How to stop editing AI into oblivion
You think AI should save you time.
You think you can ask it to write something and get back exactly what you need.
You think the problem is finding the right prompts or the best AI tools.
But what if the real problem is that you're asking AI to think for you instead of teaching it to think like you?
A year ago, I'd spend three hours trying to fix something AI gave me in ten minutes.
Endlessly tweaking. Editing. Rewriting entire sections.
Basically tearing my hair out because something that was meant to be a game-changing form of leverage felt more like a liability.
All because I'd made one fundamental mistake with how I was using AI.
My old approach
I used to ask ChatGPT to write content for me. A social media post. An email. Whatever.
The output would not sound like me at all.
So I'd spend hours trying to massage it into my voice. Changing phrases. Adjusting the tone. Rewriting paragraphs.
By the time I was done, I'd spent more time editing than if I'd just written the thing myself.
I was treating AI like a magic black box.
And I got frustrated when it came back bland and guru-like.
The problem wasn't that AI was bad at writing.
The problem was that I was bad at telling AI who I was.
The missing foundation
Most people give AI task instructions without personal context.
Write a LinkedIn post about productivity.
Create an email sequence for my course.
Draft a newsletter about leadership.
They get back technically correct content that could have been written by anyone.
Because they haven't told AI anything about their unique perspective or voice.
Most people know what they want AI to create for them, but they don’t put enough thought into how AI should be completing the task and how to make it sound like them (or whoever you’re writing for).
And they skip foundational work that is essential for creating authentic content.
But I think of AI prompting like a pyramid.
Top tier: The WHAT
This is essentially the task you want AI to complete for you. Create four weeks of Threads content for me. Write me a 1,000 word newsletter about productivity. Most people start here because it feels like the obvious place to begin. But when you lead with tasks instead of context, you get outputs that accomplish the goal without capturing your voice or perspective.
Middle tier: The HOW
This refers to how you want AI to complete a task. It should know what frameworks to apply, what thinking approach to use, and what standards to maintain. This means for all tasks you want AI to complete you need to:
Know how you want your AI to approach the task
Clearly articulate how you want AI to approach the task
Without this layer, AI defaults to its own generic methodology instead of yours.
Bottom tier: The WHO
This is arguably the most important part of AI prompting, because without an understanding of who you are as a person, AI will default to its training patterns and generic voice. If you are able to articulate your perspectives, values and how you think and communicate, your outputs will be so much closer to something you've written yourself. But if you don't, you'll be forever editing yourself into the content AI creates for you.
What I tell AI about me
When I want AI to write something now, I don't just give it task instructions. I give it detailed information about me first.
I've essentially created what I call a Voice DNA Profile.
It's not just "write like a copywriter" or "be conversational."
It's specific details about my perspective, my background and my authentic way of expressing ideas.
My Voice DNA Profile has four parts.
Identity and values: My personality, core beliefs, what drives my work.
Communication style: How I naturally express ideas, my writing patterns, my tone.
Business and mission: What I do, who I serve, my unique positioning.
Content strategy: The topics I care about, the messages I want to share.
It's essentially a detailed brief about who I am and how I think. AI uses this context to inform everything it creates for me.
Now when I ask AI to write something, it doesn't come back bland.
It comes back sounding like me.
My editing time has dropped from hours to minutes.
Not because AI is doing better writing. But because it's working with better input.
I've given it enough context to actually understand what "sounds like Vanessa" means.
When I first got this working properly, it was honestly a bit unsettling. AI was writing things I genuinely would have written.
Not just similar. Actually me.
It had learned my patterns well enough to replicate how I think through ideas and express them.
Why this matters for your identity
You still need to know what you want before you ask for it. You still need to understand what good output looks like.
And when you using AI without this foundation, it's not just inefficient. It's actually dangerous to your voice.
When you consistently edit bland outputs into your voice, you start losing clarity about what your voice actually is.
You begin accepting watered-down versions of your ideas because they're "good enough."
You stop developing your own thinking because AI is doing it for you.
Just because something is efficient doesn't mean it's effective. And just because something is effective doesn't mean it's good for you long term.
Your ability to think is a big part of your identity. If you outsource that thinking to AI without giving it your context first, you're essentially letting your identity get eroded in the name of efficiency.
Start with who you are
The creators and business owners I see getting incredible results with AI have one thing in common.
They've invested time in teaching AI about them. Their voice. Their expertise. Their unique perspective.
They're not trying to shortcut the thinking process. They're using AI to scale the execution of thoughts they've already developed.
Building your Voice DNA Profile takes time. It's taken me months of analysing my writing patterns and documenting my personality traits. And honestly, I'm still refining it.
But now I can create content that sounds like me at scale.
If your AI outputs sound like they could have been written by anyone, you're not using AI strategically. You're using it as a content generator.
In my next letter, I'll share how to teach AI how to think once it knows who you are. Because knowing your identity is just the first level.
Thanks for reading,
Vanessa
P.S. If you want a practical way to start building your own “WHO” foundation you might want to check out my free guide Start Writing on Threads . It includes AI prompts to help you clearly articulate your identity, values and perspective that you can feed into AI so you can get it writing more like you. Grab it here.