Most Writers Quit. How Not To Be One Of Them.

3 dangers that push you to quit (How I overcame them)

I’ve survived my first year of writing online.

Sadly most of those who started with me have quit. I understand why. I’ve had low months when my writing has ground to a halt. I’ve had moments when I was close to throwing in the towel.

But I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect this.

I mean you love writing. So you decide to write. The digital world makes this so easy. You can have an account set up in minutes. And be sending your words out into the world. No longer do you have to get past a magazine editor or publisher? There are great opportunities.

But I’ve been shocked to discover how dangerous it is.

Our mental health is under threat. To last as a writer you need to know what these attacks are. And arm yourself with a few weapons so you can defend yourself.

Here are the biggest 3 threats to our mental well-being:

Danger 1 — Constant judgment

Does any other arena have such continuous judgment?

Imagine…

• A manager leading a meeting with a display of how many people liked her decisions
• A shop assistant with a board revealing what all the previous customers thought of his speed
• A doctor’s surgery is plastered with every opinion patients have of their work

It would leave you feeling so vulnerable. Yet that is exactly what we face writing online. How am I supposed to keep focused on doing a quality job when I’m surrounded by constant judgment? Everything you write is assessed and given a numerical value.

This has distorted my joy of writing. I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking my writing only has value if it goes viral. This quickly discourages me and brings me to the edge of quitting.

I’ve found these 3 strategies keep me mentally strong;

Design success measures you can control

Feeling a sense of control is a key ingredient of mental wellbeing

You can’t control the metrics. The lack of control makes them stressful. Setting input goals is healthier and more motivating.

Here’s mine:

• Write 60 minutes a day on Medium. I aim for 4 articles/week. But 60 minutes of writing is my daily success measure
• Write one newsletter a week. I aim for a 50% open rate. But sending the newsletter every week is my success measure.

If I complete these I’ve succeeded. This means I succeed most days and feel a sense of achievement.

Long-term this will lead to better results.

How to review your metrics

We need the follows, likes, and comments to win the game.

So we can’t ignore them. But obsessing over them results in a rollercoaster of dopamine spikes and slumps. And robs us of the ability to write creatively.

After 2 months on Twitter, a tweet went viral hitting 27,000+ views. I was on a high all week but became distracted from writing. I was checking the stats every hour. A week later I was feeling low and had lost my writing rhythm.

I needed a more sustainable way of using the metrics.

Here’s my approach:

• Review stats less often and have a system eg. do a weekly review to learn what worked & what didn’t
• Focus on % not absolute numbers. You’ve got 7 more views. That feels not much. But if your views grow from 50 to 57. That’s a 14% increase. The big guns would love that sort of growth
• Celebrate progress — I note my number of followers every week. When I feel like I’m not making progress I pick a point in the past (3 weeks ago, 4 months ago) and calculate how much I have grown.

Get plenty of psychological sunshine

The metrics are cruel so you need a way to refuel.

Spending time in positive places can feel like warm sunshine restoring your soul. This is crucial to heal us from the wounds the stats give us.

• discover new and stimulating things to do — it’s hard to switch off. Deciding to switch off doesn’t work. Finding offline activities that captivate your attention does
• talk to positive people — Do a people audit and design your week so you spend time with those who energize you
• nature is a great friend — there is strong evidence that nature heals us from stress. Walk. Sit. Look.

Danger 2 — Constant Comparison

You always know who’s the better online.

The numbers give a crystal clear answer. It’s hard not to view yourself as worse than other writers. When the numbers scream out to you.

I’ve got 4300 Medium followers. Tim Denning has 325,000. That suggests he is 75 times better than me. It takes a lot of mental strength to keep motivated when others’ success is rammed in your face. To survive you need to decide what your comparison will be.

Ignore other writers and compare the old you to the new you.

I have days of negative self-talk:

• ‘I’m making no progress’
• ‘This isn’t working’
• ‘You should quit’

When this happens I look at a random date in the past. 11 days ago or 67 days ago. Calculate my % follower increase since then. Then for fun, I project that forward twice. My potential growth is always astonishing.

For example.

When I had 478 Medium followers I was struggling. But 19 days ago I was at 366. That’s a 30% increase. So I thought I’d have 621 followers in 21 days and 807 in 42 days. This reality check breathed new life into me.

All because I refocused on myself & my growth.

The old you is the only comparison worth making.

Danger 3 — The endless demand for more

Creating online is a battle for attention.

We have to find new things to say and novel ways to say them. We strive to capture people’s attention. This is the game we are playing. We are told consistency is key. We need to churn out endless content. But this can be exhausting and it’s easy to run dry.

Creating online offers incredible opportunities. But we must keep our creative edge to have any hope of realizing these.

Stop your well from running dry by:

• Keep growing — no matter how much you know about your topic. Keep learning to stimulate your writing. Discovering a new idea is exciting and animates our brains. This energy makes writing easier.
• Use outlines to kickstart your writing — our brain loves patterns but this can get us in a rut. We return to the same words or structures. Having a variety of templates can stimulate our writing.
• Write in response to comments — when you’re reading comments, ask yourself what your readers need more of. This can activate your creative juices
• Walk if you need a new idea — Einstein, Darwin, Jobs — there is a long list of famous creators who saw walking as the key to their creativity. Include a daily walk in your routine.

The brutal truth is most people quit writing online. But you can beat more talented writers simply by lasting longer. The dangers are real. But using these strategies will keep you resilient.

Remember — those who last win.

Suppose you want to learn how I’ve grown to 4300 followers in 10 months. Sign up for my 5-Step writing system. It’s free.