Do you want to learn how to avoid some of the mistakes that many online course creators make before you make them? Knowing what you are doing any why is knowing the essence of your course, and knowing the essence of your course will give you the ah-ha moment you need to finish and publish asap!
Online Course Creators oftentimes have similar challenges as brand new teachers. Teachers become teachers because they want to inspire, they want to share what they’ve learned in a different way than they were taught. Ultimately, they want to change the world. But soon after they begin, they get hit with reality.
They soon realize that most teachers, even the ones they didn’t like, were doing the best with the situation they were in. That pouring out their inspiration and hope and encouragement to students who don’t respond back positively can drain even the most optimistic teacher.
This first year is full of self-reflection. Mostly asking ourselves what in the world we were thinking. Wondering if we can even make it through the rest of the year, let alone 20 more years of this. Daydreaming about how much easier it was to work at Target and go to school.
This year forces us to go back to why we decided to go into teaching and how we are going to truly connect to our audience the way we imagined we would.
This is where we go back to the essence of WHAT we are teaching and WHY we are teaching it.
Get to the Essence: What are you teaching?
You could be teaching a myriad of things. From web design, to self-defense, to how to combat anxiety. It really doesn’t matter because at the heart of what you teach is what it does for your audience.
You can know your subject better than anyone, be insanely passionate about it, and know that everyone needs to know your stuff but just because you know these things does not mean that your audience will.
Only a certain person, at a certain time, with a certain need will see your course and decide that is what they need at that point in their lives.
Just because you know they need it, doesn’t mean they will know.
This question is not answered by “I teach people self-defense.” It should really be answered in a way like this, “I teach people the skills they need to defend themselves on the off chance they will ever need to. This builds confidence and authority that they will not be attacked off guard.”
Or another example: not”I teach web design.” But rather, “I teach people how to build their own website so that they can be more self-sufficient and not have to rely on web designers that charge thousands of dollars to build.”
Get to the Essence: Why are you teaching it?
Yes, I’m the one who asks the hard questions. The one who asks if you really want it, and what will happen if it doesn’t work out like you hope or imagine. I will ask those questions because I want you to be ready and stop any problems before they start. I want you to have a plan of action that you are prepared for and that you build into your initial plan… just in case.
So why are you teaching and creating online courses, instead of something else? I want you to know. Not because I don’t believe it you… because I promise, I believe in you more than you do. I believe in you more than you can even imagine. I visualize and see the whole thing published and working. I see you teaching it and really making that connection to your audience that you desire.
But I liken myself to Mr. Miyagi… yeah, I ask you to do things that are hard, even when you don’t know why.
That’s why I ask you why.
I want you to know why. Your why might start out with, “I want to teach people social media.” But then after we talk become something like, “I want people to manage their social media better so that they can make a greater impact on their audience and become more successful.”
So that leads us to the answer… I need to hear it from you.
- WHAT are you teaching? AND
- WHY are you teaching it?
And if you want me to ask you the difficult questions, let’s set up a time to chat HERE.