How to write fearlessly & achieve writing mastery

Too many people believe they can't write. But there's a process that can help you to master writing

Taking the first step and starting to write is the hardest step to take.

Some of the best content comes from people who had learned to believe that they are no good at writing.

So, they don’t write. They might get a copywriter to write for them, pay a marketer to create content, follow a strategy that heavily relies on connecting on social media via DMs, or do “classical” networking.

All that can work – but it makes marketing a lot harder and it can even stunt your growth.

And while we are talking about growth – The only way to write any kind of copy or content fearlessly, is to adopt a growth mindset, face your fear of writing, and come up with a plan about how you’re going to transform into a fearless (and binge-worthy) writer.

Have you heard of “Progressive Mastery”?

Progressive mastery is a concept that I have picked up from Brendon Burchard’s teaching and it is an approach that allows you to get better at anything that you need and want to be good at.

It’s not a quick fix but a long journey that is focused on your progression through learning and practice.

If you are expecting quick-fix advice, then you might not want to read on. But if you want to get really good at writing, then make yourself comfortable and get your notepad out.

I want you to work through this post and start implementing it straight away – or this will only be one of those “how to write better” posts that won’t shift anything.

And the great thing is – you can use this process for anything that you want to get really good at.

Step #1 – Determine a skill that you want to master

This post is dedicated to helping you become a fearless writer – but you could choose any skill that you need to learn and be good at. Ideally, choose a skill that you absolutely need to grow your business.

Every day I am meeting and work with people who believe that they are no good at writing. At the end of our time together, my clients no longer believe that. In fact, they know for sure that they are amazing writers who fearlessly share their messages with the world (and reach the people who need to hear their messages).

So, let’s assume that you want to get better at writing content because you know that content helps you build your audience and leads your audience through their customer’s journey, which in return leads them to buy from you and grow your business and in the long term, allow you to make the lifestyle changes that you aspire to.

I want you to write down that skill that you want to master: e.g. “I want (or even better – need) to master marketing and advertising”.

Step #2 – Set a specific stretch goal that you want to

Next, you look into that goal and break it down into smaller units. Marketing is an essential but complex topic and it takes many different skills to fully master it.

Here are just a few points to illustrate:

Communications & marketing
Writing blogs, posts, email sequences
Doing interviews – interviewing & being interviewed
Public speaking/ video presenting

Let’s stick with the first point – writing blogs, posts and email sequences. You could even be more specific and focus on one sub-point or specific skill first:

Writing blogs

When you pick the specific skill that you want to master, you have to be clear about how it fits into your overall goals. It needs to be something that you have acknowledged to be important for you and that supports your overall strategy and the goals you have set yourself with your business.

Step #3 – Attach high levels of emotion and meaning to mastering this skill

By understanding how important mastering this new skill is, you attach meaning to it.

For a moment, think about what you miss out on if you don’t work on this particular skill. If you are not a good blog writer right now then you might miss out on:

Attracting the “right” people to follow you
Nurturing the right people and creating hot leads for your offers
Educating your audience so that they learn more about the obstacles and problems they are dealing with
Showing your audience how different their life could be if they solved their issue
Positioning yourself as an expert
Building a relationship built on respect and trust…

And then imagine what you could win:

An audience that is waiting for your content each week
Writing faster, better and more compellingly
Understanding your audience better because of what you learn in your research
Create content that you could re-purpose for other media
Create content that you could turn into an ebook or a course
Hot leads…

The reason for this exercise (and I want you to do this exercise now!) is that you attach more meaning to mastering this skill. You get emotionally more invested when you visualise the outcomes and benefits from mastering this skill.

You’ll see the necessity of mastering this skill – and that motivates you to stick with the journey and work on improving your content writing with every post you write.

Another important fact is that you need to acknowledge your progress on the way because that triggers positive emotions.

Imagine how good it feels when you master writing headlines or powerful CTAs, when you know how to structure or brainstorm your content…

Each post is a milestone in your learning journey and by making it meaningful, you are a lot less likely to quit when you don’t see massive results straight away.

Mastering a skill is a journey and it needs an awful lot of content to become great at content writing.

And that brings us to our next step:

Step #4 – Identify the factors that are critical to mastering that skill

Let me pick up on the previous step.

Learn all you need to know about writing blogs – how to master content that covers the 4 Cs. Content that is:

Compelling
Concise
Clear
Credible

If you want to know more about that – then I have a free content writing training that you could listen into

You could learn a writing process that helps you write quicker and faster (here’s a link to a blog post, I have written that explains this framework in more detail)

Define your goal
Brainstorming
Structure your ideas
Cut out the fluff
Write
Proofread & edit

Or you could learn more about the different types of content that you can master:

Attraction content
Affinity content
Action content
Authority content

You could also find out which topics your audience loves and how your audience wants your content to be presented to them. Maybe through…

Personal stories
Inspirational posts
Value-related or belief-shifting posts
Educational posts

You see – there are many sub-skills that you could work on, on your journey to becoming an awesome blog writer.

At the same time, you can use the skills that you already possess and develop them further (you might be a good researcher – so apply that skill to researching your topis) or some weaknesses that you may have (maybe you are using too much jargon, have a very “technical” style or can’t put your ideas to paper.

There are so many small steps that you could be working on and you can select those who are most important to you and that create your personal journey map to mastery.

Step 5 – Visualise your success (and failure)

One thing that you don’t want to do is to start off without knowing where to go. Hence my advice above is to create your personal journey map.

If you have a map with clear goals and steps on the way, then you also know when you have reached the next level of mastery.

In case you have been struggling with writing catchy headlines, then being able to write scroll-stopping headlines is a milestone that you could be working on.

Imagine what the results of being able to write amazing headlines would be. How would that impact your blog writing goals? How would that help you with getting more attention or define clearer blog post goals? How would that change your writing process - make it more effectively?

And what would it look like if you don’t bother with mastering headline-writing? No engagement in posts, people scrolling past, not standing out in your audience’s feed…

Step #6 – Schedule challenging practices

Learning is more effective when you have a plan. When you develop in stages. If you look back at Step #4, then you have an awful lot to start with. You could pick any of the points like writing educational posts or personal stories and then research these topics and learn from master writers.

Either work directly with them or find another way to learn from them through books or online courses.

Or go deep and analyse where you are now and where you want to get to and create your own milestones and path on how you want to learn.

You could research different writing practices and journals that help you to become a better writer could follow and analyse blogs or podcasts that you admire. Work with a writing coach (I also teach copy and content writing and you can always drop me a message to chat about how I can help you with your writing journey – the contact form is right below this post).

And then do the work and write – a lot with focus on particular details that you want to improve.

Which brings us to the next step:

Step #7 – Measure your progress and get some outside feedback

How do you know that you are making progress?

You can reflect and analyse a few metrics. Just to name a few:

The number of reactions and comments you get on your posts
The time it takes you to write a post
How many views your posts have had (although that’s a bit of a vanity measure that doesn’t tell you much)
How many people pinned and shared your content on Pinterest…
The comments and feedback you get from your community

And you can, of course, ask people. Ask them for feedback – what they think of your posts, what they liked about it, what they didn’t like, any suggestions to improve your content, whether it was the right content etc.

Getting insightful feedback is essential for improving your craft. One good way to do that is the next step:

Step #8 – Socialise your learning efforts by practising or competing with others

One thing to seriously get better is competition. When you play a sport – it’s the competition that motivates you and pushes you to your best performance.

You can do the same for any skill that you want to learn. You can create competition for yourself. You could start a content writing group where you challenge each other to produce quality content on a consistent basis and then analyse each other’s posts and give constructive feedback.

You could even enter writing or speaking competitions where you will be judged by other experts.

Competition is an excellent way for working harder and putting extra effort into your learning. And with that, you learn faster and more thoroughly. Which leads us to the next step…

Step #9 – Set higher goals so that you keep improving

At the beginning of this post, I said that this process is about mastering a skill. And mastering implies are a high degree of proficiency.

That implies that you absolutely understand what you are doing, that you have moved from dabbling to serious implementation. You’re no longer journaling a bit to get familiar with writing – you are deliberately creating amazing pieces of content.

I’m once more referring to Step #4. I listed a number of factors that are relevant for blog writing. You can take any of these points and set higher goals for mastering any of these points.

Pushing yourself with writing better and better headlines, writing harder and harder first paragraphs – like storytelling within a blog post, focusing on creating the right type of emotions through your writing, CTAs that people follow.

There are heaps of options about how you can raise your writing bars.

And lastly…

Step #10 – Teach others what you are learning

Teaching others is a brilliant way of achieving mastery.

In order to teach, you really need to understand what you’re teaching. You need to demonstrate what you are talking about, you need to break down your mastery into small and attainable steps so that your pupils grow by following your teaching.

In the beginning, you might think “who am I to teach anyone a skill that I haven’t fully mastered yet?”

But, you see, by the time you are starting to teach, you have already gained a higher grade of mastery. You already know more than those who are just starting out.

And, the great side effect is – that you learn at the same time. You also get a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction from teaching others. Sharing your knowledge, gives you more purpose and it helps you create a community of people who will shine your light in their communities – and that help you grow your audience.

I have been practising progressive mastery for a little while and the progress I have made is quite significant. Especially the clear focus and consistency have helped me grow.

I’d love to hear what skill you set out to learn and, of course, if you need my help with mastering your brand and marketing messaging or your content and copywriting – then send me a message and we can talk about how we can work together to get you to achieve your messaging and writing goals.

Categories: businesskills, Content Creation, Contentwriting, Copywriting, Copywritingskills