Have you ever sat down and just thought, “I absolutely CANNOT write”?

Maybe you had a perfect plan for writing something for your business that would really connect with your ideal clients, but every time you sit down, you feel nothing but resistance to working on it.

First, determine if it’s something simple like writer’s block or just having too much going on and needing a break (hey, who hasn’t been there?).

If you really feel like something is wrong, if you have a deep-seated feeling of nausea or that something is wrong and you can’t put your finger on what, then maybe the act of writing is actually what’s causing the disturbance.

Sometimes we get caught in a cycle where we do a task and have a negative outcome, so every time we go to do that task, we believe that we will have a negative outcome. And it can even be so bad that you don’t realize it’s happening. Your body just freezes. It’s trying to protect you. It’s fight or flight.

Instead of fighting it and trying to barrel through the writing, stop and look at your history.

• Have you been successful in writing?
• Have you taken critique hard?
• Have you been ridiculed for something that you took pride in writing?
• Have you received approval on a local level or from a small group and gained confidence, only to have a bigger, more prestigious, or broader range group turn you down?
• Has an educator insulted you because of your writing? (Yes, this happens. It actually happened to me in high school.)
• Has someone scoffed when you said you dreamed of writing a book?
• Have you witnessed negative body language when talking about something you wrote or intend to write (eye roll, smirk, etc.)?
• Have you been told that you just aren’t good at writing?

I could go on, but you get the idea. When we receive verbal or physical criticism in relation to a writing project, sometimes that can go deep. That’s when we start to actually fear writing. That’s when it becomes a trigger.

And that’s when it becomes difficult to complete the writing project successfully.

If you notice that this is happening, follow these steps.

1. Start small. Start by journaling. No one has to see it. And it can help you build your confidence. At least twice a week, set aside 30 minutes to write about something that’s on your mind. It can be an idea you had, a dream, or just what you were up to that day.
2. Take the next step. It’s one thing to write about something that happened. It’s another thing to analyze it. Once you start getting comfortable with writing for yourself, analyze what you wrote. Do the A + B pattern of event + analysis for your next entry. So if you wrote about taking your kids to the park, analyze the experience by writing what that means to you, the bigger picture. Maybe you realized that you don’t fit on the slide and that gave your kids better perception of big and small. Maybe you realized that the little one runs in front of people while they are swinging so you have to watch her better near the swing set. Or maybe your kids were crazy because they were getting hungry, so next time you will eat first. You can come up with a lesson, moral, or broader concept from nearly anything, so think about it and then write about it.
3. Do a few journal entries on topics related to your business. Now that you feel more comfortable writing for yourself and analyzing it, turn toward topics that you need to write for the public. Use the same A + B pattern from before, but apply it to whatever you think your clients need to hear. Just don’t share these entries yet.
4. If you feel your confidence growing on these topics, next look for a simple place to share an article. LinkedIn offers a platform to share, and you can even mention to a couple people you trust that you posted. Find out what they think. There’s no commitment like with blogging, so you don’t have to do it weekly, but it’s an easy first step to getting your ideas out there.
5. Come back to that writing project, and see if you feel more confident. Use the feedback that you got when you wrote in your journal. You realized that you can write. You realized that you’re capable of piecing ideas together. And you realized that it’s not that scary.

Need more help? A writing coach is a great option to get you over that hump. Contact me to schedule a chat so we can start you in the right direction!