5 Strategies to Build Your Confidence as a New Writer
Putting yourself out there doesn’t need to be a nerve wracking experience.
You love to write and have always entertained a dream of doing it someday as a paid professional.
It’s hard not to admit that there’s a certain romantic ideal about leading the life of a tortured soul like Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Wolfe that leads us to pick up our own pens and start writing.
When we’re new to writing there’s often a hesitancy to get our work out into the public domain because we’re scared.
Scared and afraid that our work isn’t very good.
And the honest truth is that in a lot of cases, it isn’t that good.
But the good news is that writing is a skill and it can be learned. With time, patience and a lot of practice you can hone your skills, find your voice and fulfill your dream of being a professional writer.
What you need to start on this journey and find success is confidence.
Confidence in your ability to fail, to learn and to get back up on your feet and to keep going.
For any writer that’s new to Medium, blogging, content creation or freelancing, finding and building your confidence is going to be one of the most crucial pieces to your ability to thrive as a writer over both the short and long term.
It’s not difficult but it does require an investment of your time and energy, and a willingness to keep going even when you feel like you’re getting nowhere fast.
Write Every Day For 30 Days
The only way that you get good at your craft is with regular practice. Writing is an art form that takes skill and dedication to produce quality work that people want to read.
Start today and make a commitment to write something — a Medium post, something for your blog, a journal entry, advice on Quora — every day for the next 30 days.
Play with genres and audiences. Try writing about what you know and are passionate about. At the same time, try writing about something that you’re unfamiliar with and need to spend time researching.
Take the next 30 days to dedicate yourself to finding your voice as a writer. The confidence that comes from knowing where your strengths and weaknesses rest is invaluable.
Keep in mind that there are going to be experiments you make during this time that are going to fail spectacularly. This is part of the process. Be willing to put your ego aside while you write and see just how much you learn from the process.
You might wonder why I’m putting a 30-day time frame on this experiment. First of all, it’s pretty obvious that 30 days is around the length of a month — this makes it easy to track and keep pace as the days march on.
The more important reason is that typically it takes 21 days, or three weeks, to start and build a new habit. By the end of your 30-day experiment, you’ll have laid the groundwork for a daily writing habit that you’ll be thanking yourself for.
Promote Your Work to Your Audience
As a new writer, you likely don’t have a large audience, but that doesn’t mean that you should shy away from getting your work in front of the people that do follow you.
Even if it’s just your mom and some distant cousins.
Unless your writing is intended for your eyes only, there’s little point in pouring your creative energies into work that won’t be read by anyone because you failed to get it in front of readers.
You have a responsibility to take your work out into the world and promote it. While this can feel strange and uncomfortable at first, getting past this hurdle is essential to building your confidence.
A lot of us fear what our audience might think or say about our writing, and so we hold back. Or we make a half-hearted effort to share our work on social media and are then disappointed when no one reads it — and we can’t figure out why.
Start an email list, share your content across every social site where you have a presence, explore new platforms and learn from other successful writers how they get eyes on their content.
Slowly your confidence will increase as you learn that marketing your work is just part of the game and that there’s no shame in being a little boastful.
Be Ready and Willing to Fail
You’ve likely heard it time and time again that failure is often the best teacher. When it comes to writing and building confidence in your craft this couldn’t ring truer.
This comes with the warning that if you can’t stand the idea of your writing being sub-par or “not good enough”, then you’re likely best to stop right now and go watch Netflix.
Opening yourself up to the reality of failure and what it means for you personally and professionally is one of those important albeit uncomfortable parts of life.
Too many of us tie failure in any sense of the word to our personal worth and value as a human being. This constant striving for perfection then leaves us paralyzed and powerless as we try to figure out what to do next.
Moving past the fear of failure is hard work, but it’s actually really easy to do.
All you have to do is fail.
Then you get back up, take a look around and realize that things aren’t so bad, and go try again.
Keep repeating this until you’re not only comfortable with the idea of failure but actually look to it as one of the best sources of inspiration and learning. What your failed attempts at writing can teach you about yourself and about others is invaluable as you continue to carve out your space in this profession.
Look for and Ask for Feedback
Seeking out feedback about your work is one of the best ways to improve your writing. The trick is in looking for the right kind of feedback that’s actually going to make you better.
It’s easy to find someone to read a piece that you’ve written and all they do is heap compliments on you because they’re afraid to say anything negative.
Instead, look for individuals with experience in the field that know what they’re doing. You don’t need to have a panel of seasoned writing veterans lined up and ready to read your work at a moment’s notice, instead consider one or two pros that know what they’re looking for.
Ask specifically for constructive feedback that allows space to discuss your strengths but also plenty of room to go over where you have room to improve.
Continuous improvement is what you should be after when it comes to getting feedback about your work. Leave any desire for ego-stroking at the door, and focus simply on getting better.
Set Reasonable Expectations
It’s easy to think that because you were a decent writer in college that you’ve got the skills to easily transition into life as a successful professional writer.
While for some of us this may be true, it’s not the reality for the vast majority.
It’s highly unlikely that you’re going to hit it big with your first article or even your tenth. You may find yourself sending in pitch after pitch only to hear nothing back after weeks of follow up.
This is normal and part of the process.
Being a writer is all about the long game. It takes years to build your skills and hone your craft to the point where you can set expectations about your performance and continually meet them.
Even at that, it’s still a crapshoot because you never know who or what is on the other side making editorial decisions.
Manage your expectations appropriately and don’t set yourself up for continual disappointment. This is one of the easiest ways to boost your creativity and your confidence at the same time.
Becoming a writer is a dream that many of us have, but there are a lot of reasons that we hold back from pursuing it professionally. By committing to a daily writing habit, promoting your work, learning from failure, seeking feedback, and managing your expectations you can build your confidence and start to gain traction. The road is long but the end results are worth the time and effort you put in.
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