In a world where so much wisdom, knowledge, information, and valuable content is delivered by the written word, it can be totally paralysing if you cannot write well, or rather when you are convinced you cannot write well. Blogging may feel like an insurmountable hurdle. And, trust, me, I know the feeling. I have been there. Trained as a construction engineer, loving numbers, calculus and anything I could count, add, subtract or multiply I grew up fully convinced that language and writing were not part of my skills, talents and achievements.

So, I didn’t write, hardly dared to write even, and I always felt I wasn’t worthy to share my true voice. If this resonates with you, then please read on… because at age 27, when working as an architect in London, I finally realised how much language and writing were very much part of me. And how much I loved it! Suddenly I felt so much better, and years later I took courses, became a qualified translator and ran a successful translation agency for 12 years – all about the written word. My point is, that writing is a skill. And skills can be learned. More importantly, everyone has important stories to tell, valuable content to share, insights to publish. So don’t sell yourself short: you, too, can write. And you must, because your story needs to be told, your customers deserve your valuable content, the world needs you to share your unique contribution.

What will this mean for your business in the long run?

Let me paint a picture for you: when you keep hanging on to thoughts like ‘I’m not a writer’, ‘I cannot write’, ‘I’m dyslexic’, or ‘I’m not good with words’ what will this mean for you and your business in the long run? It means you are selling yourself short. And that may not be so painful for you, at first sight. But the bigger picture is that you are selling your clients short, too. In a big way. Because there will be some much you have to offer, so much your clients can gain from you, in terms of growth, confidence, happiness, healthy, wealth… that you decide not to give. Just because you don’t know yet how you, too, can write and write well. You will be playing small, all the time. You will never be perceived as that amazing expert that you truly are. People just won’t know how much you have to offer. And yes, this will also impact your income, turnover, profits, and – let’s be clear on this – the overall scale of positive impact you have in you to make. Subconsciously this will affect you on all levels, so, forget your current beliefs, and start opening up to the possibilities that lie ahead for you.

How do start to write with confidence?

The question is, how do you go about starting to believe you can write? The only useful answer to that is: just start. Just start writing. Writing is a brilliant way to discover your inner pearls of wisdom, your inner gems of knowledge. You don’t need to think at this stage about anything other than writing down what you have inside you to share. And keep it to yourself, at first. Just write down what comes to mind, do this every day, like a brain dump, and start discovering what amazing stuff you write. I always surprise myself this way. There is absolutely no need to think beyond just writing what comes up. Putting it into words, just as the words come to you.

Don’t entertain any thoughts about publishing, what people will think, what comments you will get. Just write it down and keep it to yourself.

After a week or two… start reading what you’ve written. And enjoy that, celebrate your own writing nuggets! I know there will be pleasant surprises… and this will help you to gain confidence in your writing abilities. The next step would be to start collecting questions your clients may have. Keep a list of those. Just collect any questions you hear from your audience, and add them to your list. Even if they’re repeated questions, add them all. From now on, you can spend 5 minutes writing every day by writing down your answer to those questions.

You will find that any of those answers would make great posts on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Make sure you do that! You will get feedback, which is very useful for you and your business. You learn more about your audience and your audience engages with you. And interestingly enough, you won’t feel you are “writing” – you’re sharing valuable stuff with your audience. It never was about being ‘good with words’, or being ‘a bad writer’ or ‘being dyslexic’ (get someone to spell check for you before you post – that really is very simple for others, use their skills, you don’t have to do everything yourself!). It was all about connecting and creating a conversation with your audience. This is what blogging really is: creating a meaningful conversation with your audience.

The next step would be to answer three of such questions on one topic and – using the Blog Recipe – write your blog post, include a title, intro, and call to action, get it checked for spelling slips, and publish your blog post!

Now, I am quite curious about what you think. Please tell me in your comment below what your thoughts are on the subject of writing! Are you ready to write?

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