When the feed gets loud, your story can get lost. But the message you’re carrying wasn’t meant to compete—it was meant to cut through.

Here’s how to realign your writing with your authentic voice.

1. Get clear on the message.
   Nothing gets drowned out by the noise more than an unclear message. If you can’t hear the message, then no one else will. This is, in fact, the greatest struggle of many writers. They begin to incorporate the sound of the world around them into the messages that were never supposed to be there in the first place. Your message must be unique to your voice to make it authentic. Does that mean you don’t borrow stats, research, or quotes from others? No, it means that those things you borrow don’t alter what you are meant to carry. If you are unsure about the message, spend some quiet time getting clarity. Go to a place where you can be still, and hear the whisper, for me, that is prayer.
2. Know your “audience of one.”
   Too often, writers focus on the masses. Selling books in bulk and reaching the world is a lofty goal. I am NOT saying that we shouldn’t have big goals for our writing, I am saying that we lose sight of the one person we are writing to in an effort to reach them all. When I coach authors, the one thing I ask of them is to find their audience of one. It’s your avatar. The one person that you are targeting to pick up the book and read as though it had been written personally to them. When we write with such focus, it will eliminate the worry about all people. The stress lessens, and we can flow with the whisper.
3. Care less about what others think.
   Confession here, I struggled with his one the most and can still struggle to this day. The number of authors with this problem is insurmountable, and it keeps them from wanting to publish what they have spent hours, days, and months writing. We know that others will read our work, and they will form an opinion. Some good, and definitely there will be critics. When we care so much about what others think, it can paralyze our voice and impact the message we are trying to convey. Instead of standing boldly in our message, we cower to the pressure of their voices. Yes, criticism can be healthy and even necessary for an author, but when it keeps us from hearing the whisper, it overtakes us and the message.

Cutting through the noise requests you to push. Push into who you were called to be as a writer and what you were called to carry in a message. When you do that, the noise will be silenced and the whisper will be the only thing that matters. Write from that place.