Silencing Your Inner Critic: 7 ideas to stop unreasonable expectations blocking you from getting started
You’re not going to be perfect right away — reset your brain to focus on progress rather than perfection.
It’s always been my mission to help people, and I’ve wanted to get into writing, blogging and vlogging for some time. I’ll create a perfect system, get all the right gear, finally sit down to write, and then it starts… the wall of doubt, the dreaded blank page and the master procrastinator.
It’s hard getting started!
Unreasonable expectations
Normally it’s gone something like this:
- Block out a few hours to write
- Expect to be able to bash out 3 or 4 awesome posts
- Start with a blank page and realise this is difficult
- Worry, overthink and procrastinate looking for new apps, tools or tricks
- End up not writing anything, but hey, I’ve found a great new app to add to my system!
And what’s the result? Well, I started with massively over-inflated expectations and clearly underdelivered. At least it felt like productive time. But where’s the value, where’s the impact and how many people has it helped?
None.
I think ‘writing’ is an odd skill for this, as it feels like I do it all day for work so it feels like I should be good at it. But actually finding ideas, interpreting them, and creating valuable content is a craft that needs practice…
Practice makes progress
You wouldn’t sit down at a piano for the first time and expect to play a symphony, so why would writing be any different.
Like anything, writing is a craft and a skill to practice. You wouldn’t sit down at a piano for the first time and expect to play a symphony, so why would writing be any different.
Ali Abdaal had a great principle in his ‘Youtube for Beginners’ Skillshare course — essentially the first 50 videos you create are for you. You use these to hone your skills, learn what works, what doesn’t and just use it as a way to get good at the process. This translates across to writing too.
Accept that no one is reading at the beginning, nobody cares what you write, and use the early posts as a guide. Get familiar with the process, learn how you work best, and perhaps start to get an indication of what works with your audience.
7 ways of overcoming unreasonable expectations
Having spent years trying to get started, here’s the best approaches I’ve found for beating your brain and just getting started.
- Capture ideas, insights and notes wherever you are
Create searchable notes with ideas that you hear, read or think of and make sure these are easily accessible wherever you are. - Start simple, write anything
Start with bullet points, sketches, mindmaps. It’s like warming up at the gym — once the juices are flowing it’s easier to keep going. - Accept it’s a messy process
My whole notion of ‘sitting down to write 3 or 4 posts’ in one go was unrealistic. Aiming for 1 post is enough, and sometimes even that will be a stretch. I’ll be flitting between ideas, refining, editing or even starting over — it can be messy, bitty and challenging, but the reward of completing some content and publishing it is worth it in the end. - Stick to simple systems
I must have sunk days of my life into playing with different tools, apps and systems. Essentially you just need something distraction-free to collect ideas together and type. - Write first, edit later
You’ve finally sat down to write, but still you’re brain is overthinking and getting in the way. Just write, keeping writing, and try to save the editing for the next session. The last thing you need is your over-active brain censoring your work before it even hits the page. - Remember the safety checks
One ridiculously obvious point that only just clicked, was that you don’t have to publish anything. I was so worried about what other people would think, it was stopping me starting at all. But I realised if I wrote something truly terrible maybe just don’t put it on the internet!! - Let the audience be your guide
If you’re looking to help people, then keeping an eye on posts that resonate and taking on board constructive comments can help guide the direction you go in with your content (if you want!)
Plus, use the AI Advantage
I don’t believe that just taking content spewed verbatim from Chat-GPT or similar tools is worthwhile. Essentially all you’re doing there is outsourcing your thinking to a bot. Whilst the content might be passable, where’s the value to YOU, what are you learning?
However using generative AI can be a great way to avoid writers block. I’ll often have Chat-GPT open to ask for synonyms, title ideas or to cross check my ideas with it’s impressive large language model database.
Just do it…
So, you’ve got all the tools, you can write freely, you don’t need to publish anything if it’s truly terrible. Stop delaying, start practicing and try to ignore your challenging inner voice!
