Become excellent at what you do

byKarin13

5.5K followers

6 years ago

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.

1. 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.
   
2. 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."
3. 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!)
4. 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!
5. 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.
6. 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 :)