Remembering you don’t have to show your work to anyone positively impacts your creative process
For coaches, healers or other creative entrepreneurs, a lot of writing goes into marketing and building the foundation of your business. For example:
Writing the copy for your website, and maybe designing it too – so people can learn more about you, your work in the world and your approach
Deciding on your niche, on specifically who you help and what you help them with – so others know if you could help them with their struggles
Creating a compelling offer - so people understand your work and feel safe enough to say yes to working with you
Developing and implementing your content strategy – so you people learn from you and start to see you as someone who could help them
Sharing your business and message with others – so people see you and your work consistently, which helps build trust and remind them what you do.
And so on.
As a creative and business owner, sharing your work with others can be both exciting and unsettling. You’ve got a message to share with the world. You want to use your voice. You're investing time, effort, and passion into your project, and you want it to be received positively.
However, if you focus too much on how it is going to be received, it can stop you.
Sometimes when coaches, healers or other creative entrepreneurs undertake big writing projects, especially tied to their soul’s calling, it can feel big, or scary. Sometimes so much so, they can stop themselves before they ever get started.
Being “stopped” may look different for everyone.
This might look like you spending days or weeks or months perfecting your copy for your offer or website, but never quite being ready to hit publish.
This could mean, sending out one email telling people about your business or new website, but never following up with another.
This could look like reading others’ blogs or delving into marketing courses on content but never starting to share your own words
This could also mean putting out content but feeling like you’re running yourself through an energetic ringer, leaving you feeling exhausted and fraught.
Or this might look like wanting to share more creative or fun writing or art with your audience but feeling stuck because ‘it doesn’t fit’ or you aren’t sure how it’ll be received.
You Don’t Have to Show it To Anyone
Last fall, when I took the 90-Day Novel Workshop and completed the first draft of my novel, one thing that helped me tremendously was the reminder that I was writing the first draft for myself, and myself alone. I didn’t have to show my work to anyone.
In fact, showing it, or even talking about it, was actively discouraged.
There were days, many of them in fact, when I was convinced that what I was writing was the most hackneyed, clichéd awful draft ever written.
But, then I reminded myself “I don’t have to show it to anyone.” And magically, I could somehow keep writing. Day after day, many of same thoughts intruded (cliché’d, painful, mediocre at best!), and I’d remind myself that it didn’t matter because I was the only one who was going to see it.
At this point, you might be thinking, “Diane, I’m writing for my business, OF COURSE, I have to show it to people. That’s the whole point!?!”
And, yes, it is the point.
It is also the point of writing a novel.
But in the moment of drafting, when you want to call in all the messy wildness of your imagination, when you want to put your heart on the table as you write, you can tell yourself that you don’t have to show it to anyone. Later, they’ll be time to polish, to hone, to refine.
But now, this here, this is about getting it down.
Your Marketing Copy
This strategy works remarkably well in marketing too.
It’s what I help my clients get to in crafting their offers and writing their website copy and other marketing materials. And it’s what you need to do too when you work on your marketing.
That getting your heart and soul and essence down on paper. Getting your real beliefs, your passion, your longings down in the copy. That’s what makes your words sing, what makes them real.
It’s also what makes for compelling marketing.
And it’s the hardest to tap into, especially when you’re worried about what someone – like your friends, coach colleagues, mother, sister, or former co-workers – might think.
What To Do?
If you find yourself feeling stuck, stopped or stymied with writing your marketing and creating other pieces of your business’ foundation (or any other creative work as well), here are three quick steps to take so you can keep writing:
Know your own creative process
Every person has their own creative process. Some people research first. Some people dive right in. Some people write without stopping. Some people write dibs and dabs. Some people focus on a single task for long stretches of time. Others prefer short bursts.
There is no right or wrong, despite the culture’s view, only what feels good to you.
Remember “You only have to show it to yourself”
Your first draft is just that, a first draft. Add in post-it-notes or electronic reminders if you need help remembering this. I also recommend frequently and often that people read (or reread) Anne Lamott’s Shi&^y First Drafts
Schedule editing time
If you’re the type of person who likes to block out creative time, it can help to schedule editing time. This is a subtle way to help you remember, hey you’re in creative mode. (Like in Minecraft when you want to build and make cool things without having to worry about being attacked by random zombies)
Having a commitment to yourself to spend time editing is just another way to say: Hey right now I’m creating, messy and wild. I’m not worried about polishing. I’ll do that next Tuesday.
So, if you find yourself struggling with your marketing and creating other pieces of your business’ foundation (or with working on any other creative endeavor), it’s important to remember you start with a draft, one that gets to be as messy and as terrible or as all over the board or incomplete as it needs to be.
Then, you can understand your own creative process, remind yourself that you’re writing is for your eyes only and schedule editing time as three strategies to keep your writing and creative process flowing.