5 Simple Writing Guidelines That Most People Ignore

For starters, give people something new

“How To Be More Productive”

1. Get enough sleep

2. Make a to-do list

3. Wake up at 5 A —

Yawn.

I see articles like this one all the time. They have the same bland advice, no personal touch from the author, and they’re ultimately useless because we’ve read them before.

I would love to tell you that’s the exception, not the rule, but trust me — it’s more-so the rule than I’d like to admit.

Very rarely do I open an article and get blown away by something new.

You know what, though? The best writers always give me something new.

I think one of the most underrated writing guidelines starts with this:

1. Give The Reader Something That’s Actually New

Here’s a quick tip. If you’ve read it before, don’t write it. That’s a writing tip from my friend Stephen Moore. It’s also something I’ve preached in my online courses.

“Omit needless words!”

That’s a writing tip from Strunk & White’s old book, Elements of Style.

“Omit redundant ideas!”

That sounds like more of a tip for writers in 2020. Omit ideas you have already read before. How?

2. Tell Your Personal Story, Not Someone Else’s

Articles that include a personal story in the introduction are always my favorite. Among my core group of writing friends, we all believe that stories are pretty crucial to an article going viral.

Trusting yourself as a writer means trusting your story. This can be hard when we try to say something at the dinner table and everyone zones the heck out. We might think we’re boring.

Guess what? We’re not. We’re just using the wrong medium. Some people are great orators, and some people are great writers.

I’m not a great speaker myself, but I love to formulate thoughts on paper. Trust that your story is worth it. Take a leap of faith, like in Indiana Jones. I promise we (the audience) won’t bite.

3. Believe That You Have Something Very Meaningful To Say

A lot of writers simply don’t believe they’re any good. They’re not giving us useless, regurgitated stuff on purpose — they just don’t trust their own instincts.

So they opt to give us tried-and-true tips.

The other day my father asked me for advice about something, and it dawned on me that’s a useful conversational secret of his.

Asking people for their advice is a truly great conversation starter! Better yet, it’s something I had never read about before.

So I wrote about it. Granted, a few years ago when nobody read my work I would’ve been apprehensive to write it, but now that I trust my instincts more, I published it.

What’s the worst that could happen? Nobody reads it? I’m fine with that, personally.

The article is now one of my most popular articles of 2020.

You know why? Because it had a new piece of advice, and I trusted myself enough to publish it.

Trust yourself more as a writer!

4. Do Cool Stuff (Then Write About It)

I once wrote an article called “Want To Be A Writer? Do Cool Stuff First.”

It was a callback to my favorite book, “Do Cool Sh*t,” by Miki Agrawal.

The whole book is the author’s retelling of her life and journey towards owning multiple businesses. What made it fun to read compared to other business books is that it’s just her story. She talks about how she made lifelong friends in Paris by ditching her bicycle tour to play football with strangers. Among other things, of course.

I really admired her initiative, but I realized something.

Most of the business books we read are written by people who have skin in the game. Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos. Richard Branson. They all have skin in the game. They do cool stuff first, then write later.

A lot of people have bland writing because they’re not tapping into the cool sh*t they’ve done. Life-changing experiences should come before your writing. And guess what? You don’t need to travel the world in 80 days to justify your blogging (you could, though, if you wanted).

I went on a five-month solo road trip across the United States when I was 23 years old. The things I learned during those 150 days is the backbone for many of my articles today.

You’ve already done some pretty cool stuff. I’m sure of it. Or you’ve been through something that’s been quite hard. Write about that.

The path to better writing, in this case, is through yourself.

5. Write One Article Every Day

Someone once asked baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. how his son could be a faster sprinter.

“Do more sprints,” he said.

If you want to be a better writer, write more articles.

Much of the advice in this article revolves around trusting yourself more as a writer. I think the cause for most bad writing today isn’t because the author is a poor writer — it’s because the author does not trust their intuition.

Trust in what you notice that nobody else does.

Writing online was my avenue to realizing I actually had something meaningful to say. Not always, mind you, but I wasn’t as boring as I thought I was.

I hope you realize the same thing. I hope you trust yourself more. I can’t wait to read about the things you notice that nobody else does.