Building confidence as a beginner writer is hard. 

It’s hard to come up with something to teach or share, and even harder to put it in writing. And the hardest part is posting it on the internet. You can’t help but think people will ridicule you if you are not confident in what you are saying. 

There are different goals when writing:

• To teach

• To inspire

• To entertain

Having these goals in mind creates too much pressure. You work too hard to feel like an expert so someone can learn from you. You try too hard to inspire, so you come up with fake achievements to sound like a fake guru. You try too hard to entertain, so your content doesn’t feel natural. 

Imposter syndrome is real. 

It doesn’t go away. You just have to know how to deal with it. How do you learn how to deal with things? By trying it plenty of times.

It’s impossible to not get immune to something if you do it 100+ times. 

I know this seems cliche, but you just have to go through this phase even if it’s uncomfortable. 

The first time you post something that flops, you feel like crap. The second time, you still do. The third time, you still do. But once you get through this, it feels like normal. You have to get to this part until you are okay with posting something that nobody reads. That way, you can improve your craft without worrying about what people will think. 

Imagine when you are first learning to ride a bike. Your first fall will be hard. You feel like everybody is staring at you. You feel humiliated. But if you fall more times, it hurts your ego less (because you’re used to it). But this will help you keep getting up, so just put in more effort to improve your balance. 

When you can take off the pressure of people paying attention to your work — you improve a lot and focus on delivering. 

And this is how you deliver without being an imposter: 

Stop showing proof

What do you write about when you have nothing? 

People always post about their achievements:

Getting your first dollar.

Getting your first client.

Getting your first 1000 followers.

Getting your first 1M views. 

And then there’s you who is starting on Day 1. 

I was once there. And I started by writing to my past self. It’s always tempting to write about what you are learning:

• Books you read

• Lessons from other writers

• Pieces of advice that inspire you

But you can forget how far you've come and that is the most valuable thing you can offer. 

Imagine the person you were 2 years ago, what have you accomplished since then?

What types of videos did you watch? They seem basic and obvious to you now, yet these are exactly what you should write about. Stop thinking about the ones you haven't accomplished. 

If you do this daily for 30 days, you should start to get the hang of it.

Then, you can proceed to the next: 

Keep doing things

Now you have an experience, but you will still not recognize this because again, you’re thinking: best-selling books, million dollars, and followers. 

Here’s what you don’t realize: 

You just wrote 30 posts in 30 days. 

Boom! That’s your experience. 

Now you can write about how you developed your writing habit. How did you find the time to do it? Did you develop a system to make it easier to write? How did it change you? 

That’s a lot of content! 

And don’t forget the saying,

“If you want to be a great writer, live an interesting life.”

But here’s really where it gets exciting: 

Write about your failures 

After 2-3 months of writing online and still not getting a huge milestone, you’re going to start questioning if you are on the right path. 

But you are in a much better place than most writers. 

If you still haven’t achieved anything, you can start showing proof of effort instead of outcomes. 

If you can’t write about your first client, first dollar, first 1k followers, write about: 

I wrote every day for 30 days and got 0 views. Will somebody read it? Probably not. But you can reframe it as mistakes you made on your 30 days of writing so people will not do the same. Will somebody find this valuable? Certainly. Not 1000 people but maybe one person who wants to save 30 days and can get ahead on Day 1. People want to save time and money, if you can help them with that then your content is valuable. 

And try to have this one person in mind instead of thinking you have to help 1000 people. 

By writing about your failures, you will realize how to reverse them and find your way to success.

PS.

Seven weeks left before a new year begins!

If you’ve been thinking about starting a side hustle, this is a great time to start. By the time people are starting their new year's resolutions, you’re already starting to make extra money 🙂 

If you need help, feel free to hit reply.

Or check out 30DaysTo1K to get start executing ASAP.