One Question To Create Immediate Clarity & Be Hyper-Focused to Write Copy
By: Nick Maier
Tags: Copywriting Tips, Words, Marketing Communication, Copywriting, Copywriting Services

Question of the day today comes from one of the students, Jen, that is in our latest CopyU Case Study Program — so this is super exciting!

What is the Case Study? It’s a more intimate environment of our copywriting coaching and mentoring. We work with 10 students one-on-one and support them with their copy and their marketing projects. It’s a lot more 1-on-1 and incredibly super cool

Anyway, this question is a recurring theme that we’ve been observing with a lot of the students, and then one day, Jen asked the question… “Nick. There is so much happening in my world right now there is so much going on that there’s a sense of overwhelm. There’s a sense of frustration and there is a need for me to get clarity and focus and become hyper targeted on what matters most for me right now… And I have no idea what that is!”

So, the first thing that we delve into here is the understanding that it’s never overwhelm that we’re experience. We might associate the feeling with overwhelm — but the truth is that what we are truly experiencing is fear

Flipping this switch of language here and gaining the perspective of, “What am I fearful of here, what is it that I’m worried could potentially happen?”, allows us to tell ourselves a clearer story and paint a clearer picture to get to the bottom of what is concerning us right now

What am I scared of… Is it that I’m not good enough to get the work done? Is it that I’m not going to get it done in the set amount of time? Is it that I don’t know what part to do next and I’m going to fail?

Now we’ve ticked off that first part of the question, let’s get into how to become hyper focused and create some clarity around what to do next

I love Tim Ferriss. Huge fucking fan. I absolutely love him. I delved deep into a lot of his stuff many years ago. The “four hour workweek” is essentially one of the ‘quake books’ for myself. I read it when I was in University in my early 20’s. It’s where all this began. It’s where I began to contemplate and introduce this thought of creating this life for myself. One of the big aspects that he gets across, especially in Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, is this concept about the one thing…

… and then there’s this book. It’s also called “The One Thing” — and inside it the authors pose this power questions “What is the one thing that I can do right now such that by doing it everything else becomes either obsolete, or unnecessary”

In other words we’re looking for the lowest hanging fruit that creates the highest amount of leverage for ourselves. What I love most about Tim’s approach to this is his perspective of “slowing down and creating space”

Less is more

Slow down in order to speed up

When we’re experiencing this state of overwhelm (see: fear) the mind is going a million miles an hour. The monkey mind is a goddam bull inside a china shop. We up-regulate. Stress increases. Our breathing goes. The fear deepens

By breathing, creating space and slowing down we allow ourselves to gain more clarity + perspective and can identify our highest point of leverage — our one thing

This is what I love about copywriting! It’s always a high point of leverage. Input doesn’t equal output. Anyone can write world class copy and we are one piece of copy away at any single moment in time…

How can we focus on the single bit of copy that matters most for us right now? What’s the project that I can tweak and continue to work on to drive up it’s power?

The truth is that all of this is just a system... This is a law of principles. This is a puzzle we’re putting together. What area of the puzzle needs my attention right now? Tweak it. Test it. Tweak it again and improve it

There’s this beautiful quote that I want to leave you with today…

The clock is off. There’s no race to run. When the next thing needs doing you’ll note. All of this is governed by divine intervention

We create the anxiety for ourselves, we create distress for ourselves, we create the fear for ourselves — all because we think we need to do something right now. We don’t. When the next thing needs doing well know. End of story

This isn’t more. This is about better…

Journaling Prompt: What’s the one thing you can do that’s going to create momentum and create leverage for you. What’s the one thing that you can do right now (i.e. generally a copy campaign, or a marketing campaign) that you can set up and get back on that’s going to continually work for you in the future, without need of energy input from yourself

Nick Maier

@nickmaier__