This course has a 20 blog requirement in order to launch your program. I'll talk about that more below...
Why is writing so important?
- It helps you uncover stuff that you might not realized before
- It helps you hash out your philosophy and it helps you learn how to talk about what you are trying to talk about
- It helps you produce confidence as a writer. It boosts your confidence and helps you get more comfortable with writing and eventually discussing and sharing your content.
- It's evidence of your experiences and the transformational work you've done.
- It a living documentation of your life experience. Your writing makes your experience more real.
- It helps you recall things better.
- The more you practice writing, the better you will become at it. Your writing muscle gets developed.
- It helps you take responsibility for your thoughts, beliefs and your spiritual philosophy.
How can you achieve this goal?
Firstly, ask yourself, "How much time can I realistically give to writing each day?"
Then, make a decision about when you are going to do your daily writing. It doesn't need to be a BIG daily writing assignment, however, it should be there and you should commit to it. Consider making your daily writing practice something like 10 to 20 minutes per day. Try putting this right at the beginning of your day, maybe even before getting out of bed. You can also try putting it at the end of the day to cap off your day.
You can also make an alarm that goes off and reminds yourself that it's time to write. Then write for a set, short amount of time-- like 10 to 20 minutes.
Crystal Lynn's philosophy is to write all the time and express yourself and your ideas in writing as often as possible. In the beginning write to yourself and for yourself. Later, you'll need to write to your niche, Inner Circle Client.
But you are also going to need to block of about 90 minutes each week to actually sit down and research and write each blog article. I suggest making your blog articles based on something that you want to learn deeply and maybe offer in your program. For example, if you want to make a program for women approach the age of 40, then research and write some articles about the issues they might have. You can also go watch some videos on Youtube and write about how they inspired you. As another example, if you are interested in helping women overcome grief and loss, then you might want to write your articles on a variety of things. Like, your own stories of grief and loss (and of course, how you overcame the pain.)
Remember that when you say you are going to write about a certain thing, you do need some discipline to stick to your commitment. However, you need to know how to dance with your commitment. If you are feeling blocked about your subject, do some work to get unblocked and even consider that maybe for today you need to write about something different. You might come up with an entirely different blog article! But be sure to go back and write about your subject tomorrow. Don't abandon your commitments, just adjust and dance.
Lastly, make realistic expectations of what you can do and work toward it.
What happens if I am resistant to writing and I find myself sabotaging my writing schedule and not actually doing the work?
Then you need to do some deep Shadow work to find out why you are doing this. Try using the exercises you are going to learn in Pathway 1. Apply your situation to them and see what you learn about yourself and how you can heal. You can also bring your issues to the Kaleidoscope or private sessions and let us work through the issues together.
About those 20 blogs...
15 of these blogs are going to be tailored specifically around your Unique Program Offering Framework. Your Unique Program Offering Framework is the system you will be creating to help your audience learn about your offer and how you can help people heal and transform. For example, you might have seen my Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coach Framework video on Youtube. That video gives a detailed explanation of my framework. And you will notice that I have an assessment at the end where I invite the viewer to rate themselves to see if they have what it takes to be a Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coach. If they find they don't have what it takes, I invite them to book a Discovery Session to learn how I can help them.
This is important because you will be creating the exact same thing for your program and offering.
The image below is my Content Planning Calendar database in Airtable. This is where I plan out what blog posts I will be writing for the year. If you look in the Category column, you will see that all the categories of each blog piece corresponds to one of the sections of my framework. This is really important because you don't want to fill up your blog with articles that don't relate to your primary topic and the pain you can help transform. So you'll use your framework as the guide for the blogs you will be writing.
For right now, you do NOT need to worry about your framework or what's going into your Content Planning Calendar. However, you do need to start writing regularly like a professional. Being a Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coach means being a professional writer. Your works will be published on your blog and on social media. And you will also be creating lead magnets such as ebooks, workbooks, and other downloadable written materials. You're a writer! So start acting like it today!
Out of the 20 blogs that are required for this program, the remaining five blogs will be based on your main and supporting pain points. Don't worry about what this means exactly YET. In a nutshell, you are going to become an expert in a particular problem (or pain point) that your prospective clients are dealing with. In order for them to learn that you are an expert and that you have a system for healing and transforming that pain point, you are going to publish at least 5 key articles that expertly and compassionately talk about that pain point. You'll also demonstrate your expertise by giving some good solutions that people can implement to make their lives better now. But again, don't worry about this yet.
I'm sharing all of this with you now because writing is a muscle and it needs to be exercised. If I waited until Week 12 to tell you about the writing needed for the program, you would probably feel a little overwhelmed by the addition of this new and powerful obligation. By getting you started on it now, I am giving you a great opportunity to get a BIG head-start. TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY.
By starting deep writing explorations now, you will be giving yourself plenty of time to work through a lot of different issues before you're ready to blog. Now is the time to explore yourself as a writer. It is the time to learn how to write professionally from you heart. You'll need to learn how to talk about emotions, your personal life, things that happened to you in the past, and maybe even other people! How do you tell the story about something that happened to you in a way that leaves the people involved with some dignity and respect? I mean, if you write carelessly on your blog about your family and then you show up at Thanksgiving dinner to some grim faces, you will have to face the music. Now is a great time to start thinking about all that.
For right now, just dive in and start writing. Here's something to think about. The first 10 weeks of this program (Pathway 1: The Way of Healing) are geared toward your own personal experience with pain, trauma, and healing. During the first six weeks, you're going to learn about a concept such as a trigger or a limiting belief. During each of those weeks, you could experiment with your writing and write a potential blog post. For example, you could write a blog about your experience with a trigger that fired off at work that day. Or you could write about how your limiting belief holds you back. Personally, I think it would be a great experiment to try writing about your own experience in one blog, and in another blog, you could write about how the concept you learned applies to other people. In that blog you might explore, for example, how limiting beliefs stop people from thinking big and taking risks in their career. Or you might write out a solution for how to keep your cool when your kids trigger you after a long day at work.
If you started the habit of writing one or two blog posts each week, by the time you're done with Pathway 1, you would have between 10 and 20 blog posts already! Do you know how confident that would make you feel? SUPER FREAKING CONFIDENT!
So go forth, Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coach In-Training and get to writing. The following modules offer you some guidance and help to get you started. And of course, I will be offering you more help along the way. Don't fret if you think you don't write well. I've got some systems to help you work it out. Just relax and let it flow through you for now.
Please feel free to share you blogs posts in the Facebook group if you want feedback from Crystal Lynn or from the other Badass Butterfly Coaches.