Success Advice
How To Write From The Heart: You’ve Got The Words To Change A Nation
Writing is one of the best ways to connect with other people and become influential. The art of writing will always be timeless no matter how many people think that bite-sized content will take over – it won’t. It’s easy just to write but writing from the heart is very different.
My writing career started when I was in high school, and my teachers kept telling me I was a brilliant writer. I never believed them and still don’t believe I am very good at it. With that aside, I chose to keep writing because people are inspired by my words and it’s a medium that has worked thus far.
In the future, I will be doing more videos and public speaking, but writing will always be there. Even with videos and public speaking you are still required to write the content so the art of putting words together in a meaningful way is a valuable skill.
As the years went on I stopped writing for a long time but I still was knocking out convincing emails each day, so I never actually gave up. Then, a few years back I began blogging, and that’s when I taught myself how to write from the heart.
The second part of the title for this article comes out of a song. The phrase “You’ve got the words to change a nation,” is one of the mantras I live my life by. Words truly do have the power to change a nation, and you should use them for good. You should use words in everything you do to inspire others and add value to people’s lives. You should use words to live your purpose.
Even if you have no aspiration for blogging or social media, writing is still important because a habit that will help you in life is journaling. The habit of writing in a journal is followed by many of the greats such as Oprah and Tony Robbins. Either way, learning to write from the heart is a must.
So, below are my top 8 tips on how you too can write from the heart and change your nation at the same time:
1. Write when you’re full of emotion
The easiest way to write from the heart is when you’re having a day or period of time when you are full of emotion. For me, this can either be a really sad state, or a point in time when I am experiencing the phenomena known as “flow.”
In deep emotional states, words flow out of you and are naturally tainted with emotion from your heart. Writing can be a great way to release negative emotions or multiply positive emotions. In these writing states, you should aim to eliminate perfection and not worry about spelling or what you’re writing.
The key for me has been to just let the words flow out of me and then go back and edit them later – that’s how you capture raw emotion. The rawer the emotion is in your writing; the more heartfelt the words on the page will be to your reader. Practice this enough and you will have a large audience.
It’s not always possible to be near a suitable space to write like your office. What I do as a simple hack is to write down phrases or ideas when I am experiencing these particular emotional states. Ideally, you want to finish the writing while you’re still in the state; otherwise, I have found that when you come back to it later, the emotion is gone from the topic you were writing about.
2. Forget about how many shares you get
This point is particularly relevant in the age of social media that we are now in. The temptation (I have it too) is to write something, post it online, and then actually give a damn about how many people share your post.
This habitual way of approaching your writing will cause you all sorts of problems, and it will guarantee you that you don’t write from the heart.
“Other people can’t determine your success; you must determine it yourself and your writing’s purpose should be to serve others”
There are so many things that effect how many shares a written post will get on the various social media platforms such as time of day, the country the article is focused towards, the current topics in the news, who reads it, and finally, the platforms you post it on – forget about the number of shares!
3. Concentrate on passion filled topics
To write from the heart requires you to write about something you’re passionate about. Your heart, your passion, and your emotions are very closely linked to each other. For me, I find writing about entrepreneurship and personal development is the best way for me to write from the heart.
The reason these two fields help me write from the heart is because they are deeply personal in their own individual ways. Entrepreneurship translates for me to family, success, money won and money lost, pain, pleasure, etc.
Personal development translates for me to mean; a tool that turned my life around, my appreciation for Tony Robbins, the device that transformed me in business, my passion, my network of friends, and finally, me being on Addicted2Success with all of you. See writing from the heart and using your passion go much deeper than you think. For me, they go as deep as the depths of the ocean.
4. Crank up the vulnerability
If you want to not only write from the heart but change your nation at the same time then, your writing needs to be 100% vulnerable. Why? The reason is because so much of the world is based on hype and things that are not real. When you are vulnerable, you naturally write from the heart.
Being vulnerable in writing and in life is not very common. People listen when you’re vulnerable, and you speak what you believe to be the truth. Vulnerability can create immense power, and it’s that power that you can use to change your nation.
I have demonstrated this one quite a few times on our site when I have spoken about my health issues, my mortality, the anxiety I used to suffer, and my imperfections as illustrated by others. Each time I am vulnerable I am writing from the heart with the goal of helping others. I would love you to try this approach in your own life and watch the success come flooding in like a tidal wave.
5. Include inspiration as much as possible
When you endeavor to include inspiration in some form in your writing, you automatically write from the heart. The way you go even further is you include action points after the inspirational points in your writing.
The reason for this is that the impact people will get from your inspirational points will not be reached to the maximum if you don’t write in some action points. Inspiration is meaningless without action that follows. Inspiration almost always leads to positive change, and I think that’s what everyone should aim for.
“In the end, what will cause your writing to change a nation will be how much you can inspire and motivate everyone that reads your message” – Tim Denning
6. Be you
You will never write from the heart if you don’t be you. Being you involves you not writing in a way that makes your brain think about how others will perceive your words. Everyone is going to get a different meaning from your words so just concentrate on pouring in emotion and being you.
The easiest way I find to be me in my writing is to include some personal stories here and there, which highlight my message in a way that only I can do. Writing styles, topics, blogs and content can easily be copied, but copying how you do you is impossible, so that’s your best chance at writing from the heart.
7. Give everything you have
To be successful at writing from the heart, it’s crucial to give everything you have in your writing. Then, when you think you have given everything, reach down and try and give some more. Just like in life, the more you give, the more success you will achieve.
The way I give everything is that I take every bit of advice and learning that I get from my daily life, and chunk it down for you into simple bite-sized points. I ensure I do this regularly and make the writing as compelling as I can so you can get the benefits of the lessons I am sharing.
All of us can be a New York Times best Selling Author if we give everything we have and write from the heart.
8. Get into a high energy writing state
The final point to writing from the heart is to make sure your mind is in the right state. When you’re burnt out or tired, it’s hard to reach down and write from the heart. Any form of proper writing requires energy and so what I recommend is to inspire yourself before any block of writing.
The way I change my state before I begin to write is firstly by having a shower. Showers help clear my mind and relax me. I then do ten mins of exercise to get the blood moving (trampolines work best for me). The next step is to make a nice herbal tea (caffeine free tea) and sit down for 30 minutes and read a personal development book – I’m currently reading “The Law Of Success.”
The last step to getting into a high-energy writing state is to watch a motivational YouTube video. I find just typing the word motivation into YouTube gives the best results.
***Final Thought***
For those that want to take writing from the heart or even living from the heart further, here is an exercise I learned from Tony Robbins recently:
Step One – Turn on some emotional classical music from YouTube
Step Two – Put one hand on your heart and close your eyes
Step Three – For two minutes, think of three things you are grateful for
This exercise will help you connect with your heart and will bring all sorts of emotions out. It’s a great way to prepare for writing something that has the power to change a nation.