Are you creating content for your business, but it just doesn’t sound right?
You’re trying to post regularly on social media. Maybe you have been trying to keep up with a blog, you have a newsletter, or you post on LinkedIn.
You have something worthwhile to share. You can feel your mission in your bones, and you desperately want to use your unique magic to make others’ lives better, but something about creating content feels off.
You’re trying to do the content stuff that everyone tells you to do, but it’s miserable. You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to say it. And when you do finally post something, it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel aligned, and your audience can tell. Your content isn’t generating any leads for your business, and you haven’t gotten a new connection on social media in ages.
In frustration, you delete it all and try to start over—or worse—you give up altogether.
It can make you feel like the vision you had for your business is wrong. That maybe you need to take a different approach. The absolute worst is when it makes you feel like you picked the wrong profession. Maybe you should scratch everything you’ve been working on and go back to whatever poorly-fit, but stable career it was you gave up in the first place in order to follow a dream that feels like it’s going nowhere.
I’ve been there.
I spent years as a jack-of-all-trades copywriter, then even more years playing around with different positioning that just never felt right. I always felt like I was trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.
Finally, after over a decade as a freelance content writer and more than three years of personal blogging and social media posting that seemed to go nowhere, I realized that my mission and my message weren’t aligning.
But aren’t missions and messages the same thing?
Sometimes, but not always. Let me explain.
How your mission is different than your message
It’s completely normal to use “mission” and “message” interchangeably, and for some businesses, that isn’t a problem.
Like the corner gas station. Their mission is to sell gas and other necessities. Their message is that they sell gas and other necessities. Easy-peasy.
Things get trickier for those of us who have a deeper reason for doing what we do. The why doesn’t always match up intuitively with the how.
Being a copywriter is a good example. My message for a long time was that I wrote persuasive copy for businesses that wanted to boost their SEO and move potential customers through the marketing funnel. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I can write copy that gains awareness for a brand by making it searchable on the internet, which is what SEO is great at doing. Or, the content can be created to get someone to take action, like signing up for an online course or an email newsletter.
But, a few years in, I had to reckon with why I’m a copywriter. Do I just want to be a nobody, endlessly writing blasé articles to boost someone’s SEO so I can make enough money to pay the bills? Or is there a deeper reason why I’m writing?
It took some digging, but I eventually unearthed the real reason why I’m a freelance writer.
I want to help people with a mind-expanding message figure out how to share their genius with the world through words. That’s my mission, and by uncovering that mission, my message has gotten stronger. I still write persuasive copy, informative content, and do SEO, but I can also articulate the deeper current that flows underneath the work I do, which makes my message more powerful.
Your mission is why you do what you do. Your message is how you make it relevant to others.
Your message is what you want to communicate with your audience in a way that they will understand. It becomes the bridge between your mission and the words you use on the digital page. If your message isn’t ironed out, those words will be a far cry from your mission, and you’ll feel it. Without a proper message that aims to translate your mission into words, those words will always fall flat. You will always feel like you’re trying to shove a round peg into a square hole.
That doesn’t seem that difficult, so why is it so hard to come up with an aligned message that matches your mission to your words?
If you feel like you just can’t seem to translate your mission into content that resonates with your people, it’s usually because your mission is coming from one of two places.
Your mission is coming from “higher up”
The first reason why creating content feels like pulling teeth is because your mission is coming from “higher up.” I don’t mean that a religious figure is phoning in your life’s purpose, although that could technically be the case.
Instead, I mean that your message is coming from the creative realm. You can call it the collective unconscious, the subconscious, the Akashic records, or any number of other things that strive to remind us that we’re all plugged into a larger, but hidden reality.
Getting messages from higher up is like ladling your mission out of the soup of the universe. These missions often click into place unexpectedly. They pop into your head one day like they have always been there. They often show up at the most unlikely moments, like when you’re taking a shower, going for a walk, or just as you’re falling asleep.
You feel called to do what you’re doing. You’re filled with a sense of purpose. Your mission feels important and necessary. If you’re struggling with your content, it’s usually because it fails to communicate any of that. What you’re saying doesn’t carry any sense of inspiration, excitement, or emotion when you read over your words. You might as well have been talking about the weather, which makes you feel like you shouldn’t have tried to say anything at all.
Your mission is coming from “down below”
Missions can also come from “down below.” These types of missions are tied to the gut. They feel grounding. They feel deep. They come with a knowingness that reverberates from your core. You can feel it in your bones.
These types of missions are often tied to a sense of truth. That truth is often a personal truth that was hidden in your own life for a long time. Through personal growth, experience, and maybe even an a-ha moment or two, you uncovered a deeper truth about yourself that has broader implications. You want others to discover that deeper truth too.
These missions can be just as tricky to articulate. Instead of being difficult because you’re trying to make relevant something that seems esoteric or “out there,” you’re trying to explain something that is deeply personal to you in a way that strikes a chord in others. It can feel a little like you’re trapped in a deep well, trying to bring its refreshing waters to the surface, but you just can’t reach the top.
It’s possible for your mission to come from “higher up” and “down below.”
Having a hard time figuring out exactly where your mission is coming from? It’s absolutely possible that it could be coming from both “higher up” and “down below.” As a matter of fact, it isn’t uncommon, especially if your business has been chugging along for a little while. Messages often show up one way or the other at first, but over time, if you pay attention, you’ll notice that they are harmonizing together to help you create an integrated mission.
It can be helpful to know where your mission is coming from. It’s a great way to dig a little deeper and uncover more insights that align with your vision and your purpose, but it isn’t absolutely necessary in order to develop an empowering and effective message.
The key to developing an effective message is to take what resonates with you and figure out how to turn it into words that also resonate with your audience.
How to start creating a more aligned message
The question is, exactly how do you create a more aligned message? Here are a few quick tips to help you get started:
Know who your content is for
Imagine your business as its own entity
Create a list of power words and use them often
Know who your content is for
It can feel inauthentic to let your target audience drive your message. After all, the world doesn’t need any more businesses that are willing to bend their morals and abandon their values in an effort to make more money, but knowing who your content is for is still a powerful strategy when it comes to creating resonant messaging.
Let’s reframe it in a way that’s a bit more empowering.
Instead of thinking about “who you’re targeting,” ask yourself, “Who are my people?” What people do you empathize deeply with? What kinds of people excite you when you talk to them? Who do you dream of collaborating with? Who would you hang out with even if they weren’t paying you, or you weren’t paying them? Rephrasing it this way helps you identify the types of people who are inviting us to step into a more empowering energetic space. Those are the people you’re positioned to serve best.
Instead of thinking about “who you want to sell to,” think about what kind of support you have to offer. How can you make life better for the people you work with? This puts you into a servant’s mindset instead of a selling mindset, which feels a lot less slimy if your calling is coming from “higher up” or “down below.”
Once you have illuminated who your content is for, you can think about how to frame concepts, how to explain things, or what words to use to best reach them. This is important because the out-there, esoteric, or high-concept language that comes naturally to you may alienate the very people you’re trying to reach.
It’s important to remember:
Your message has to meet your audience where they’re at—not where you’ve arrived.
Imagine your business as its own entity
Those with a mission that comes from “higher up” or “down below” often have very personal businesses. Your business’s name may simply be your name or a variation of it. You might be a solopreneur, or if you have others who work for you, you’ve hired them because they align with your personal mission.
Your magic is what makes your business powerful, but:
You aren’t your business, and your business isn’t you.
Your business is its own thing. It may have been born from your vision, thoughts, and dreams, but it has its own energy. It’s its own entity. It will grow and evolve alongside you. Like a proud parent, you have to give it space to expand and become something you may not have expected.
Ask yourself:
What is my business trying to become through me?
This will give you a little bit of distance between your very personal feelings, emotions, and experiences and your business. It allows you to step outside the box, which can help you distill a message that seems very convoluted and contradictory into a clear, simplified message that’s much easier to put into words.
Create a list of power words and use them often
One of the quickest and easiest ways to start creating a more aligned message is to brainstorm a list of power words and phrases. They are the words that align on a deep, almost subconscious level, pulling up the right emotions that align with your mission.
For example, in my business, I love and use the phrase “resonant words.” I love how smooth it sounds. It has a musical or a poetic quality to me. Something about it seems deep. Saying the word “resonant” makes me feel like someone has banged a gong and I can feel the reverberation of the word in the air.
Because I like it, I use it a lot, and that’s on purpose.
Repetition of the same words and phrases causes them to stick to the psyche, which means your audience is likely to recall them long after they have interacted with your content.
That’s important because it makes you and what you do suddenly become relevant to their everyday life. When and if they’re ready, they’ll know exactly who to reach out to because the words you used stirred something inside of them.
Don’t be afraid to let your message evolve over time
The best way to uncover your message is to start putting it out there. Even if it doesn’t feel aligned now, if you keep writing and creating content, you’ll notice that it will reveal itself over time.
And don’t be ashamed of hiring a content strategist or creator to help. Finding the right collaborator can help you illuminate areas of your business and communicate your unique magic in ways you may not have considered.