Five Psychological Techniques to Keep You Writing on Any Platform No Matter What Your Stats
From beginner to paid writer.
There’s a lot of competition in the creator economy. Until you find your footing, you have to steel yourself from burnout, the many times you’ll want to give up, and the changes in algorithms.
Below are the tactics I’ve used to keep me writing and publishing every day for nearly two years.
#1 — Don’t look at stats for one year
This is what I did. And I’m making a decent side-hustle income now. But at first, when I was making dollars and my stats were barely making a blip, looking at them was demotivating. When I started sharing content, I had zero experience writing professionally. Scratch that. I had a lot of writing experience but not paid writing experience.
And there is a difference, a subtle one, but an important difference.
One of the most freeing things I do is not obsess over stats.
The truth about stats — views,likes and follows — is that they are easy to get and not the only indication of how well you are doing in the creator economy.
Creators don’t build businesses and make money on just what you see on social media platforms. It is what they are working on behind the scenes where they are making large sums from things like selling subscriptions, courses, and newsletters — content that is offered to their true fans.
Free content builds your loyal tribe, and weeds out the rest. The loyal tribe buys your products you’re working on in addition to the free content you write.
A true fan is someone who’ll follow you anywhere and pay for your content. You don’t need a lot of them to turn quality content into paid content. The goal is 1,000 true fans who think you offer something unique and will pay for your course, newsletter, membership program.
Everyone can find 1,000 true fans. But it takes time.
If you start writing this week and sharing publically and immediately start obsessing over stats, that will do nothing to keep you going. Unless you come to a platform with name recognition, like Stephen King, your stats will be measly at first.
Stay away from things that might negatively impact your momentum. When you have a few stories — 30 or more– under your belt, glance at stats to see which content resonates and go from there.
Selling to your true fans comes much later. You have to build the tribe first, and to build your tribe, you have to offer a lot of quality, free content.
#2. Get comfortable with writing for free
I know it sounds hard, and I balked when I first read, “write for free for one year.” Writing for free for one year sounds daunting and not much fun. Write for free…But a year goes by quickly, and if you suck it up and just write, a year from now, you’ll look up and have yourself a lucrative side hustle.
I’m a realist though, I know bills have to be paid. We all don’t have a trust fund or a social media platform we started that went public; you may have to keep your nine to five to supplement your income. But you have to ask yourself, How badly do you really want it? If you want it badly, you’ll find time to write on the weekends while you’re building a loyal tribe by giving away free content for one year.
I can’t guarantee much, but I can guarantee that we see long-term gains if we suffer in the short term. You can apply this principle to almost any area in life:
- Finances
- Career
- Dreams
- Getting our of debt
- Establishing a writing habit
- Relationships
- Health
- Fitness and nutrition
If we do things in the short term that are hard, the long term is easier; this is where we see the fruits of our labor — in the long term.
#3. Change the goal
Sometimes when we want something, we get all excited, we read about how to do it, we study, maybe take a course to get better at it, and then we drop the ball. We set the goal too high; we made it too daunting that we forget about how simple it can be.
Small steps build bridges and successful business.
Do one step, then add another.
Sometimes you have to just take the leap and do the thing before you are perfect at it. Write something. Hit publish. That is how simple it is.
Will it be perfect? No, it will never be perfect. So stop aiming for perfection and aim for taking one small step today. If you want to be a content creator, a small step you can take today is to write something. Edit it this week and publish it by Friday.
The intel you receive after taking this one step for one year will be invaluable. You’ll gain followers, a tribe, and feedback. Feedback on your content is the most valuable asset for content creators just beginning their journey on this liberating road to self-employment. It points you in the direction you need to go for success.
To build better habits, focus on small wins. When I started writing, I made my wins very small.
- My wins were not measured in views. That wouldn’t have kept me writing.
- My wins were not in the money. That wouldn’t have kept me writing for two years.
- My wins weren’t in the top writer status tags. That wouldn’t have kept me writing.
My wins were in the showing up. I have been showing up and writing consistently for two years. That is a win. The more proof you have of something — I wrote today, I’m a writer (and the day after today, and so on), the more you identify with your goal of becoming a writer. Habits are the path to changing your identity.
The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. — James Clear
You won’t see instant success.
Your goal: To see where you are one year from now. Then reevaluate.
The proof is, I wrote today, even though I didn’t want to.
More proof: I wrote the next day, even though I didn’t want to.
I guess I’m a writer.
#4. Attitude, attitude, attitude
Attitude is everything when it comes to creating content. It keeps you going.
Being a copywriter can be a lonely gig. A lot of the day is spent sitting alone, behind a screen, looking down, trying to get one more hour of writing in before you have to look up and go back into real life. But, attitude will get you farther than anything, even luck.
Without the right attitude, you will quit. Why? Because readers like to read writers who uplift, are positive, delve into a specific issue, write about a problem and then solve it for their audience.
I find Tim Denning’s work very empowering. When I need to be inspired with possibility, I pull up one of his posts, and there is usually a nugget of gold I can add to my content creator toolbox that points me in the direction of more opportunities on my road to increased earnings, potential, and challenging projects to conquer.
There is plenty of negativity online. You don’t have to look far or more than a few minutes to find toxic content.
A small percentage of readers read toxic content to fill some void and stoke the embers of anger simmering or lying dormant, but loyal readers will look for positive content and stay with the writer who provides solutions and not adds to problems.
Come up with a system to undergird your goal.
#5. Success is found in the system, not the goal
Reading James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits taught me the most valuable lesson that is so simple I didn’t notice it: Focus on the system, not the goal.
I have been into goals since I could hold a pen. Goals and lists. I was annoying as a kid. I was trying to control my environment by writing my whole life down in a list and then crossing off each item one by one with intense satisfaction.
As an adult, my goals are much bigger than cleaning and organizing my CD shelves.
Yes, have the goal, write it down, place it in big purple letters and pin it over your desk. And then forget the goal and work on creating the system to achieve the goal.
All writers have a system, whether they know it or not.
The more streamlined and consistent the system, the more successful you’ll be following and keeping it.
Develop your system or create your writing recipe. Your system is how often you write, where you write, what time of day you write, how often you submit to publications, whether you take a class to get better at writing, when you edit and how you break down an article to make it clear and concise for your readers.
Those are systems and what drives your life toward what you want. For success, focus more on the system and not the goal.
This is what I did for one year. I worked on the system, and the results were pretty amazing. I went from making nothing to making over five thousand this last month, I’ve written many viral stories, and my earnings steadily increase each month by writing on different platforms.
You have to implement a system to win at everything, even writing. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead. — James Clear, Atomic Habits
In summary
These are all the hacks I used in my first year of taking writing seriously. While keeping all of these strategies in mind, I wrote every day. I treated writing like a job, not like a hobby.
And eventually, I was paid like I had a job and not a hobby.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.