I'll be honest: After taking the free courses in this post, I started cringing at my past content.

It was as though someone had given me glasses, and I'd just realized trees weren't just a blur of greens and browns but a beautiful tapestry of leaves and branches.

True, you can learn everything a free course can teach through trial and error, but it can be time-consuming and painful. As I always tell my intermediate-advanced English students, the reason we go over the basics of grammar again is that I want to bring awareness to what the perfect phrase looks like. Though that won't make them use flawless English immediately, at least they'll understand why they're wrong.

When we learn the proper way to do something, we become our own auditors. And after enough practice, excellence becomes automatic.

Likewise, though I've yet to make automatic many of the teachings of the following five courses, the invaluable knowledge they've provided has helped me level up my hard and soft skills. From idea generation to stress management, they cover most of the core aspects of what a great content creator should excel at.

Hopefully, they'll also help you up your game and increase your earnings.

1. Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas

We've often heard that we content creators should write ten ideas every day to strengthen our creativity muscle. This advice, though, can be extremely hard to follow at the start of our journeys. Without knowing how to tap into our creativity, searching for new ideas can feel like going to our new home's bathroom without the lights on.

This Coursera course (which can be taken for free), then, is like your phone's flashlight. It'll help you find the bathroom the first few times. After that, you'll probably find your way out of muscle memory.

Created by two innovation professors who are also entrepreneurs, Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas explains proven tools and frameworks for finding new ideas, such as the "Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom in" method.

Though it was designed for entrepreneurs who want to build the next big thing, content creators will benefit as well. So if you're just starting out or want to increase the quality of your ten ideas per day, give this course a shot.

2. Viral Marketing and How To Craft Contagious Content

Once you can consistently come up with good ideas, the next content creator hurdle appears: How can you increase the odds of creating something with virality potential?

For this, check out Coursera's course, Viral Marketing and How To Craft Contagious Content. Created by Wharton, it explains how you can tell whether an idea is sticky (it has virality potential) and how to increase its stickiness by following six science-backed success factors.

Moreover, the course also offers proven methods to increase your influence, how to generate word-of-mouth, and how to use social networks to increase your odds of virality.

All content creators dream of having at least one viral hit. Though luck and timing play a big role in this, applying the learnings of this course will increase your odds.

3. Writing Stories About Ourselves

Have you ever wondered why almost every Ted talk starts with a story?

The answer is simple: One of the six success factors of viral content (as seen in the previous course) is the use of emotional stories. When we create a memorable experience for the viewer, listener, or reader, we make our ideas sticky.

To have any chance at success as content creators, then, we must be powerful storytellers.

This is why Coursera's course, Writing Stories About Ourselves, is so useful. Though it's designed for memoir authors, content creators will also come out stronger after learning the tips and tricks that make our stories stand out from the crowd.

Successful creators often offer the same advice: Start your post with a personal story that illustrates your idea. Though it isn't obligatory (I didn't start this post that way since it's more educational), when done right, it can make the difference between an average and an outstanding piece of content.

Here are two examples of posts I wrote using these course's tips: At 86 Years Old, My Great-Grandmother Found Herself With a Newborn Baby, and The Time To Chase Your Dreams Is Now. Though I of course wouldn't call them masterpieces (I still have a long way to go), they're way better than what I could write before.

Likewise, if you want to strengthen your storytelling skills to up the stickiness of your ideas, check out this course.

4. Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend Is Wrong

Being a content creator comes with a huge responsibility. Whether we like it or not, our words have power.

Even if we're a nobody, if we write about how someone should spend 40 days in the desert fasting to cure cancer while linking to a random study, someone in the audience is bound to believe us. Yikes!

As content creators, we must ensure that our sources are robust and that we know how to correctly interpret the information found in research studies. Not doing so is wrong on an ethical level — but also on a personal level. As soon as someone knowledgeable spots the inconsistencies in your content, poof, you're out of the game.

That's why Yale's course, Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend Is Wrong, should be taken by everyone who loves to create scientifically-based content.

5. Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress

Most content creators can agree that the worst sides of this line of work are the constant rejection and the uncertainty. When someone criticizes our art, it can feel like a personal attack. And not knowing how much money we'll earn the next month — or if we'll even make ends meet — can make us sleep-deprived.

This is why Yale's Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress is a powerful tool for any content creator. Heck, for every worker out there.

Though aimed at teachers during the pandemic, the emotional intelligence tools the course provides can be life-changing. If you feel like you need help managing the downsides of content creation, check this one out.

Accelerate Your Content Creation Journey

If you create something every day, if you strive to become a little bit better with every piece of content you put out into the world, you'll inevitably master the wisdom the above-mentioned courses offer.

But why take 10x or 100x more time learning what you can do in a few hours for free?

Thanks to these courses, I've found fresh ideas to write about, improved my storytelling skills, had a few viral hits (thank you, Lady Luck!), helped lots of people with simplified medical research, and not died out of stress — and all of that for free.