5 Habits of Highly Effective Writers
You listen to the best writers.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a story based on writing and I’ve learned a lot since last time. As a writer, you’re always learning new things when you put yourself in the writing community.
With all the advice available for everyone to read on this platform. In the end, you can take everything as a gram of salt and use those you find useful. This is how you will find out what works out the best for you.
On top of that, you should write in a way so everyone can understand what you’re saying. A simplified explanation is the best way to reach everyone. People love the simplicity and when you’re getting straight to the point.
Writing feels natural to you.
Your passion should never feel forced to do what you love the most. If your passion is being a writer, it shouldn’t be a dissatisfying job for you. It should be a passionate job for you.
“Your true passion should feel like breathing; it’s that natural.” ~ Oprah.
Your passion should be enjoyable, not a struggle. Writing should be natural, not forced. There will be a lot of hard work behind your passion but it’s giving you satisfaction in the end.
Your best work is when you enjoy the process of writing. It took me a month to write this story because I enjoyed the process of it while taking a break from Medium in between and it has become one of my most viral stories.
Bill Gates once said: ”I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
When writing is your passion, you finish the work the easy way. It’s because writing feels natural to you. You have been writing to the point it has become an easy job for you to finish.
You’re in the flow and you enjoy the process of it. When you enjoy what you’re doing, you have created a great piece of work.
This article of mine was written in 24 hours and has already become curated. I finished the work quicker than I thought just like this article.
If you truly enjoy writing, it means you’ve found your purpose.
Affirm:
“I write with flow and ease.”
Recommended link:
6 Ways to Bring Out Your Natural Passion
You research your topic.
Highly effective people mean what they say. They don’t write about stuff they know nothing about. You have to be reliable to your readers.
You have to know what you’re talking about based on your research. You don’t share advice without doing proper research.
Sharing your knowledge is based on all the research you’ve done. Your advice based on your research is a piece of highly effective advice for your readers.
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo
They trust you because you’ve done your homework. You share what you’ve learned from other people and give it to other people who need your advice.
This is what life coaches do. They spent a decade learning a field they’re passionate about and share their teaches with other people.
You’ve already learned this in school; You have homework and you have to do your homework based on your research and the information your teacher has proved to you. Remember what you’ve learned in school and use it to your advantage in your writing career.
Affirm:
“My articles perform best when I do my research.”
Recommended link:
10 Reasons Why Research is Important
You look back at what you could have done better.
Effective writers would look back at their old stories and ask themselves: “What could I have done better?”
Reflection is the key. You go to bed and look back at what you could have done better in your work. You don’t always realize what you could have done better in the moment of writing a story. It’s only when you walk away from the content and come back, later on, to see what you did wrong.
I suggest you stick to the best-performing topics while writing about other topics that people are searching for.
Highly effective writers would look at which stories performed the best and stick to those topics the next time they write a new story. I suggest you take a look at your best-performing stories.
I looked at my old stories and there were a lot of things I wanted to improve on. They were unorganized. It was embarrassing to see how my writing skills were four years ago. I know you can relate to this.
Affirm:
“I am learning and evolving from my past mistakes.”
Recommended link:
Why You Need To Learn From Your Mistakes
You listen to the best writers.
Effective writers note down everything they learn from the best writers who are great at their work. This is because the best writers tell you what does and doesn’t work in the writing community.
Learning from the best writers helps you to save time from making more mistakes. One of the pieces of advice I’ve learned from the best is that you have to bring valuable content that will improve people's lives for the better.
The best combination is to listen to the best writers who know what they’re talking about and combine it with what works for you.
“Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.” ~ Russell Simmons.
Coaches teach their clients in a field they’re great at. If you’re someone who wants to become a highly effective writer, you will have to do what they did: listen to those who have been in the field for many years.
You learn from the best writers because they come up with the most effective advice you can apply. Take a look at the best-performing articles on Medium and scrutinize what made their articles perform well.
Affirm:
“I learn from the best and become better.”
Recommended link:
How to Become a More Effective Learner
You organize your article before publishing.
Effective writers make sure to organize their articles before hitting the “publish” button. It’s important to make sure everything looks clean and free from error. The best thing you can do is to revise and rewrite it as much as you can until you feel like it’s completed work.
Time is a created thing. To say “I don’t have time” is to say “I don’t want to.” ~ Lao Tzu
You want to make sure your article looks clean and readable for your audience. The cover image, title, subtitle, and should be eye-catching for the readers.
You find out how an organized environment gives you an organized thought. If you’re in an unorganized environment, you will notice yourself with a decluttered, unorganized mindset.
If you ask me, I haven’t seen anyone do this but I would place an image for every list I place in the story. It makes the article more enjoyable with these eye-catching images as they scroll down.
I suggest you learn from the best-performing articles and learn how they’ve organized their articles in the best way possible.
When you have got an organized mindset, you will do your work better.
Affirm:
“I have great organizing skills.”
Recommended link:
Health Benefits of Being Organized
If you want to improve on your writing, be consistent with it and take a break when your body needs the rest. You do better work when you step away from your work for a while.
The best thing is to teach others what you’ve learned from other people. You show them what worked for you. You should always save the inspired ideas for future work.
The voice is your voice. Never use another person’s voice. Never pretend to write like someone else. Be authentic and write as you would speak.
Writing is not for the faint of the heart. You will be judged and the question is, can you handle all the criticism you receive? The positive and the negative?
The best thing is, you can learn from your own mistakes and apply the rules of the best writers based on their own mistakes. It takes two people’s mistakes to create better work because two heads are better than one.
Writing is a long journey.
You shouldn’t solely enjoy the final destination of your journey.
You should enjoy the process of it.
It’s the process that matters the most.
