The Beginner Writers Guide to Overcoming Self-Doubt (Kortex Tips 1)
By the end of this article your self-doubt about writing is going to be replaced with clarity and confidence.
We're going to discuss
- The truth about writing
- The root of self-doubt
- The universal "why" — the purpose behind everybody's writing (whether they admit it or not)
- How to powerfully use writing
- 5 Stages of Your Writing Journey
And with that welcome to the first "Kortex Tips"
A series of writing tips and strategies to go along with the Kortex app(—link at the end—)but really to help you with your writing regardless of where you choose to write.
Just so you know whether or not I'm qualified to talk about this,
I've written everything from academic papers, to short film scripts, to articles, to short fiction and non-fiction stories,
I also have a degree in psychology with a focus in clinical psychology and neuroscience, and I was mentored by a coach who coached with Tony Robbins for a few years.
I've helped people with anxiety, depression, chronic pain, minor addictions, weight loss, and, what this article is about— self-doubt in the writing process.
It is super frustrating and discouraging when you sit down to write something and you find out that the most you can manage is staring at a blank screen.
And as you stare, you watch your writing dreams and aspirations slowly move further and further away.
It's even more frustrating when you're filled with so much doubt that you can't even sit down to stare at the blank screen.
And instead you wind up consuming content about how to overcome your writing struggles.
But lucky for you, you chose the right content.
Let's start by looking at the truth behind writing.
The Truth About Writing
Writing has been romanticized.
You'll see in a second that there is some validity behind this romanticization, however, it's very confusing for people who are just starting to write.
You've almost definitely seen writing described in a very mysterious, mystical, or cryptic way.
Here is the grounded truth behind writing.
The modern world has literally been built on writing.
To use a turn of phrase, the written word is like the god of society.
Countries are written, in the form of declarations, constitutions, and legislations.
The most influential things on the planet are religious books.
Research and science exist in the form of journals.
Every single doctor had to write nearly a book in the form of a dissertation, in order to qualify for that position.
All of your favorite movies, and TV shows are written.
And your favorite technology: computers, Ai, phones, video games, and apps, are written with computer code.
The truth about writing is that the skill ceiling, so to speak, and the potential impact it can have are unbelievably high.
So the fact that there is some hesitation or concern when you begin starting to write is completely valid.
In fact it's a hesitation and concern that some of the greatest writers alive never manage to move past.
Once you go to start, the reality that I just mentioned is sitting in your lap, whether you're consciously aware of it or not.
Now, I've given you some conscious awareness of it.
It's very helpful to start seeing the prevalence of writing as you move through the world on a daily basis.
The most useful takeaway here is that writing is a living reality.
It is not in some sort of bubble outside of your current experience.
In fact you already write.
And your writing journey will kind of become effortless as you learn to build on that foundation, but more on that in the last part.
How does this fit in to self-doubt?
The root of self-doubt
We need to make a clear distinction between healthy, rational doubt. And unhealthy, irrational doubt.
The healthy doubt when it comes to writing is recognizing the actual risk.
Usually this gets thrown to the wayside because of the romanticization I mentioned before.
But besides the legal risks of plagiarism, libel, and trademark or copyright infringement, we have all witnessed authors get cancelled or have death threats thrown at them, even after they've been dead for hundreds of years.
And we've heard stories about how the most impactful writers in history were treated while they were still alive.
On a day-to-day, practical level, you could potentially interfere with your close relationships or career.
Even if you use a pseudonym or a pen name, you always have to deal with people who question you, disagree with you, or aggrandize you. i.e. fans and critics.
I'm going to teach you how to move past all of those healthy doubts also
But first we have to get past self-doubt.
I'm using the term self-doubt but there are a a few other descriptions this can fall under
- Overthinking
- Imposter syndrome
- Feeling like you're not qualified/don't have enough experience to write about what you want to write about
There is one word that cuts to the core of all these descriptions—fear.
If you play out each of these concerns to… the point of concern, you will find that fundamentally they are all the same fear.
They represent the fear of permanently damaging your physical, mental, or emotional health. Or permanently damaging your relationships or career.
In other words, they represent a fear of permanently damaging your well-being or success.
- Self-doubt is the fear of permanent consequences that might come with failure.
- Overthinking involves the fear of a number of different consequences.
- Imposter syndrome is the fear that you will be labeled a fraud and called out for it.
And feeling like you're too unqualified or inexperienced is a fear that you'll receive damaging backlash.
The specific consequence you're afraid of might vary.
You could be afraid of
- saying the wrong thing
- getting cancelled
- getting threatened
- people in your life reading what you write
This could be an endless list, but the thing you're afraid of beneath all of that is
If ____, then, my well-being and success will be damaged.
I might lose the respect of my friends, family, or significant other
I might get physically threatened
I might lose my job
and so on.
You can isolate what your specific fear is through introspection.
First, note what you're afraid of
As an example, let's say
"I'm afraid that I don't have enough experience to write about ____"
Ask yourself: If I write about ____ without enough experience, what do i believe will happen?
You'll see that you're afraid of experiencing some sort of negative consequence.
"I'm afraid that if I write about something without enough experience that other people will tell me how what I wrote is stupid, and they don't believe me.
Go one step further and ask yourself "If [negative consequence] happens, what problems would that cause in my life.
In this case it would be
"If people called me out like that, i would be publicly humiliated, and nothing I wrote going forward would be taken seriously. Permanently damaging my reputation, and as a consequence, my ability to pursue writing, and potentially my relationships if somebody saw.
The answer to this chain of questions will always be something that impacts your physical, mental, or emotional health.
Or something that impacts your relationships or career.
Why are we looking at that?
Because that fear will corner you into writing precisely what will cause the consequence you are afraid of.
And naturally, reasonably, you're afraid to start writing because of that.
I've witnessed hundreds of writers not realize this, including myself. And I've never heard anyone mention this.
Let's say you feel unqualified to write about how to make $100,000 online.
The romanticized world of writing will tell you that you can write about anything, and they're not wrong, there is a way you can still write about it but,
if we slow down and address this concern we might see that you haven't made $100,000 online and you're not directly qualified to write about that.
So you feel stuck.
You keep getting told that you can write about anything, but at the same time nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.
And this triggers a very specific problem.
The way you would write about something that you don't have direct experience with is very simple.
We'll use "How to Make $100,000 online" as an example.
You can use whatever title you want.
"5 Ways to Make $100k Online in 2025"
As long as you have a level enough head to start with something like
"I've had enough of my 9-5, so I found 5 ways that I can try to make $100k online in 2025"
And now you're safe.
You're not an imposter.
You can tell more of your story if you want, and lead with more of your experience even, and it's only to your benefit.
The problem is, that framing takes a certain amount of focus.
And your fear strips away that focus, leading you to do exactly what you're afraid of.
You become so fixated on the exact snippet that you feel unqualified to make a claim about, or don't have experience in, that eventually you're pressured into saying "fuck it" and you'll just lie.
If you want examples of this, just look for some social media growth coaches with 10 followers.
Or social media ghostwriters who get barely any views or engagement on their posts.
Or any digital marketing person with a similar setup.
And yes I am kind of calling those people out.
You're so nervous, that you tunnel vision and omit the foundation that allows you to write comfortably.
Your fear makes you feel like you're not allowed to state your lack of experience.
Or state that you're making an attempt at something.
You become convinced that you have to figure out a tricky way to hide the fact that you haven't personally achieved what you're talking about, otherwise nobody will care about what you write.
And that is not true.
It's just a recipe to walk into the exact situation you're afraid of.
And that same fear can sprawl into a whole bunch of insidious issues exactly like the one I just described.
To stay out of those traps you just need to focus on the things we talk about next, because these further increase your awareness of the reality of writing, and will give you clarity to start developing what you want to say.
The Universal "why" (The Purpose of Writing)
The last sections show some harsh realities about writing.
But there are a lot of very empowering realities also.
By understanding both, you can consciously construct your writing however you want.
The basis of all the empowering stuff, is found in the purpose of writing.
Notice I didn't say the purpose of "your" writing. I said the purpose of writing.
A super common romantic writing statement is "find your 'why'"
The issue I have with this statement is that the same way your car has a core purpose to get you from point A to point B, or your bed has a core purpose for you to sleep in a comfortable and warm spot, writing also has a core purpose.
And that purpose is communication.
Now, there is a caveat here. If you're journaling or writing for yourself. And you explicitly do not want other people to see.
In that case the purpose of your writing is a series of psychological and emotional benefits.
I've been looking through a lot of research on expressive writing and writing therapy, and writing has been shown to help people process trauma, deal with chronic pain, decrease anxiety and depression.
But if that's not your goal, then your "why" when you write is always first and foremost to communicate.
What you intend to communicate and the impact or effect you would like to create with that communication, is where the skill and practice of writing begins.
But writing is a communication tool.
Whether you're trying to plan your writing, brainstorm topics, or actually start writing. All of that is built on the back of communication.
So your ability to use writing effectively is informed by the nature of language and communication.
The Nature of Communication, Language, and Writing
By nature, communication is a vulnerable process.
There is risk associated with it.
It can and does have real consequences in your life.
Writing puts a ton of that risk into your control.
It gives you the space to shape your communication and make it more precise.
Now the harsh truth behind that is that making your writing more precise does not necessarily result in less disagreement or criticism, it allows you to control the type and topic of agreement and disagreement that you receive.
I keep pointing out these harsh truths for a reason.
And that's because embedded in the use of language—and you'll know this if you've ever taken a debate class or studied rhetoric— is that anything you say has an argument for and against it.
Regardless of whether what you said is true or false, right or wrong, valuable or harmful.
I am sure you can think of some examples of things that are blatantly false that have gathered very large followings.
That's because you can make a compelling and persuasive argument about anything.
The first thing that will really begin to unlock your writing ability is accepting that writing and language are inherently contradictory.
Once you write something down, it can be debated and challenged.
And there is another layer on top of that where the same exact words can have opposite meanings depending on the situation, tone, and body language attached to them.
"You're great at this" said to you while you're skillfully doing something. Is a compliment.
"You're great at this" said dryly after you've failed to do something simple 5 times in a row is a joke.
"You're great at this" when said angrily, because that thing you're failing to do has a consequence to the person saying it, is a criticism.
If we're trying to build our skill in writing, we have to understand how much flexibility there really is when it comes to playing with words.
You can write anything, it's just about learning how to set expectations, and present using the right tone and context.
Your Writing Journey
Your writing journey is unambiguous and less romantic than advertised.
It's different for everybody the same way life is different for everybody.
We are all born, live, and die.
We all eat, sleep, move, and go to the bathroom.
We all work, we all have friends, we're all trying to achieve the same goals.
Everybody's life is different within a small percentage of unique variations.
This is the same with your writing journey.
This section is going to clarify what you're going to encounter so you can begin to move along that journey and hopefully skip ahead.
There are roughly 5 stages of the writing journey, and they tend to overlap.
1. The Isolated Suffering Artist Stage(how to start writing)
This first stage is basically just a coping mechanism for self doubt.
You will encounter it in yourself and in others.
Sometimes the isolated suffering artist is super arrogant as a rebound effect, and they believe their writing is really fantastic and super niche and nobody can understand it.
Or that some very specific external element like whether they posted something at 4:00pm instead of 4:02pm is why nobody liked their stuff.
Another common one is that they just don't know anyone to boost them and get them in front of an audience.
On the non-arrogant side you will find
- The encouragement to overshare and reveal things in your writing that you don't want people to know (because it's supposed to be painful)
- The specific encouragement to write about painful experiences
- And, this one will be unpopular, the idea that you should "write to yourself"
Some very prolific writers and artists stay in this stage for their entire life, and that is stupid.
The claim is that they use the pain to write.
There is a very powerful quote in the high-functioning addict community, that says "I realized I was doing well in life in spite of my addiction, not because of my addiction."
There are many people who succeed in life in spite of what is holding them back.
In the world of writing and art, it's extra romanticized.
And writing to yourself is a psychological trick.
Unless you're writing for therapeutic reasons, or to organize your life, your goal is not to write to yourself, like we said, it's to communicate.
So the stream that will carry out you out of The Isolated Suffering Artist Stage, is to focus on what you want to communicate.
Imagine that someone received your writing well, 0 criticism.
What would they be reacting to?
What would they be saying they liked?
"You helped me realize _____!"
or
"I never thought about [specific issue] this way before"
When it comes to what you're reading now, I want you to walk away with more awareness of the variables you're working with as you write.
And as a result of that, feel more confident when you approach it.
2. Realizing Your Audience (what to write about)
Since you're communicating you have to be communicating something to someone.
The usual advice here is either an overblown marketing approach where you try to create an avatar of your ideal reader, or the slightly better advice to write for yourself.
The reality of the situation is that you already have an audience.
When I said before that you're already writing, this is part of it.
The goal in a sense is to take your current writing, text messages, emails, school papers, handwritten notes, reports, whatever. And transform that into into something that communicates more effectively and precisely.
That means a change in focus and formatting.
But how do we determine that change?
Well, you are not just already writing, you are already communicating.
And there are certain things you communicate about that people ask you about, show interest in, and begin to practice in their lives.
These are your best topics. They are almost always the topics you like, and you already have an audience for them.
Usually our self-doubt stops us from choosing these topics.
And you get thrown into a limbo where you want to pick a topic you've hardly talked about before because it feels safer.
Which is another one of those fear rabbit holes. The safest topics for you to speak about are the ones you're most well versed in.
The reason that it feels so stressful to write about your best topics is because you're fully aware that random people will not respond the same way as your close friends or family.
The key here is seeing why they won't respond the same way, what's missing?
An audience who has never interacted with you before is missing a ton of context that people close to you have.
Discovering and displaying that missing context is how you add authority to your writing and make people want to consume it.
Think about all of the nuance someone has who knows you well.
They know your education background, relationship history, achievements, failures.
They understand when you're being sarcastic or not, they know where you got your evidence, they know your personal values
They know your experience.
So when you talk to them, you are already comfortable because you are standing on the grounds of your experience.
The goal with your writing is to add this in.
Just like the "How to make $100k online example earlier"
The question was not
"How do I write about something I have no experience in and am unqualified to write about?"
It was
"How do I clearly state my current position?"
In this case, the question is not
"What topic do I choose so that people pay attention"
It is
"What context does my current audience have that allows me to communicate freely and comfortably about what I want?"
That will let you write about the things you already enjoy talking about.
3. Public Response Stage
Once you start coming up with reasonable, sensible background to your writing, now all of those writing techniques and tactics you learned on the internet can start to be applied.
All of that is build on the foundation of your experience
With that foundation you're going to feel much more open test whether or not you framed things effectively by publishing it or sharing it.
You can even send it to your friends and test if it compels them the same way it does when you talk about it with them normally.
At this point it helps to be aware of the 4 types of audience members you'll encounter.
The 4 Types of Audience Members
1) Critics
These people hold a
"No matter what you say, I will find a way to disagree" position
2) Fans
These people hold a
"No matter what you say, I will find a way to agree" position
3) Conscious people
These people will consider your idea and open a reasonable dialogue with you, whether they agree or not
4) Mentors
People who will ask you precise questions to guide you to improve your communication.
Your audience and the people you network and collaborate with will always be some combination of these people.
Generally speaking, your most productive relationships will be with the 3rd type of person.
4. Feedback stage (skill awareness)
Once you start to get a feel for the game of influencing criticism vs eliminating criticism, you will fall in love with feedback.
Feedback lets you prove out and stress-test your ideas before opening them up to the public.
You encourage your friends, family, or other writers to tell you what they don't like. So that you can improve your communication.
This is a powerful tool to keep your writing moving along.
5. Conscious Creation stage
When you've gotten a grip on all of the stuff in this writing, you'll find yourself in a position of conscious creation.
Where writing is a tool that you are employing to communicate on behalf of your intention.
And your focus has shifted far away from fear and self-doubt, toward a whole bunch of stuff that you can practice and learn more about.
Bonus: Equipment Stage
The last reality you're gonna have to face when you start to write—that I struggled with a lot is where to write.
Do you use a Pen and Paper?
Microsoft word?
Google docs?
Your phones notepad?
Something like Notion?
For me, all of those options sucked.
They were either inconvenient or overcomplicated with a bunch of features that I didn't need at all
And somehow with all of them, It was a ton of extra work to organize and access my stuff
I lost so many ideas because I couldn't write them down.
As you could guess from the name of this series, Kortex specifically fixed all of these problems for me.
They got solved with a very simple feature called capture.
This basically lets you open a texting window on your phone that not only lets you record all of your ideas, but lets you create new documents by using the @ symbol, and start capturing your writing to specific documents.
Or create hashtags to begin sorting them by category.
Then when you go to work on something, all of your ideas are organized and ready to use.
You can search by hashtag, and your captures are all attached to the relevant document.
So if you wanna try it out, and I highly recommend it, there's a link in the description to sign up for free.
And if you have any questions about the app or anything that you read here, you can leave a comment or you can join the free Kortex Discord and ask about it, I'm super active in there.
Thank's for watching.
Sign up for Kortex: https://kortex.co?via=signup
Join the Free Discord: https://discord.gg/kortex
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