Hiding your personality

When many of us start writing, we hide our personality. As a result, our writing becomes weak. Here’s why:

• We care too much about what other people might think. We’re trying to impress. Especially when we’re writing for specific readers, like potential employers or publishers.
• We compare ourselves with writers we admire. We try to emulate others too much.
• We lack confidence in our writing. So we try to hide behind fancy words and jargon.
• We’re used to writing under industry formats, like academic or legal writing, that after some time we forget our personal voice.

It’s easy to get tunnel vision and miss the bigger picture. We tend to use words we think people want to see. Or try to sound smarter and more impressive.

This happens when we’re afraid that people won’t understand or appreciate what we’re saying....