10 Nov 2021 · 5 min
Sally Koering Zimney walks through five steps to stop rewriting: freeze your current version, step away for days, build a high-level outline, record yourself delivering it, then use that recording as your guide. The script is just a tool. Connection with your audience matters more than perfect phrasing.
The question came in and it says, Sally, I have rewritten my talk 500 times and am now super confused. Eek, ack, help! What do we do when we are overwhelmed and confused and we're sort of lost in the content creation process? We've redone it and redone it and redone it, redone it, redone it, redone it, redone it. And now we're like, I don't even know what I have or even if I like it. Whew. I've been here a million times. I completely understand. It's a very frustrating place to be in, but it is also super normal. Many of us get stuck in this spot. So here's what I want you to do if you get stuck in content creation hell. Number 1 is you stop. You stop creating, you stop finessing, you stop rewriting, you stop at whatever version you're at. You just stop. That's the first thing you have to do because more creating isn't gonna get you out of it. You're just digging yourself deeper into confusion. So you have to stop. Then you have to step away. You're gonna walk away for a few days. You're gonna get space for for yourself to think about some other things to sort of get out of the obsessive small detail mode. We're going to try and get you back into high-level mode, like the 10,000-foot level is where you really want to get at. Then what you're going to do is instead of going back into the script, I want you to think about your content from that high level and build a high-level outline. So instead of thinking like line by line by line by line, I want you to think of chunk by chunk by chunk by chunk. That gets us out of this focus on perfecting the script and finding the exact right word choice, and instead thinking about high-level flow. Do you have the stories that you need at a high level? Because once you have that, then you can go back in and pull out the stuff that's helpful and get rid of the stuff that didn't even occur to you when you sit down to make that outline. 'cause some stuff will fall away and that's good. That's what we want. You've gotten too far into the details. We gotta bring it back to the high level and let the things that don't serve you anymore fall away. 'Cause what often happens is we just like add and we add and we add and we add and we add and we add and we add. At the end of it, we're just like, I don't even know what I have anymore. There's something in there, but it's just, it's too much. We get overwhelmed, which is totally fair. Once you have that more usable outline that's in chunks, Then I want you to stand up and give it. Find a loving audience, even if that loving audience is like your dog or some bunch of stuffed animals. But I want you to stand up and do it from the outline and record it for yourself so that you know what you have. You have some sort of record of what you actually said and pay attention. What, what didn't you use? What brilliant things came out there? And you're just going to let that inform your way forward rather than going back to the script. The script now is a reference point for you. It's not the script that you use going forward. The script is part of the process. It's not actually the thing. And I want you to think about that. Like, let the script be useful in its developmental phase, but now when you're standing up and doing it, we don't want to focus on the script. We don't wanna focus on getting every word right and being that level. Of obsessed with the perfection of it. Because when we do that, it trips us up. Then we're thinking up here instead of being present in the moment. Thinking about where you're going with your words and how you're going to use that moment to connect with your audience and be of service to them in that moment. So, we're getting out of this. We're getting out of the pileup and we're getting back to high-level clarity. Let some things fall fall away. We stop creating, we step away, we make a high-level outline, we stand up and deliver it and record that, and we let that inform what we actually really need and what we actually really have. I don't want you to go back to finessing. You're gonna let your body and let what you know right now be the source of your content going forward. Yay! Getting the script right doesn't matter. Please know that what matters is connection. What matters is you showing up and being present with the moment and letting go to trust yourself in the moment. That's what we are going for. Then you can really enjoy it. And that's really, of course, what it's all about.
