Overcoming The Fear Of Writing

Written by a human, for humans, always.

In the digital world...

One of people's greatest fears is putting their ideas out into the world...

To be judged...

To be attacked...

To be forgotten.

Then, of the many ways you can put your ideas into the world...

The one that most people have the most difficulty with is writing.

Why?

Perhaps it is because the act of writing tends to be so personal...

Or because it forces you to confront whether you deeply know a subject...

It lays out everything in a way that makes it easy to see whether an individual has sound logic or flow to their ideas...

Or whether they are lacking in that department.

It is difficult to hide when the words can be read again and again, and seen and compared by sight...

Unlike video formats, where one can hide behind the fast-forward and rewind...

Or can present emotional reactions in such a way that they disguise the fact that they know vastly less than their emotional convictions appear.

This often makes written content one of the most feared mediums of presenting ideas in today's world.

I get it.

I used to struggle with writing my ideas as well.

I started my business about 10 years ago...

And between then and October of 2022, I had less than a handful of articles in total that I had published online.

In October, though, I made a decision to take a 30-day writing challenge...

Which I completed successfully.

The process felt so great that I made a decision that starting January 1st, 2023, I would write articles daily for one full year...

And I never stopped.

This article, on this Halloween Day, is my 1,400th Daily Article in a row.

I have not missed a single day since that fateful day...

And the results have been amazing.

I have had multiple award-winning articles in that time.

I have been...

Recognized as the Fortunna Executive Coaching Leader of the Year (Essentially, the Golden Globes of business)...

Featured in Times Square, New York...

Inducted as a Hall of Fame Leadership Coach...

And it has allowed me to become recognized at the level of the United Nations...

Consulting in areas of Leadership, Business, Health, and Psychophysiology.

Writing daily has changed my career trajectory in ways I never could have foreseen when I started...

No witch looking into a crystal sphere could have predicted such blessings.

So, today, in light of this 1,400th article in a row...

And the fact that it is Halloween, when people come face-to-face with their fears...

I felt it was appropriate to discuss what helped me overcome my writing fears...

So that those who wish may do so as well.

What allowed me to overcome my fear of writing?

The first is that I started small.

In the beginning, my articles had a minimum of 250 words...

And today I still maintain that minimum.

Most days I do significantly more...

And some platforms have higher minimum word counts for the types of articles I write...

Such as 600-word or 1,000-word minimums...

So if I am only able to hit that minimum that day for whatever reason, I cannot publish to those platforms.

Here is the thing...

Most people believe that they have to write significant and grandiose ideas out in the beautiful and illustrious ways to reach the masses with their brilliance...

And that is a great way to cause yourself greater fear.

Your first ideas will likely be mediocre.

Your first few dozen articles will not communicate your ideas as clearly as you imagined.

A large number of your articles will be met with utter silence.

Not to mention that a significant part of the population seems to have lost the ability to read anything longer than a two-sentence social media post.

So longer is not always better.

Start smaller so that you can get used to writing.

I also highly recommend that you keep a small minimum...

Because life happens...

And some days are going to be extremely difficult.

So many people think about writing from the idea of their best days of writing.

Don't.

You will have more bad days than good...

More days where you struggle than when it comes with ease...

More events and plans than you realized that make your writing time shorter than you had hoped.

When your minimums are too high...

You will most likely default to your old behavior...

Which is not writing.

That is not a moral failure, but rather a psychophysiological barrier.

When the pressure is too high...

The body retreats to doing what it knows best...

And until you have written enough days that writing becomes the retreat...

You're going to struggle to write longer articles and pieces.

So don't.

Just stay small.

Keep it small.

What many people do not realize...

Is that sometimes those smaller pieces end up being the best.

Which goes into my next point...

Publish it even if it doesn't seem perfect.

Some of my individual articles that have won awards...

Were pieces that I struggled to write the most...

Judged the harshest...

And published simply because I forced a deadline on myself to publish.

What you consider to be "less than"...

May end up being the piece that others relate to the most.

There is another similar thing to consider with this as well...

Few people actually care about what you are writing...

Especially in the beginning.

It is extremely rare that someone writes an article that goes viral and "that" becomes the base from which their entire career is built...

Then, of the few for whom that is true...

Usually, they end up being one-hit wonders that virtually disappear within a year or two...

Often being forced to pursue a completely new career within a decade.

I have seen it happen multiple times.

Far more often...

Is that you will write articles that most people will not read...

Even your best work.

I can tell you that some of my most powerful ideas...

The ones that actually do change people's lives today...

Originated from articles that no one has ever read.

But...

As you write about an idea...

You learn how to say things better...

Consider different angles...

And develop the idea further.

Eventually someone comes along, and when they see that idea developed more fully...

That is when it lands.

So stop worrying about whether someone is reading what you are writing...

They probably are not...

And that is great in the beginning because that means no one is actually judging it.

Just publish it.

It gets you in the habit of writing...

The habit of figuring out how you want to present your thoughts and ideas...

The time needed to actually process ideas into coherent written pieces.

When you begin to write enough...

Especially consistently...

That is when people begin to pay attention...

But that is never at the beginning of the journey...

So stop putting extra pressure on yourself at that stage.

Just write knowing that no one is judging it.

What is another thing that people are worried about?

Whether people will go back in the archive to read those older articles.

Is it possible?

Sure...

But it is also extremely unlikely...

Especially if you end up writing about.

Let me give you an example...

Do you have the time, energy, or dedication to read all 1,400 articles that I have written?

Of course you don't.

I don't!

Very few people do.

The more you put out into the world...

The less likely people are going to care about your older written pieces.

They will primarily focus on your newer pieces...

Especially in this day of social media, where most things disappear in 24 hours...

And what does not tend to last less than a week.

All the more reason to write more articles now when others are not actually watching.

Here is the next thing to keep in mind...

Feeling that fear is normal.

The reason you are feeling it...

Is because you are human...

And you do not have experience writing consistently.

It is a natural step that is a part of the process of becoming better at something.

So many people have this romanticized idea that they will just be "natural" at writing...

And the truth is that it is a unicorn-level of rarity for someone to feel natural at writing from the very beginning...

And of those few unicorns...

Most of them do not last for long...

Because their expectations of what writing is going to produce are a fantasy.

I have watched most of these "unicorn writers" disappear in less than a year.

Just accept that you are human and that it is alright if it does not yet feel natural.

That is the norm.

No one is just ready...

And the only way to feel ready is to do something over and over again...

Which only happens if you actually "do" the doing.

What else can you do to overcome the fear?

Realize that you are not alone.

You either have a support system around you currently...

Or you can find or create a support system.

It can consist of other writers...

Or it can just be people who care about you.

I have had both over the years.

But fear often overwhelms us because we struggle when we "feel" alone...

And one of the greatest ways to combat this is to ensure that you are not alone.

Support is one of the most powerful forces to help us throughout our lives.

Fear struggles against a united force...

And hope and power come from that unity.

One of the last pieces of advice that I will give here...

Is to be a little odd.

So many people believe that their writing needs to "look" or "sound" a certain way...

But do you know what is happening to most of those individuals right at this moment?

They are being accused of using AI...

Because AI mimics what is most common...

And what is most common in today's world are all of those things that "look" and "sound" that certain way.

People can always tell that my articles are 100% written by me.

How?

Because I write how I think...

How I speak...

Which is not the norm.

I embrace it.

I revel in it!

There are times when the grammar-checker tells me I "could" write things in a more...

"Correct" way...

And I ignore it because it is not how I speak.

Do some people like my writing less because of that?

Absolutely.

Especially those who are deeply indoctrinated as grammar police...

Usually, individuals whose lives revolve around critiquing things they are not actually contributing to in any meaningful way...

All in their need to feel something in a life where they are not really doing anything.

Those individuals are unlikely to be who you are actually writing to...

So ignore them.

Focus on putting yourself in your writing...

Even if it does not sound "right".

The right people will find your work if you keep at it...

And they will appreciate that you are real...

Unlike those who have confined themselves to sounding like robots in a world where robots are writing so much useless content on the internet.

Of course, if you are writing an academic paper or scientific research paper, you may have specific requirements...

And those rules are easy enough to learn...

But if you are publishing online, then put yourself into it.

Here is what you need to take away...

Having fear is normal...

But there is a difference between having fear and being controlled by fear.

Courage is having fear and moving forward anyway.

Halloween is a time when our fears are put out on display for everyone to see...

But here is what most people discover on Halloween...

The fears we have are usually worse in our heads...

Than what we end up seeing in reality.

Writing feels very scary...

But when you start writing...

You discover it's freeing.

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