Become excellent at what you do
I read a quote today by Brian Tracy. It said, "Your true success in life begins only when you make the commitment to become excellent at what you do."
Tracy is a Candian-American motivational speaker who has written several self-development books (over 70) that have been translated into dozens of languages.
When he was around 15 years old, he began a life-long journey into finding out why some people are more successful than others. At 15!
When I was 15 I was more worried about why I had more acne than other kids my age!
Anyway, I like the quote above because it reminds me that no matter what I do, I have to commit to becoming excellent at it. I can't settle for being "okay." I need to be FABULOUS!
I have worked with people who do a job and say, "Well, it may not be perfect, but it is good enough." Hmm...I wonder.
I'm not saying we need to strive to be perfect—trying to do that will make a person a little crazy—what I am saying is we can't settle for "good enough" in our work, especially with our little niche websites. If we settle for "good enough" it will cost not only us, but also the people who may read our "good enough" posts.
We can all become excellent at what we do by following some basic "rules" of thought when we write. I'll lay them out for you.
- Don't write when you are too tired to think straight. All this does is lead to errors in spelling, composition and grammar. Make too many of these kinds of mistakes and it won't matter how good your content is because no one is going to wade through your mistakes to get the point.
- Write from your heart, but use your head, too. It is great to write with passion, but remember you are writing to people who are probably seeking honest answers to a problem they are having. Put some thought into your posts. Don't just generalize and say "That's good enough."
- Make every attempt to write about only one topic at a time. We have a lot of space allowed to us on Wealthy Affiliate for our websites. You don't have to try to jam everything into one article. Besides, it will get too big and then no one will want to read it. Most people, in my experience, do not want to read thousands of words and ideas jammed together because we are "supposed" to write articles of a certain word length. Adding "very" and "really" don't make for great writing. (I know because I am "really" "very" bad at doing it myself!)
- Write your ideas down first. If you don't write them down as they come to you, you will likely forget them. I had a different one that I was going to list as #4, but I didn't write it down and now it is like running water through a sieve, it's gone!
- Remember to use the grammar and spell check tool on WordPress. The tool is there for us to help make our writing stronger. There is absolutely no excuse for a misspelled word. Spell check will find those words for you and point them out. Sometimes the tool is wrong and sometimes we may intentionally spell something wrong, but... I hope you get the point.
- Be yourself. Don't try to write like someone else. You have a unique voice, let your authenticity be heard.
I haven't been a member of Wealthy Affiliate long enough to create a training yet, but I intend to do so in the next month or so when I am allowed to. I love writing. It isn't always easy, but I have been doing it professionally for 28 years and I think I may be able to offer some helpful suggestions.
In the meantime, perhaps some ideas above will prove to be helpful to you.
Best wishes,
Karin :)
Recent Comments
22
Thanks for pointing this out, I admit I have not used spell-check when writing as I tend to strictly scrutinise and check my grammer and spelling as I go along. I must learn to involve spellcheck as I could still miss some errors I may have made. Good points to make.
Great advice for everyone, especially for newbies just starting out in this business!
I am guilty of #1, writing when I'm too tired because I want to finish a post before I go to bed. It's usually because I know what I want to say and am afraid I'll lose my thoughts the next morning. But then I wind up fixing more mistakes and rewriting more the next day than I would have if I'd just stopped and gone to bed!
Janelle
Hey Karin,
Thanks for the post!! Yes we all need to be excellent at what you do.
Tried and True
Elaine
I zm in the self improvement niche as it has been a passion of mine seems like forever..brian tracy is one of the ones i read and ger motivation from myself. Good post as many get stuck in the writing process myself included at times.
Good points... I actually do some of what you recommend. Not all of it, but the jot down ideas. I, like you, lose the thought once I start writing and it is the only way for me to keep my train of thought going correctly. Spelling, that’s one of my pet peeves. I couldn’t agree with you more on that one. Thanks for posting this because the part about adding words to increase content is also something I am guilty of. Most people don’t see it because I try to proof my work before publishing...but not always.
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Hi Karin :) I like all, special the number 4. I experienced a few time already -.- Even though I can go back to the track to finding the idea again, the idea has fainted already... I will pay attention to the first advice (don't write when can not think straight). Before it, I need to find what I am good at hehe :P
Thank you for sharing.