"I just don't enjoy it."
Good day,
Let's start with some reader feedback.
I hear this. Unsurprisingly this comment on my FB page comes from a mom. You can tell because
Moms know ourselves. We know what we like to do and what we don't like to do because...
Everybody demands we expend our energy on things we don't like to do all day long. LEAVE US ALONE. Someone else do it for a change. GAWD.
I respect this conclusion.
The question I'm asking myself today is whether it's possible to go from... hating writing and also--crucially--finding it energy-sapping
to...
finding it enjoyable and looking forward to it.
What makes writing enjoyable? Being good at it must make it enjoyable, right?
Ok. But not everyone's good at writing, right? What makes a person good at writing?
Innate talent? That's what I used to believe. In school, I grew up reading a set of authors who were the Great Writers of their times. I think that experience teaches us that some people can write but most people can't.
Some people are talented, and the rest of us should stay away.
...
It's true. Some people are more talented writers than others. But we all live a lot of our lives online and that means we all have to write.
It's kind of like saying that some people are more talented cooks than others. So even though we all have to eat, maybe those of us who are just middling cooks should... always eat out?
Leave cooking to the greats! Never put your own spin on those recipes. Your meals are only yummy if they're as good as a professional chef's.
We know this isn't true for cooking. You can enjoy it without being great at it. But can the same be true for writing?
...
What makes writing enjoyable?
From the cooking example we see that we get joy from it when we don't compare ourselves to innately talented cooks, or to pro chefs. Everyone deserves to cook her own food if and when she wants to. ...
Wanting to write. That's another thing that makes writing enjoyable. "Feeling like it."
You know what makes me feel like writing? Having some important shit to say that no one else is saying.
I was talking to a biz buddy a couple of weeks ago who told me that when she's really compelled to write something to her audience, she writes it, and she never checks the "stats" on those emails, podcasts, or blog posts.
"I don't care how many people opened, clicked, unsubscribed. I don't care if people liked it. Whatever. 'Y'all need to hear this.' That's all I'm thinking."
A-ha.
I'm the same way. When I have that "y'all-need-to-hear-this" feeling, it feels good to get out of my head and into the world.
So, where does that YNTHT feeling come from? And how can we get more of it? ...
You get it by taking the fangs out of the writing process. Remove the pressure to write something that will immediately result in a sale or some other productive metric within your business.
That may sound like sacrilege coming from a marketer. But the truth is, when you write to convince people, you’re not going to get good results, and you’re not going to enjoy the process, either.
When you write because you have something to share, you may or may not get good results, but you’ll enjoy the writing. You’ll say what you need to say. And you’ll be able to respond to feedback, because you’re not putting pressure on the writing to “make something happen” within your business.