Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mitch Tarala. Please read more about Mitch in the footer.
“Let yourself grow in ways you never expect to. Become what you admire in others, for that admiration is telling you something.”
I wanted to start this post with the quote that inspired me to write it. The above quote appeared on a friend’s Facebook status the other day and it really struck a chord with me.
Ponder the quote for a moment and then think about how you might begin to apply it to your writing, beginning with the next piece you write.
Now let’s turn the above quote into an exercise that can improve your writing.
This exercise is not meant to be done in one sitting, but you can certainly do it all at once if you feel like it and have enough free time. I recommend you do this in pieces so as to not fill up a huge block of your valuable time all at once.
Become What You Admire In Others
For the purpose of this article I am going to be focusing on bloggers, but this can be applied to almost any skill or trade, it is not limited to blogging, writing, or the internet. This exercise may seem simple, but it is very effective.
First you should grab a pen and at least 5 blank pieces of paper. Now come up with a list of your top 5 favorite bloggers, authors, artists, musicians, or whatever skill you are applying this to.
Put one of the names at the top of each blank sheet of paper so you have a blank sheet of paper for each of your choices.
Next you are going to analyze the work of each of your selections, making a list of all of the things that stand out to you about their blog, art, music, or whatever they do.
List all of the best qualities in their work and all of the things that you like about it. Try to notice any unique writing styles, formatting, or other subtle techniques that these people employ. All of these things combined is what adds up to make their work stick out as something special to you. These are your clues and they are telling you something important.
What Does This Tell You?
These clues tell you where to start making improvements in your own work. ‘Become what y0u admire in others, for that admiration is telling you something.‘
At first you will probably have a pretty generic list of things and this exercise might seem pointless, but push through this initial phase of resistance and you’ll start to notice the important bits that will make all the difference. You should spend at the bare minimum 15 minutes for each of your 5 selections. It would be better to spend 30-45 minutes on each one, writing down all of the things you notice.
You’ll come to a point early on where you think you’ve listed everything there is and that it’s pointless to keep going with this exercise.
Keep going.
You will probably be able to come up with at least 10-20 more items for your list. These last items are the goods. They are the things that your subconscious mind notices, the things that make it stand out above the rest, and the things that your conscious mind has a harder time picking out.
Once you’ve spent at least 15 minutes doing this, you can flip the page over and start listing all of the weak points for that same person’s work that you can find. Do the same basic exercise, but list the weak spots.
Because you’ve selected your favorite and most inspirational role models it will be more difficult to identify all of the weak spots. You may have a tendency to idolize these people so much that you can hardly admit that they have weak spots. That’s okay, keep looking for the weak spots and you’ll find them.
You can do this simple exercise for each of the 5 people you selected. You can do each person one at a time, or you can do them in groups, or all at once. It doesn’t matter. As long as you do this exercise and spend the required amount of time on each one you will end up with some fantastic information when you are finished.
Things To Look Out For
Notice the style and flow of the work at hand.
- Do they break their posts up into smaller blocks of text that are only a few sentences long?
- Do they use lots of emphasis with italics or bold text? What about headlines and sub-headings?
- Do they write in first person or constantly refer to themselves as ‘we’?
- Are they writing for an individual or a crowd?
- Do they instill a feeling of motivation or positivity?
- Do they include humor when they write?
- Do they always relate to a personal story or experience?
- Do they use any peculiar language or language patterns?
All of these things should be considered, and more…
Analyzing And Using The Data
Applying the data you collect during this exercise is easy. The title of this post says it all, Become What You Admire In Others.
Read over the lists you’ve created and try to apply what you’ve learned from it. Try out some of the techniques and styles that you noticed in the work of the people you admire most. Don’t copy their posts, copy the style. Learning from those who impress you the most is a quick way to identify some of your own strong and weak points, so do it and apply what you’ve learned!
You may also consider adding yourself to the list and analyzing your own work, or as an alternative you could find another blogger and you could analyze each others work, being as open and honest as possible.
Doing this exercise with another blogger can help you understand the way others see your blog. Even though you may not like to read about the weak points of your own work, it is a tremendous way to grow and improve.