This piece could be my big break

On backing yourself as a writer

It’s often said that the hardest part of doing something is literally, starting it. When a task feels overwhelmingly large – seemingly impossible to break down into smaller pieces because truly, that would be a task in itself – it’s like there are a million hurdles blocking the route to actually just doing it. In fact, it often feels easier to conjure up a collection of reasons for not starting something than it does to dedicate a mere 30 minutes to having a go or collating a plan of action.

I can’t begin to comprehend the number of times I’ve thought about doing something, like writing a piece for Substack or brainstorming an idea or learning a new skill, until… that’s it. It’s remained a luxurious thought – a fantasy of success that I can escape to whenever my mind wanders, like a daydream I never want to wake from. But when I snap out of it, I’m back at my desk with something mind-numbing staring at me on a to-do list that I can’t fathom tackling. (Probably something like ‘sort out phone insurance’.)

And this is before we’ve even contemplated the procrastination levels I can exert; the sheer amount of stuff I can get done before attempting the main task I want to accomplish. Before I know it, I’ve done two loads of washing while the incredible article idea I curated on a rainy train journey remains unwritten.

It’s a pain I’m sure many can relate to.

However, beyond the challenge of simply doing something lies another issue, and that’s believing we can do it. This brings a whole new level of angst to any desired productivity.

As an aspiring writer, there are days when the addition of 12 words to a work in progress feels worthy of a gold medal, whereas other days it’s hard to come up for air. The goalposts are forever shifting. But regardless of the quantity, the words spilling onto that jarringly blank white page won’t be nearly as good if they are being typed with a negative mindset, one that’s perhaps doubtful of its own ability.

We have to believe in what we are doing. If we don’t believe in our ability to write, the words won’t materialise in the way they are intended to. It won’t be as natural. We all know that too many drafts can fester for years, never to be seen by anyone but the eyes that stared desperately at them as the words slowly crept across the page from left to right.

We also live in a world overrun with comparison. There are more and more writers to read and feel inspired by (look at how quickly the Substack community is growing!), but that also means there are more and more writers to compare ourselves to. So as we write, if we focus too heavily on a self-inflicted belief that others are streets ahead of us, or cringe at the reality that we don’t have anything close to the public interest others seemingly posses beyond a doting group of family and friends who think it’s ‘cool’ that they’ve started writing, we won’t create our best work.

We have become experts at deciphering why someone else has made it, and by default, why we haven’t. Like procrastinating with the washing instead of simply starting a piece, it’s easier to believe that other people are, quite simply, better at something than us. Far too often, our own self-doubt lives in the shadow of light radiating from someone else’s success.

I think that to combat a feeling of inadequacy, we have to gaslight ourselves. We have to gaslight ourselves so much that eventually, we believe the voice telling us that we are the writer we long to be. And not in the way our Mum might tell us we’re the best writer in the world (as great as that is), but in a way that carries so much weight and evidence that there’s nothing to do but believe the argument being presented.

Tell yourself that you can be the next [insert favourite writer here] – actually, better yet, tell yourself you WILL be the next one. Brag about your talent for writing as you are working on that very talent; smile when you write a sentence you feel belongs in a Vogue feature piece. Blow your own trumpet. Thank someone when they compliment your writing, without a barrage of “Oh don’t be silly, I’m not!”.

After all, to be a writer, there is really one key thing we have to do, and that’s write. So as I type these very words, that means I’m doing it. I’m a writer. Scrap that – must practice what I preach – I’m a fantastic writer.

We need to allow ourselves to believe we are ✨the shit✨ more than we do. I’m painfully quick to put myself down in the face of others’ successes, but that is not the type of energy I need to be filling my tank with if I want to succeed in my own goals.

I think we should tell ourselves that every piece we write, including me penning this one, might just be our big break. I don’t mean manifest it to the extent that whenever it isn’t, we feel disheartened and lose another ounce of faith in our ability (that would be massively counterintuitive), but say it with enough confidence that we truly believe it could be. Because every creation we hit publish on could be that. It could reach one person or it could reach one million people, and better yet, it could leave an impact on one person so strong that it turns into something else. Or, it could lead to nothing, but surely it would have felt better putting it out there in that headspace; a headspace filled with pride for what we’ve done.

Right now, I’m in the early stages of navigating a career shift from event management into freelance copywriting. It still feels mad to be saying that out loud, but it’s happening, so I need to get used to it. When friends ask me what I’m up to or a stranger I’m making painful small talk with at a party asks what I do, I’m pushing myself to say: “I’m a writer”. Even if I wasn’t pursuing it as a career, I can still class myself a writer because – hello to you reading these words through the medium of an online publication – I did this.

And when I look back on my rocky journey into the freelance thing, I realise that for all the people that didn’t want me (not forgetting all those that point blank ignored me – and trust me, there’s a lot of them), there will always be the person who did want me. The person who acknowledged my outreach and emailed me a writing task to suss me out, which I of course received with a tsunami of imposter syndrome, my legs paddling to escape.

However, as I attempted the task, agonising painfully over how I could create the perfect piece for their brand, I realised… I kind of liked what I was producing. I shifted my mindset and said – out loud to my boyfriend – that I was happy with what I was writing. Better than that, I said (and I quote), that I’d be chuffed if I was the hiring manager. I felt cocky but I felt GOOD. I was believing in myself.

And you know what, that’s the first piece of freelance writing I secured.

Believing in our ability isn’t going to magically mean that everything we do takes us from good to perfect, or launches us into a career far beyond anything we could ever imagine. I wish I had the power to preach about something that would do that. But what I do believe is that the best writing comes from genuinely backing yourself as a writer.

When we do that, the process is far more enjoyable and we can applaud ourselves for exerting more positive energy into finessing this wonderful, weird, creatively charged craft. And you never know, we might just create a masterpiece.

I mean, Timothee said it best