In the This Means Business Bootcamp this week one participant raised the knotty issue of imposter syndrome. She made the insightful point that in answering the hypothetical critic standing over her shoulder as she wrote, demanding to know what right she had to voice that opinion, she ended up putting in ‘waffle’ – qualifying words and phrases, almost apologising for her writing as she went, and feeling hunted and constrained. That’s no way to write, and no fun for either writer or reader.
One way of dealing with this is to focus on your target reader, the person who’s eager to hear what you have to say, the person you know you can help.
I shared with the group something that Alan Weiss, author of Million Dollar Consulting, said in his Extraordinary Business Book Club interivew (due to be broadcast 27 February), talking about the impact of his writing, which contains no such fluff:
It’s the power of self-esteem. It’s the power of not worrying about what people think about what you write. It’s the power of writing for yourself and not being popular, and it’s the power of success over perfection. Perfection kills success. If you’re constantly asking yourself ‘Is there a better way to write this?’, you’ll never write anything that’s really good.
Worry less, write more.