Things don’t get easy; you just learn to handle hard better

Being a work in progress is terrifying

I occasionally get anxious. Shocking revelation, I know.

I’m also an overthinker and an over-preparer, which is a terrific combination if you’re planning an international trip or trying to survive a corporate reorganization. It gets considerably less useful when you’re doing something creative and there is no correct answer.

And lately, I’ve been tripping over my own ambitions.

Writing is something I wanted for years. I’m finally at a point in my life where I can give it real time and attention, which should theoretically have me wandering around in a state of permanent gratitude.

Instead, my brain occasionally responds with: Excellent. Now don’t screw it up.

Very helpful.

There’s a strange thing that happens when you finally get something you’ve wanted for a long time. Wanting it is easy. You imagine the freedom, the possibility, the version of yourself who gets to wake up and pursue the thing that matters.

Then you actually get it. And suddenly there’s no boss setting the deadline. No annual review. No corporate machinery telling you whether you’re on track. Nobody is going to appear at my desk and say, “Monica, I noticed you spent three hours researching something that ultimately produced four usable sentences.”

I am the person in charge. This was, to be clear, the entire point. It is also mildly terrifying.

Who makes sure I’m spending my time on the right things? How do I know when a story needs more work versus when I’m simply afraid to let it go? What if I take the wrong creative path? What if I invest months in something that doesn’t work?

Welcome to entrepreneurship, apparently.

I spent a lot of years in environments where mistakes could be expensive in ways that had very little to do with the mistake itself. Corporate life can teach you some useful things. It can also teach you to anticipate politics, protect yourself from embarrassment, and think three moves ahead because somebody else probably is.

Those habits don’t disappear just because your commute now ends at your own desk.

For a while, I treated that anxiety as evidence that something was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t prepared enough. Maybe I needed a better plan. Another system. More research. More certainty.

You can probably see where an over-preparer goes with this.

Eventually I realized I was trying to obtain something creativity does not offer: a guarantee.

There is no quarterly forecast for whether a chapter works. No spreadsheet that can tell me whether readers will care about a character. No amount of preparation eliminates the possibility that I’ll make the wrong call.

Some days, I still hate that.

But I’m beginning to understand that uncertainty isn’t necessarily a warning sign. Sometimes it’s simply what freedom feels like when you’re accustomed to structure.

That distinction has helped.

There are things from our past that deserve real attention and, sometimes, professional help. There are also ordinary fears that show up because we’re doing something new, taking a risk, or caring very much about the outcome. I don’t need to turn every nervous thought into a referendum on whether I’m cut out for this.

Sometimes I need sleep. Sometimes I need perspective. Sometimes I need to get away from the computer and remember that a bad writing day has never actually resulted in civilization collapsing. And sometimes I need to admit that I’m scared and keep going anyway.

That may be the biggest adjustment of all.

For years, success often meant knowing the expectations and meeting them. Writing doesn’t work that way. I wanted uncharted territory. I wanted the freedom to decide where I was going.

Apparently, nobody mentioned that uncharted territory comes without road signs.

I’m learning to live with that.

Deep breaths.

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash