What’s the easiest way to overcome writer’s block?
Write to yourself.
Most people forget to write to themselves when they put pen to paper (or pixels to screen)
The easiest person to talk to is yourself.
You can talk to:
The younger version of yourself
Or
The older version of yourself
It’s that simple.
I first heard this concept from Dan Koe.
And ever since then it’s made my writing much easier.
As a matter of fact, I’m following that principle right now.
And here’s why you should, too.
Writing to yourself does 3 things:
Makes it easy to give advice to yourself (in real-time)
Helps you improve your life
Teaches you internal life lessons (not external).
In essence:
Writing to yourself helps to internalize what’s going on in your mind.
Internalizing is deciphering.
Deciphering your mind is a superpower that very few people use.
Most people are:
Anxious about the past, present, and future.
Worried about what people think about them.
Replaying negative stories in their heads like a broken record player.
When you write, you release the junk out of your brain.
It’s a chance to data dump so to speak.
When you data dump your thoughts, you free your brain up for:
Brilliant ideas
Memory Space
New Knowledge
The benefits of writing to yourself are limitless.
That’s why it’s a superpower.
If you don’t write to yourself, then write to a friend.
Writing to a friend is an easy way to jot down what you really want to say to someone.
For example, most of my YouTube content was created for friends.
A majority of my Marketing Cloud blog articles were written to answer my friend’s questions.
If you keep answering the same questions over and over, it may be time to start writing.
The questions that a friend asks are the questions that other people ask.
Who knows, your writing could go viral just by answering people’s questions.
Helping people solve their problems is how you grow an audience as a creator.
Right now, you’re probably asking...
What should you write about?
Here are some recommendations:
What lessons do you want to teach yourself?
What stories do you want to share?
What ideas do you want to brainstorm?
Which tasks do you need to complete?
Write down your:
Ideas
Concepts
Frameworks
Lessons
Stories
They’re not doing you any good up there in your brain.
You need to organize the information in your mind.
That’s exactly what writing does.
Writing structures your mind.
But what about the structure in which you write?
Writing Structures
Now that you know what to write about, you need a structure for writing.
Think of writing structures as:
Filing cabinets to help you organize your ideas.
Most people write, but they don’t think about their writing structure.
You see it all the time when people write blobs of paragraphs.
Blobs of paragraphs are where ideas go to die.
And people do it all the time in:
Emails
Text messages
LinkedIn posts
Writing structures aren’t taught in school.
If they are, they're based on old, historical writing.
That’s why you never liked writing English papers.
It was old and stuffy writing.
Your ideas need room to breathe.
Give them space.
Writing structures allow you to plug your ideas into a framework.
Notice how everything I’m saying is one or two sentences long.
Then, I move to the next sentence.
That’s what you call “giving your ideas room to breathe.”
The next question you might be asking is:
What are some good writing structures to follow?
3 writing structures to follow:
7 Days to Genius
Ultimate Sales Letter
How to Teach Your Frameworks
Let’s break down each one.
Structure One: 7 Days to Genius
Topic
Brain dump
References
Big problem
Big benefit
Objections
Personal experience
Frameworks
When I use the 7 days to genius writing structure, people get inspired.
This one always gets good feedback.
Big props to Dan Koe for sharing this writing structure in his 7 days to genius challenge.
He took the challenge off of his website.
But it was legit while it lasted.
Structure two: The Ultimate Sales Letter
Open with a shocking statement
State the problem and why it’s a big deal
Agitate the problem
Make it even worse for them (to push them over the edge)
Introduce the solution
Credibility: why they should listen to you
Proof
Exactly what you get
Specific reasons to act now
The close
I have to give credit to Jim Edwards for this one.
He has this structure on point.
If you're trying to sell something, this is the formula.
Structure three: Framework For Teaching Frameworks
Share how you learned or earned it (the path from A to B)
Share the strategy (each step)
The tactics (each specific step inside of the strategy steps)
Case studies of other people you’ve helped who have achieved success with your framework.
If you want to teach people how to do something, this is what you use.
If you're a teacher or coach, this is how you get your students to care about what you're teaching.
Plus, this is the roadmap to success for your students.
How to Use These Writing Structures
Use these writing structures to:
Create emotion
Stay on track
Tell a coherent story
Keep people engaged.
Convince people to take action.
How do these structures help you?
All you have to do is follow these structures and fill your content into the right spots.
Following a writing structure will 10x your writing speed and quality.
Over time, you’ll create your own structures.
Over time, you’ll start to freestyle when you write (and it’ll still follow a coherent structure).
If you’re writing and you don’t follow a proven structure, you may miss the mark.
Your writing needs to do something to the reader.
If not, you’ll lose their attention, and they’ll go somewhere else online.
You need to spark emotion and make them interested in your story.
It’s up to you to keep them engaged long enough to read all the way through.
You’re writing should have a goal.
Whether that’s:
Getting them to change their behavior
Change their actions
Make a purchase
Follow you
Hit the subscribe button
A writing structure helps you stay on track and accomplish your goal.
To summarize
If you want to overcome writer's block, follow three steps:
Write to yourself
Pick a topic to talk to yourself about
Follow writing structure
It's that simple.
If you follow the three steps above, you won't worry about what to say or how to say it again.
Kaelan Moss - MinuteAdmin Out ✌🏽
