What do you do when the words don’t flow? When you can’t keep the goal in sight, you get lost in the document and it’s all an exhausting and frustrating muddle?

Whether it’s due to stress, tiredness, or illness, for most of us there are times when writing doesn’t come easily. So how can you write when you’re not feeling your best?

Goal setting in business is powerful but the details of those goals are often confined to spreadsheets. And I find it hard to get motivated by numbers on a spreadsheet. So here’s an exercise that combines goal setting with creative writing. It will help you uncover what you really want to achieve, and can help you chart a way to make it happen.

The idea of a work-life balance is hard to fathom when you’re running your own business. Especially, if it’s a solo business, and you are it. Tips to make you stronger and lift your spirits.

We might wrap it up as a lack of time, or a lack of direction, or lack of need, but not marketing often boils down to the same thing - the fear of being seen. It’s a mindset thing. Marketing is the way you build a bridge to the business you want to run. Here’s another way of looking at it.

Sometimes writing is easy. The ideas and the words just flow. You don’t even notice the time passing. Most of the time it feels like work. Eliminate distractions and get into a flow and it goes okay.

However sometimes it feels completely impossible. You have the time and the space, but you don’t have any ideas. Or motivation. Or anything.

This is for that time.

A copywriter asks questions. What’s the most important thing to say here? What do you want people to do when they read this? How do you want people to feel? Good copywriters get inside the head of the ideal reader, just like you want to get inside the head of your ideal client. Think like a copywriter, and you’ll know just what to deliver to the people you serve.

If I could bottle something and give it to my friends and family it would be confidence. The fairies in Sleeping Beauty missed a trick with their gifts of Beauty, Grace, and Dance. What’s really going to protect you in life is the gift of confidence.

Imposter Syndrome is everywhere, and it’s got some new guises. There’s the ‘anything I say right now feels irrelevant compared to what’s going on in the world’ version. There’s a debilitating ‘I’ve lost all my confidence’ strain.

If you’re thinking ‘there are real heroes emerging all around us, I’m not expert/brave/important enough to add anything worthwhile’ I’m not surprised that you’re finding it hard to write anything at all.

This might help.

Setting up on my own after nine years of working in partnership has been a big adventure and it’s taught me lots of things. Here are a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned about writing, focus, and getting stuff done. I hope they’re helpful for you too.