6 Things I Learned From Writing Privately Every Day for 30 Days

What I now know about my voice, my content strategy and my audience

The Flamboyant Tree here in Costa Rica (literally known as - flamboyán)

Are you stuck? Lacking confidence? Can’t move forward?

If so, you’re where I was a month ago.

My notes & posts on Substack were getting moderate results, I was struggling with whether my niche was too broad, and I desperately wanted to figure out a way to better reach my audience.

At the same time I noticed that I was increasingly reading authors who wrote more personal stories.

Not the generic, vanilla ‘how to’ stuff I’ve regularly consumed & written about for years. But those who chatted about their daily life, their world views, the observations they made.

It’s been a goal of mine for years to ‘find my voice’, but I’ve never been 100% sure what that meant. So that’s why I started the writing practice I told you about yesterday.

And I never expected 30 days of private writing in my notes app to be so revealing and clarifying, but that’s exactly what it has been.

Here’s why:

1. You can’t think your way to your voice. You have to write your way to it.

As I said yesterday I’ve wanted to start a daily writing practice for the best part of a decade.

But each time I tried, it died as quickly as it started. The reason was always the same. I never felt I had enough to say.

I would read Seth Godin and his quietly relentless daily blog and think, “He’s got a voice. I haven’t.” I couldn’t picture what mine would even sound like, so I never stuck around long enough to find out.

I also always felt desperately uncomfortable writing about me.

My default for 16 years has been strategy. ‘How to build an email list’, ‘how to run Facebook ads’, ‘how to launch a digital product’.

Strategy is safe, and useful, and doesn’t feel like turning the camera around on myself.

My mum (god rest her soul) always said, “Never hang your dirty washing out in public,” and I think our whole generation has that line wired in somewhere.

But what surprised me, when I finally sat down for these 30 days, was that writing ‘about me’ almost immediately stopped being ‘about me’.

The first few posts were a bit journal-y. Where we were, what we were doing, what I was working on.

But by day 10 the writing was already turning outward.

A bus journey became about our reliance on AI. The place we were in became a lesson about practicing in public. My surgery recovery became about reviving childhood dreams.

The writing about me became writing about the world through me, which is a very different thing.

The voice I was looking for didn’t arrive on day 1. It started surfacing around day 12.

By day 25 it sounded unmistakably mine. But all the thinking & strategising in the world wouldn’t have got me there.

I had to write my way to it.

If you’ve been trying to find your voice, stop trying. Start writing.

2. You don’t have to build in public.

This completely flies in the face of the whole Gary Vee, LinkedIn, X-bro ‘document-don’t-create’ culture that’s been circling the internet for the last few years.

And don’t get me wrong I’m a big believer in practicing in public. But you don’t have to start there.

If you absolutely do not yet have the confidence to put yourself out there, bloody don’t!

It’s not a rule. That you must share every stumble, every mis-fire, every lesson. It’s just a bunch of over confident blokes telling you what’s worked for them.

You do you!

You can practice in private first, just for you, with no audience or pressure, and sharpen your chops before you go live to the world.

(NB: One of my daily posts was about a Cartagenan violinist playing in a square who wasn’t very good but was bravely practising in public. But while he was improving his skills in the public arena, I can guarantee that he did not walk out there with a brand-new violin having never picked one up before in his life and thought right I’m gonna learn how to play the violin out here in the square in public and hope people throw me a few pennies for my efforts. He would have learned the basics in private first.)

That’s exactly what I did, and it’s what finally made daily writing stick after a decade of false starts.

If I’d been writing publicly from day one, I’d have spent every morning wondering what would resonate, what the hook should be, who might share it.

I’d have performed instead of explored, and the voice that surfaced in private would never have shown up at all.

You don’t have to build in public. You can build privately, get your shape right, and then open the door.

Some things grow better in the dark.

3. Action creates clarity. Thinking creates more thinking.

It may not always seem it on the surface but you are talking to one of the world’s most accomplished over-thinkers.

You gotta love AI! 😂

I haven’t always been this way, and I’m 100% certain that menopause has played a part, but I have spent a ridiculous amount of time overthinking my niche, my brand, my offers.

Long AI strategy sessions, pivots, coaching calls, beautifully formatted brand documents I’ve never looked at again.

But none of it gave me the clarity that the last 30 days of just writing has done.

In just one month, I’ve become crystal clear on the audience I want to attract, the kind of content I want to create, how to build my audience for This Big World (my ecom brand) and how I want to grow and monetise my Substack moving forward.

I’ve always advocated for the fact that action creates clarity and every single time I move and do, instead of thinking and strategising I prove my own point.

Stop thinking, start doing.

4. The future of online writing belongs to storytellers.

I’ve watched several creators I used to enjoy quietly switch to ‘unedited’ AI-generated content over the last year.

The slop is obvious. The rhythms are wrong, the opinions are flattened, and every post starts with “This isn’t about X, it’s about Y” or “Not because of this, because of that.”

And believe me, I’m an AI fan. I use it for everything. Strategising, outlining, even drafting.

But it can’t mimic my voice. Even with Claude cowork, a hundred writing examples uploaded, and a clear set of rules, it gets close but it isn’t me. And I think most readers can sniff AI out a mile off. I know I can.

As AI floods the internet, more & more people will gravitate towards writers who tell specific, personal, voice-led stories. Not just human writing, but storytelling.

ChatGPT can write ‘How to Start a WordPress Blog’ in three minutes flat. Brilliant. Use it for that.

What it can’t write is how discovering Jericoacoara in Brazil reminded me of the 1954 movie Brigadoon because of how magical it was. Or how rewatching the kids movie Hook while recovering from gallbladder surgery inspired thoughts about chasing our dreams & aging disgracefully. Or what referencing the old Walkman & listening to Kate Bush taught me about rest vs productivity.

These are stories specific to me, the moment and how I see things.

As I said at the start of this article I now read almost exclusively, writers who share personal stories along with their lessons & observations of the world, even if the writing isn’t pulitzer prize winning material. (Mine certainly isn’t).

I’m not saying don’t use AI to get over blank-page syndrome. Use it. I do. But make sure the voice, the stories, and the observations are unmistakably yours, as those are the parts nothing can replicate.

5. A piece of advice I’ve been giving for years has been holding me back.

I’ve believed strongly in knowing your ‘who’ for 16 years.

Know your avatar. Know your who. Write for one specific person. Name them, age them, give them a job, a postcode, a favourite breakfast.

I’ve given that advice on every coaching call I’ve ever run, and if you’re really struggling with narrowing your topics it’s still great advice.

But, over the last 30 days, every time I sat down to write, the avatar question would pop up at the back of my head.

• Would my ideal target audience care about this?

• Would they find it useful?

• Would it solve a problem for them?

And every time, the question slowed me down and pulled the post off-course from what I wanted to say.

So somewhere around day 15 I stopped asking. I just wrote what I genuinely wanted to write that morning.

And my posts got better. My observations sharper, my message keener.

I still have a rough feel for who my audience is, and if you happen to be like me, interested in freedom, funding it, ageing disgracefully, and living your best life in your 50s & beyond, then hopefully you’ll feel right at home here!

But some of my best business successes over the years have come with no specific avatar in mind. I’ve just created and my audience has found me.

If you’re stuck on this one, re-read point 3. Just start doing and clarity will follow!

6. Confidence comes from doing it.

When I started the 30 days, I was nervous about eventually going public.

I knew that was always the goal, but I wasn’t sure I ever would.

I’m not nervous now.

By doing the thing, day after day, my confidence grew naturally, until I was ready to start doing it publicly, which is exactly what I’m doing now.

I’ll lose some subscribers sure. Some won’t like the daily cadence. Some are only here for the freedom funding tactics, not the surrounding stories.

And that’s fine. Because I’m confident the audience I will attract will be more aligned with who I am and what I offer.

And the beautiful part is, my readers & community, rather than just appreciating my strategies on how to grow an online business, will really get to know me as a person.

As a nomad, as a crazy, insecure, people pleasing, fast acting, unfit, over thinking, capable, strong, fun loving woman, who hopefully inspires them to grab life, and live their best years yet with no regrets.

If confidence is the thing that’s holding you back, read lesson 2 again, and start doing the thing you’re unsure about just for yourself at first, and see where it takes you.

So that my friends is 30 days of private writing revealed.

I highly recommend it! 😂

This has been my longest dispatch in my 30 days of writing, so thanks for sticking around to the end. Most are much much shorter than this. There were just a lot of lessons to get through!

I hope it’s inspired you to start whatever it is you’ve been stuck on. Remember you’re in charge of how you do things. Just because some ‘gooroo’ says it’s good for them doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

You do you my friend. And do it in whatever manner means you’ll make it happen and move closer to your goals.

Thanks for being here.

The practice continues. I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you why I’m currently sleeping in a shipping container. (I kid you not!)

📍Costa Rica 🇨🇷