This Habit Will Help You Earn More Money & Be More Creative
Mark my words: Reading and writing are two of the most under-utilized ways to improve your craft (any craft) and status in the world.
Reading is an entire post in itself, so I’m mostly going to skip over it today. My quick advice is reading short form content (250 words or less) doesn’t quite hit the mark of a reading habit. I’m looking for long form (blog articles, book-length) content that will steep you in someone else’s thoughts. Alongside reading, you should be writing.
I’ve been writing blogs off and on for years. My first kick at the can probably started sometime in 2015 when I was working my first corporate job. After that, I tried blogging for my wedding photography business, and intermittently over the years, I wrote articles for my small business related content. Since March of this year, I’ve been writing nearly an article a week. The past few weeks I’ve had some blips (more on that in the future), but overall I’ve been fairly consistent at my goal of a blog a week.
By and large, no one reads my blog. If you’re one of the few who do, I’d love for you to let me know! But although no one really reads it, I continue to write. Why? For a number of reasons listed below.
1. Writing will develop your communication skills
Simple as that.
Getting into the habit of distilling complicated ideas into consumable pieces of content is a skill that will benefit you in countless ways. But it will specifically dramatically enhance your ability to talk to anyone more clearly.
This means helping you land more clients, more easily solve client issues, more clearly articulate what you do and why, improve relationships with your friends, and honestly so much more.
I’d even argue writing will help reduce your fear of public speaking, which is usually considered the #1 fear in people (higher on the list than death!).
2. Writing establishes credibility
There were a handful of times this year where I either landed a new client or had an offer of employment based on the expertise conveyed in the blog I write. Again - no one really reads my blog, but in those handful of instances where a new client or a prospective employer was checking me out, they see how impressive it is that I have an entire catalogue of educational content ready to be consumed.
The reality is: experts write.
Amateurs can’t write because they’re too busy learning. This is such a simple (and free!) way to establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
3. Writing is a useful tool in multiple applications
Most people think of writing as a book or a blog. But I’m here to tell you writing is anything from social media captions to slogans on vehicle wraps.
It wasn’t until I began doing work for small businesses that I really realized how useful being able to “write” as my clients truly was. Here are a handful of ways I put my writing chops to work this year:
Scheduling social media (writing captions on every post)
Responding to comments + DMs
Writing copy for client websites
Writing slogans for vehicle graphics
Writing info postcards
Responding to customer reviews
Dealing with disgruntled customers
Advertising new products
Creating billboard ads
and plenty more.
It’s impossible to list it all, but it’s immediately obvious that being comfortable writing is a skill you will use in a million different capacities.
Chances are you’re already doing a bunch of the things on the list above, but developing your writing skills so that you are happy with how clearly you communicate is the next step in the process.
4. Writing is a personal growth indicator
Wanna see how much you’ve grown in a year? Read an old article you wrote.
Unless you’ve peaked, chances are you’re a considerably better writer now than you were even the last time you wrote. If you develop the habit of consistent writing, you will improve every time you sit down to write.
Writing is a snapshot in time: no matter what you’re writing, it says something to you about what you considered worthy of jotting down at a particular moment in time, and sometimes it’s fun just to revisit that old self and see how far you’ve come, or let it inspire you to keep pressing on for how far you want to go.
5. Writing is the basis of all education
Wanna make a video? You need a script.
Wanna write a book? You need a manuscript.
Wanna make killer social media content?
You need a caption. Wanna lecture people? You need notes.
See the pattern?
All education begins with writing things down.
It is then really easy to translate that into other mediums, but first you have to actually have something to work with in order to create anything.
Writing doesn’t have to be the way you present your knowledge to the world, but I’d argue it’s the fastest way to get a thought from your head into the world that isn’t a 1:1 conversation. Even if you just wanna record a video on your cellphone, in your head you’re writing the script, and I think you will benefit greatly from having it written down first before you start rambling.
Every form of education can be traced back to some sort of written content. Start with that.
6. Writing makes you more creative
Writing is a muscle just like any other form of creativity. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. And because writing is an outlet of creativity, your entire creative brain will get stronger by writing more often.
I fully reject the idea that you should, or can, only create when you’re feeling “inspired.” What a load of nonsense. Inspiration and creativity are not feathers floating in the wind that you should hope to catch. They are not shooting stars.
Creativity is a commitment, and the more you force yourself to write, the better you get at it, and the easier it comes to you. Let me repeat that:
The more you create, the easier it is to get back to that headspace.
Every aspect of your creativity will improve if you firmly commit to writing (among any other form of creative expression).
7. Writing builds discipline
I have a lot of opinions and philosophies about the world in general, but I consistently believe one of the things you can never have too much of (and something the world doesn’t value nearly enough) is self discipline.
Writing as a habit and commitment means (inevitably) writing when you don’t feel like it. By pressing on despite this, you teach yourself to keep going when the going gets tough. This, I believe, is going to translate to every other facet of your life.
We are masters of excuses. A writing habit will help you destroy that.
When you force yourself to sit down and write, you tell yourself there’s no way out without getting something on paper. This is a beautiful thing, because it kickstarts your brain into working. I think this is the only way to see something through.
At some point, all creative expression becomes work. You’re deceiving yourself if you say otherwise. The trick is to push through and finish what you start. This is discipline, and while I am an advocate for the sunk-cost fallacy, I firmly believe our society (and us, by extension) are too good at giving up when things get tough.
In conclusion:
I have hardly scratched the surface here. There is so much that a writing habit can (and will) do for you! Here are two final realities I’ll leave you with that I hope inspires you to take this seriously.
Of all the people who could write, almost none do.
You’ve probably met a few genius people in your life that just seem to excel at their craft. How many of them have weekly blogs or regularly give lectures to share their knowledge? Very, very few. Almost none.
This means that the market for writers in your industry is probably very, very few. Stand out by being one of the rare few that write.
The second reality is this:
You do not have to be the best to write.
Heck, you don’t even need to be good. You just need to know a little more than the average person to write about what you know.
Writing is not getting to the destination and writing about what you see there. Writing is the journey. Writing along the way, sharing your ups and downs, failures and successes: that’s way more appealing to your readers. Why?
Because we are all just bumping along, trying to figure our craft out.
Lend a helping hand and share what you’ve learned so far. Your life, and business, is going to be better for it.
