I once spent forty-five minutes editing an Instagram caption. Not writing it. Editing it. Swapping words, rearranging sentences, sanding down anything that felt too sharp, then re-sharpening it because it suddenly felt too bland.

After a while I realized I wasn’t improving the caption – I was trying to talk myself into it.

So I closed the app, mildly annoyed, somehow less clear than when I started.

The caption wasn’t bad. It was perfectly fine.

It just didn’t sound like me – which is usually the moment people start to question their “brand voice.” 

Is this a brand voice thing?
Is mine just off?
Do I even have a brand voice?

The problem isn’t with writing. Or not having ideas. But when it’s time to write “as the brand,” something strange happens: Language that feels natural when no one’s watching suddenly gets replaced by language that feels… approved. Polished. Correct. A little generic. 

You can’t always explain what’s wrong – you just know it doesn’t sound or feel like you, and whatever you actually meant to say never quite lands.

So What Are We Even Talking About When We Say “Brand Voice”?

Here’s part of why brand voice feels harder than it needs to be: most explanations start one step too far away from real life. They treat voice like a decision you’re supposed to make – a tone to define, a style to lock in – without ever grounding it in something you actually recognize.

Which makes it feel like some abstract concept you probably need to take a class to figure out.

Brand voice is simpler than that.

It’s how you talk about what you do when you’re not trying to impress anyone.

It’s the version of the explanation that comes out when you’re sitting across from a friend over mocha lattes, answering the question they actually mean when they ask, “So what do you do?” 

It’s the way you slow down when something’s a little hard to explain. How you correct a misunderstanding without making it awkward.

In those moments, you’re not searching for the right words – you’re reaching for the clearest ones. You say the same things in similar ways because those are the distinctions that matter to you. The language isn’t polished, but it’s precise. It’s true. And it lands.

That’s voice.

It doesn’t feel special – it just feels like talking. The trouble starts when writing “for your brand” pulls you out of that flow. Instead of simply writing, you start trying. Editing. Second-guessing. The words that came easily out loud suddenly feel distant on the page.

That’s when the disconnect creeps in. Not because you don’t have a brand voice – but because you’ve stepped away from the way you naturally talk when you’re not worried about being judged.

Your voice isn’t something you need to go “find.” It’s already there. The work is noticing the disconnect – and learning how to stay connected to what’s naturally yours when you sit down to write.

When Writing Stops Feeling Easy

You’re halfway through typing out a sentence. Maybe it’s a caption or an article or a piece of website copy. 

It’s something you know – something you could talk about for ten minutes without running out of things to say.

You finish the sentence.
Read it back.
Keep going.

Then you stop.

You delete one word. Replace it with another. Delete that one too.

You reread the sentence from the beginning, slower this time. 

You edit again. Add a qualifier. Then another sentence, just to be safe.

You reread – again. And delete all of it – again.

And before you know it, you’ve spent at least half an hour on one sentence you could have said out loud, without thinking, in a normal conversation.

And This Is the Part Where Everyone Gets Stuck

If you’re sitting there thinking, “Great. I can see what’s happening – and now I have absolutely no idea what to do with it,” you’re right on schedule.

This is usually where people (ok, it was me…) start googling things like “brand voice examples” or opening a fresh document titled Voice Notes and then immediately closing it again. 

Because once you can see there is a problem, trying to fix it feels somehow worse than not knowing it was there.

Yes, it’s confusing. But not because you’re missing information. 

Because the things you know to do –  some version of winging it, tweaking it, hoping it clicks, or just plain old pushing through it – have all officially stopped working.

Which is inconvenient.

And annoying.

And very, very common.

It’s also the point where most advice immediately becomes unhelpful.

Brand Voice Isn’t a Fix – It’s a Filter

If you’ve been waiting for a magic bullet that will suddenly fix all those times you get stuck trying to find the “right” words… I don’t have one for you.

Brand voice isn’t there to help you sound a certain way.
It’s there to help you decide.

When your voice is clear, it works quietly in the background. You don’t think about it much – you just feel when something fits and when it doesn’t. A sentence lands, or it doesn’t. A paragraph feels like you, or it feels like you’re reaching.

That inherent sense of fit is doing more work than any magic bullet or “rule of thumb” ever could.

But you are still going to get stuck. We all do. 

The trick is to stop looking outside yourself for something elusive that would make everything easier. 

(If you do happen to find that magic wand, however, please let me know.)

A Little Help from TSA

Think about the last time you packed a carry-on – doesn’t matter if it was a purse or a roller bag. It’s the one going in an overhead bin or under your seat. 

You’re standing in your bedroom looking at everything you’ve gathered for your trip, deciding what’s coming in that carry-on with you and what’s got to go in checked luggage or stay behind.

You’re not evaluating each item on its individual merits or whether you might want it later. You’re asking a much simpler, more situational question: 

Will this get through security?

Liquids over a certain size won’t. Neither will full sized scissors or peanut butter (weird, but true). Neither will that one thing you always forget isn’t allowed until you’re already in the security line, holding it, realizing too late that of course this was never going to make it. 

It’s irritating, but it’s also not personal.

The rules aren’t a judgment, and no one is suggesting those items are bad or unnecessary. They just don’t belong in a carry on.

That’s what a filter actually does.

It doesn’t improve what you pack, and it doesn’t help you pack “better.” It doesn’t say anything about who you are or what kind of traveler you are. It creates a boundary – one that quietly determines what passes through and what doesn’t, so the whole system can keep moving without getting jammed up by endless decision-making.

Brand voice works the same way.

It’s not there to make your writing more impressive, polished, or correct. It’s there to create a constraint – a line that separates what comes with you from what stays behind. Not because one is wrong, but because not everything belongs in the same space.

When your voice is clear, you stop debating every sentence on its individual merits. You’re no longer asking whether something is okay in the abstract, or whether it might work if you adjust it just a little more. 

You’re asking whether it gets through. 

And that shift – away from judging, toward filtering – is usually where things start making sense again.

Sometimes the filter isn’t subtle.

Sometimes it’s more like the TSA scanner lighting up your bag and sending it down the other belt.

Nothing you packed felt questionable, but something in there clearly doesn’t look right to the machine. So your bag gets flagged, an agent takes a look, and you stand there watching them poke at a weirdly shaped blob on the screen until they figure out what it is.

(In my case, it was an avocado. Long story.)

That moment of inconvenience is usually where people assume something has gone wrong. 

But all it really means is that something needs a closer look.

That’s what that discomfort you feel while writing actually is. The pause. The hesitation. The sentence that suddenly won’t move forward the way the others do. 

It’s not a failure of voice – it’s the filter doing its job, flagging something that doesn’t quite belong in this bag.

Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens next. You don’t scrap the whole piece. You don’t force a fix.

You just remove the thing that doesn’t belong there once you see it clearly.

And then everything keeps moving.

Over time, those small decisions add up.

Not in a way you notice day to day – more in the way you notice a room feels calmer once you’ve cleared out what never really belonged there. It’s easier to move through. Easier to breathe.

Writing starts to feel like that.

Not effortless. Not perfect. Just… less charged.

You stop bracing when you sit down to write – not because every sentence lands on the first try, but because you trust what happens when one doesn’t. A pause isn’t a problem. It’s information.

Something’s being flagged.
Something’s asking for a closer look.

And instead of spiraling or forcing your way through it, you know what to do. You remove the thing that doesn’t belong. You keep what does.

Eventually, that trust changes the relationship you have with your own words.

You’re no longer trying to manufacture a voice, or prove that you have one. You’re listening for what passes through – and letting the rest stay behind.

Nothing dramatic shifts all at once.

But little by little, writing stops feeling like a performance. 

And starts sounding like you again.