How to give your best when writing content.
I don’t get to visit Seth Godin’s blog regularly, but whenever I do, I feel thankful. He always shares great wisdom.
In his latest blog post he has shared the importance of giving your best effort when creating something, whether you are creating a business, delivering a service, or just doing something for yourself or someone else.
In my book that I have just published on Kindle – This is how I built my content writing business – I have given an example of how they make tea in the Japanese and the Chinese cultures.
Brewing tea is a spiritual activity. Everything from boiling the water, putting the leaves and other ingredients, letting the concoction brew, and afterwards, to pouring the prepared tea from the teapot into the cups, is revered and appreciated. It’s beautiful to watch the entire thing.
Don’t just do something “sufficiently”.
It is so easy to deliver something functional.
I will confess. Even I do that with some projects because a client is paying a lot less, or he or she is doing something to annoy me. My connection with the content writing process gets disembodied.
It’s not that I don’t like writing content – I enjoy it – but this is my way to disconnect myself with a client who doesn’t appreciate my services. Do I endorse it? No.
If you don’t give your best to your content writing, it shows through.
Writing is a communication, just like any other performing art. Teachers of performing arts like singing and dancing often tell their students that if they don’t enjoy the performance, neither does the audience.
They can make out the lack of enthusiasm or the presence of it.
When you are writing, if there is a disconnect, it shows through. Maybe you are writing the perfect words, the perfect sentences, and erudite phrases, but if there is no connection, if there is no strong desire to give your best, it shows through. The readers can feel it.
How do you give your best when writing content?
Don’t let the others define your capabilities. Just because someone is paying you less or doesn’t appreciate your ability to write high quality content, it doesn’t mean you yourself start thinking about your abilities on the same terms.
Your brain actually works on the philosophy of “your wish is my command”.
Your brain delivers what you ask of it. If you tell your brain that you love what you’re doing, you actually do it as if you love it.
Seth’s advice is mostly business-related but it is also applicable to the art of content writing. Pay attention to finer details. Pay attention to the individual words, the individual sentences and the individual phrases that you are using.
You are not just writing because you are being paid. You are writing because hundreds of people may read what you have written and get affected by it.
Otherwise, my suggestion is that you don’t take up the assignment. Of course, if you are financially or otherwise hard pressed against the wall then the circumstances of exceptional, but if you can afford it, only take on assignments you can make an emotional impact on.