How to Charge Up Your Nonfiction Writing by Engaging Your Human Drives

I bet you’d love to turbocharge your writing. I want that, too. Like you, though, sometimes my writing is anything but charged up. I feel like I’m writing in low gear with an engine that’s struggling to move forward an inch.

Know what I mean?

When that happens, it’s hard to write at all. But I learned something a few years ago that helped me kickstart my writing engine into high gear.

The Turbo-Charged Writing Secret

In 2017, I went back to get re-certified as a High Performance Coach and was given access to a new set of high performance coaching sessions. Before that, I’d only had the first 12 “core” sessions—the ones I coached writers on during my High-Performance Writer program. These new sessions are called “The Charge” sessions and are based on the human drives framework Brendon Burchard teaches in his book, The Charge.

As I began applying the human drives framework to my writing, my creativity, craft, inspiration, passion, and sense of purpose increased 50% or more. And when I used this same set of sessions to coach writers, they had the exact same results!

Let me explain.

Engage Your Human Drives to Charge-Up your Writing

The human drives framework identifies 10 human drives. When you engage these drives, you “charge up” your life. Engage them with your writing, and you charge up your creativity, productivity, and connection to your purpose as well.

Let me tell you a bit about each drive and the impact it can have on your writing.

1. Control—The more you engage the drive for positive control, the more you take the reins of your writing projects and career. You give yourself the power to bring your message to your readers and develop the ability to plan your projects and tasks and move forward in the way and timeframe you choose.
2. Competence—The more competent you feel about your writing and every other aspect of becoming an author, the more confidence you develop. Engage the drive for competence at a higher level, and you level up your ability to write, build platform, promote your books, become a speaker, develop a blog and website, and anything that has felt out of your comfort zone.
3. Congruence—When you stop hiding your authentic self from the world—and from your readers—you allow others to truly understand who you are and why they should associate with you. The more you align your inner and outer selves, the more easily your writing will flow. Your platform building and promotion efforts will feel expressing your authentic self rather than selling. And the perfect readers will show up—those who really “get” you.
4. Caring—When you can connect with your drive to care for others—specifically your readers—you write with a new focus. You want to contribute to their lives because you care about them. Your writing takes on a new level of urgency, and your readers feel your caring coming through on every page.
5. Connection—Although writing is a solitary endeavor, the more you engage the drive for connection with your readers the easier the writing becomes. Your work becomes a natural communication with the people who will read your books.
6. Change—You may have mixed feelings about change, but when you engage this drive, you will feel more inspired than ever before. As a result, your writing will take on new energy and creativity.
7. Challenge—To activate this drive, challenge yourself in ways that don’t involve writing. As you do so, you’ll find yourself requiring more of yourself each day when you sit down to write. And, by meeting other challenges, you’ll more easily meet the challenge of writing.
8. Creative Expression—Writers tend to be born with an increased drive to express themselves creatively. However, when you engage this drive in new ways, you’ll discover that your writing benefits as well.
9. Contribution—As a writer, you inherently want to contribute to readers’ lives via your books, articles, and blog posts. The more you activate this drive for contribution, though, the more focused you become on leaving a legacy and making a positive and meaningful difference with your words.
10. Consciousness—This human drive pushes you to go deeper, be more present, understand yourself and others, and ask (and answer) the big questions of life. The more you activate this drive, the more you tap into the wisdom that will give your writing a transformative quality.

April Nonfiction Writer’s Challenge

To complete this month’s challenge, engage the 10 human drives above.

You don’t have to engage all of them in the next 30 days. However, I challenge you to choose two or three of the drives and to find ways to activate them at a higher level than you have to date. Then watch how you’re writing results change.

Before you begin, rank the current degree of charge in your writing activities. (Rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being supercharged and 1 being a dead battery.) Then, 30 days from now, rank yourself again. I’m sure you’ll see a positive difference.

Then, choose another drive or two to engage for the next 30 days. Continue on in this manner until your writing is fully charged.

Continue on with this challenge and before long, you’ll be a charged writer! Your writing and career as a writer would move forward faster than you thought possible! And your work would have a more significant impact on your readers.

Take this challenge! Then, in a comment below, tell me know how it affected your writing.

If you want support as you engage the 10 human drives and charge forward with your writing, click here.

Would you like to learn more about becoming a charged-up nonfiction author? Check out the Nonfiction Writers’ University MASTERS program, where you can receive ongoing Certified High Performance Coaching, including the High-Performance Writer and Charged Writer programs. Learn all the steps to becoming a successful—and profitable—author. Discover how (finally) to write consistently, boldly, enthusiastically, and productively. Develop the mindsets, strategies, habits of the world’s most successful writers. Make your difference today. Click here to learn more. (And if you aren’t ready for the Nonfiction Writers’ University Masters program, explore the Nonfiction Writers’ University. You can enjoy a 30-day trial membership for only $1.)

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