In the simplest terms, your voice is how you talk. It is how you express yourself. It’s your style.

On the smallest scale, it even comes down to how you construct sentences and paragraphs and book chapters. On a larger scale, your voice concerns the themes and topics you write about.

Just like your physical voice, your writing voice takes time to develop. It can also change over time. Think of how different your voice as an adult sounds compared to what you sounded like as a three-year-old or even a thirteen-year-old.

If you don’t feel like you’ve found your voice yet, keep working at it. As the author Henry Miller said, “You have to write many words before you find your voice as a writer.”

The most important thing is not what your voice is, but that you use it. Don’t compare yourself to others. Be bold. Be brave.

There’s only one you. We need to hear your voice.

Today’s Challenge: Find one simple way to share your authentic voice with the world today, through a blog, social media, or even through a text or phone call. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.

The post We Need to Hear Your Voice appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Business tycoons love the art of the deal. Sports figures love the rush of physical conflict. Skydivers love the sight of the ground rushing toward them, sentencing them toward certain doom unless their parachute opens.

You may like all of those areas of excitement. But there’s a good chance that when it comes to your writing, you’re playing it safe.

What does it mean to play it safe as a writer? It means you avoid sharing a controversial viewpoint when you feel convicted about it. It means you are not willing to upset anyone. You don’t say what you really think. You refuse to share the parts of your story that could really help someone, even though it has some unsavory parts.

At its worst, playing it safe means not sharing yourself at all.

Playing it safe is an illusion. When we play it safe, we are avoiding perceived conflict or judgment. In the end, however, if you don’t share your work, if you don’t share your heart, that is the most unsafe place to be.

It means you haven’t made a difference or shared your authentic self. That’s not a place you want to be.

So, don’t play it safe. Share what you need to share and be brave, be bold. But by all means, don’t play it safe

Daily Question: Are you playing it safe in your writing? What could you do to be more brave and bold?

The post Playing It Safe is Not Safe appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

As a writer, you have to do things sometimes that make you uncomfortable. It might be networking, public speaking, learning self-publishing, joining a writing group, or a hundred other things that seem new and exciting, yet still make you feel anxious.

The business leader and author Michael Hyatt said, “The most interesting things happen just on the other side of your comfort zone.” I think we can all agree that’s true. But how do you step outside your comfort zone when it feels… well, uncomfortable? How do you embrace the fear?

When I was in high school, I was very involved in our school plays. When you are an actor, you embrace the idea that you are becoming another person. You put on a costume and magically take on their identity.

This can also work in trying to move past your fear. The next time you must do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, try this: play a character who is brave. It sounds crazy, but it works.

Think of yourself as an actor who is bravely facing their fear. The wonderful thing about stage drama is that you can become anyone. In the blink of an eye, you can play a version of yourself that is brave. Imagine you were on a TV show doing exactly what you’re doing now, except you are playing a fearless version of yourself.

How do you speak? What would you do? What obstacles would you overcome?

It sounds crazy, but it’s true. Pretending you are a brave version of yourself is a fun and effective way to demolish fear and get on the other side of your comfort zone.

Daily Question: Think of a scary situation you’re facing right now. What does the fearless version of yourself look like, sound like, and do?

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One of the essential themes of the superhero genre is that of the double life. When the character puts on their costume, they are a powerful hero who rushes into the battle to save lives. But in order to conceal their true identity, they usually take on some sort of mild-mannered job or role that is the total opposite of their superhero persona.

• Batman is Bruce Wayne, an aloof billionaire playboy.
• Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four is a scientist.
• Spider-Man is Peter Parker, a nerdy newspaper reporter.
• Superman is Clark Kent, another nerdy newspaper reporter.
• Wonder Woman is Diana Prince, an ambassador to the United Nations.

Superheroes aren’t the only ones who live double lives. We writers can develop an alter-ego if we’re not careful.

It’s easy to appear bold and brave on the page… but how do we handle the challenges of real life?

Are you dealing with your personal problems head-on, or are you avoiding them?

Do you engage in hard conversations about hard things, or do you shut down when you are confronted with a truth you don’t want to hear?

Would the people who know you best describe you as brave? Focused? Determine? Disciplined? Or would they say you’re aloof, timid, or uncaring?

Tough words, to be sure. It’s hard to face our real-life problems instead of running away from them. And it’s easy to turn to substance abuse or other unhealthy patterns and addictions and run away from reality.

Henry David Thoreau said, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Just because we’re writers doesn’t give us the license to check out of real life. We need to show up for real on the stage of life where the action is happening. None of us are perfect, but our writing should reflect the person we are trying to become—bold, brave, and above all, a true-life superhero to the people we love the most.

The post Brave on the Page, Brave on the Stage appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.