The artist — writing ideas
The judge — editing ideas
Why?
The archeologist allows you to find and create raw materials.
The artist sculpts the raw material into something real, but imperfect.
The judge whips everything into shape, reducing excess and waste.
When you sit down to write, decide beforehand which mindset you’re going to use.
Most writing sessions are failures if you use the wrong mindset at the wrong time.
A judge will dismantle any new ideas because they aren’t perfect. An artist will have difficulty killing their darlings. The archeologist is too vague to turn any idea into something tangible.
Match your archetype to the purpose of your writing session.
You can’t control virality, but you can control this.
Detach completely from the outcome.
You can’t control outcomes:
People’s judgment
Algorithms
Engagement
You can only control the process:
Effort
Practice
Mastery
Focusing on outcomes creates short-term distractions.
It’ll leave you chasing false gods, stifling your creativity for the sake of views, and leaving you frustrated.
Focusing on the process creates long-term results.
You’ll prioritize your growth, be open to trying new things and learn to use failures as data to improve yourself, not as a punishment.
Only you can decide where you invest your focus.
Whatever you do, don’t be boring.
Whether you love or hate me, you can’t claim I am boring.
The worst thing you can do is sit on the fence and not have an opinion about something.
People read your work for your voice and opinion. If they wanted facts, they can use Google or ChatGPT.
Pick a side. Fight for your audience. Appeal to emotions. Don’t be boring.
I repeat, don’t be boring.
Also don’t adopt extreme views for the sake of engagement either. Your audience can smell insincerity like a bad fart.
Put your voice out there. Be criticized. Take on feedback. Learn from mistakes.
The best value proposition you can offer is your personality.
Your level of writing will never exceed your level of personal growth.
The best writers I know are self-learners.
They are voracious readers, hunters of knowledge and have an unquestionable thirst for applying information.
Their curiosity is infectious. They constantly ask questions. They have the confidence to keep following their curiosity, where ever it leads them.
They are constantly experimenting, testing and iterating. They use failures as data points, not as tools to punish themselves.
The fastest way to stagnant as a writer is to stop learning.
Keep moving and improving.
You write to understand how you think.
“Since you write, you must have so many ideas.”
Wrong.
I write in order to understand what I think, not the other way around.
Writing converts thoughts into reality. It reflects your deepest thoughts to you. There’s no getting away from it.
It’s only when I sit down to write do I fully understand what I am trying to say about a topic. Most of the time I scrap it. Other times I have revelations.
When you’re forced to articulate an idea through words, you get good at distilling ideas, formulating an opinion and communicating it in a way that is engaging.
Writing is the cheapest form of therapy.
Writing makes you a better public speaker
When you write, you clarify your thoughts.
When you clarify your thoughts, you can articulate them better.
I often get asked how I learned to articulate my thoughts so well. I say I read and write every day.
By the time I go to speak about a topic, I’ve already read the best books out there and processed my thoughts by writing.
Writing is a meta-habit that improves all other habits.
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