Self-Belief and Success: A Writer’s Journey to a Book Deal

I unzip my coat, tip my throat to the gray sky and laugh.

I laugh and laugh and laugh, my breath chuffing from my open mouth, only the woods and my dog to hear.

It happened. It finally happened.

I’m here roaming the woods while back at home a book contract with my name on it sits on my printer tray.

Back at home is the bottle of champagne that’s been sitting in my fridge for five years, waiting for this moment.

Back at home my phone blows up, streams of emojis and congratulations from the people I love. Those who nursed me morsels of my dream when I was starving. Those who refused to let me forget myself for long. Those who held my hope when it got too heavy.

(Lesson #1: Always, always, always have people. You don’t need a million, just 1-2 who believe in you is plenty.)

The sun is just about to slip around to the other side of the world as if it’s just a regular day. My dog zig and zags, nose plowing snow, immune to this seismic shift.

The woods receive me with their usual equanimity. For years I’ve peddled my dreams to their impassive faces. They now stand witness to my triumph, hiding their enthusiasm as usual.

I’m wearing beat up hikers and my jacket pockets are stuffed with dog treats and tissues. My hair is in a careless bun, and I wear no makeup. I’m not exactly dressed for the most glamorous thing that’s ever happened to me.

(Lesson #2: If you don’t want to dress for success, become a writer. Comfort is our style.)

When Doubt Creeps In: The Dark Side of Dreaming Big

Last year, I was in these same woods on a very different kind of walk. I chucked acorns with malice and barked impossible questions at this same sky, at these same trees. Questions that felt like betrayal and a relief. Should I give up now? What if this dream is not meant for me? Is this pursuit causing me more harm than good? Is everyone laughing at me dedicating my talentless ass to this many years of trying?

(Lesson #3: These are DANGER QUESTIONS. If you’re asking them, you’re already in quicksand. You need a lifeline. Go call your people.)

Why Big Dreams Feel Awful When You Need Them to Happen

The mind does what it wants and it’s far too convincing for anyone’s good. But the truth was it’d been a while since my dream made me feel good. It was officially an unrequited love, and I was fed up with this one-sided chase. It was shredding my self-esteem and making me feel like a story arc from He’s Just Not That Into You.

(Lesson #4: Big dreams feel awful when we NEED them to happen, when we are using them to prove ourselves. Dreams should not be used this way. Even when manifested, they do not have this power.)

These woods aren’t the first to hold my dreams and surely they won’t be the last. Before here, I spent five years in a different forest laboring this same dream.

This dream has been a decade in the making. I’m glad I didn’t know it would take so long. Yet I might have been more chill if I’d known it would. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more.

But I had no idea it would be so hard to give birth to myself.

I had no idea I needed it to take this long because I wasn’t ready before now.

I had no idea that I had to build a container to hold a dream as big as mine.

(Lesson #5: Dream-making has far more to do with our insides than our outsides. Expansion of the self is required. Do the inner work to be a match for the stuff you want.)

Every Struggle Becomes Part of Your Success

I had no idea that every step in that pine needled forest, every brave whisper of my wantings across the backs of those sturdy trunks, was the psychic equivalent of hammer hitting nail. Over and over. Roots growing from me, tunneling into the earth, nourishing me by unseen elements.

Now I look behind me at my building days and the aching, sweaty days of crafting something from nothing – not just a novel but entire parts of myself – seem whimsical and tender. Ah, that good soul-forming stuff.

And just like that the whole thing just doesn’t seem so hard.

It’s like watching a highlight reel of an Olympian where even the Herculean effort, early mornings and broken bones look sexy.

(Lesson #6 – Make every single thing that happens part of your origin story. Part of your someday victory speech.)

Something about this gilded retrospect strikes me as unfair to the me of all those yesterdays. To the fight and the grit and the relentless gumption to just keep going.

But perhaps it’s like the amnesia that quickly follows childbirth – a necessary forgetting that ensures procreation. Maybe it’s perfectly normal – ideal even – to romanticize challenge, to let our struggles be muted by the warm glow of success. How else would we summon the drive to slay new dragons?

(So to speak. I would never kill a dragon. I would learn how to ride it instead.)

(Lesson #7 –  Be playful. Make it fun. Not only is the journey more enjoyable but fun is the lighter vibe energy that draws your desires to you.)

I call my dog and head back home.

The woods are snow-covered and still. One could, erroneously, think nothing is happening beneath the frozen ground where life sleeps.

Growth is slow and it’s slow on purpose. It’s better to bend than to break. Consider stretch marks and growing pains. Though we don’t always want it, we need something gentler, something we can integrate.

Equally, growth simply takes time. You would never plan a tomato seed in soil and expect a tomato the following day.

(Lesson # 8: Don’t judge your growth. Trust that you are progressing even if it seems like nothing is happening.)

The Power of Perspective in Manifestation

I stop walking for a moment and gaze at the hundreds of tree branches surrounding me. Curved ones. Jagged ones. Regal ones. Wonky ones. Broken ones.

Judgement is a dream’s nemesis. It shows up in all sorts of sneaky, convincing ways. We judge ourselves, what we want, our talent, our journey, our age, our bodies, other people, the industry that won’t give us what we want, the list is endless.

We can tell the story that we are doing well or that we are doing horribly. We can look for (and find) evidence that we are progressing, or we can look for (and find) evidence that we are failing.

It’s our filter that needs adjustment, not the dream.

(Lesson #9: Pay attention to your stories and self-talk. If it’s negative change it. And if you need help, I can help.)

Self-Belief and Success: Own Your Right to Dream

The sky is darkening for real now and I need to get home.

But part of me wants to stay in the woods, suspended in this space that somehow holds all of me – all my dreams, my fears, my questions, my epiphanies. All parts and pieces of me. All iterations. Without judgement or comparison or evaluation.

My dog comes alongside me, gazing into my soul with those wise copper and brown eyes. And that’s when I understand.

It’s not the woods alone that holds this place for me. It’s me. It’s the sacred space I’ve created inside myself. The woods simply remind me of my own holiness.

I want to share this with everyone, want to read every text and congratulations, but I needed this time to bow to myself. Because I realize that all the support and encouragement would have been useless without my own belief.

Something really special happens when you’re willing to believe in yourself. Especially when you have no external proof or validation that you should. That’s the real flex. That’s where the true power lies.

(Lesson #10: Self-belief is a thousand times more powerful than anyone else’s belief in you.)

There is something incredible about telling the world who you are instead of the other way around. About owning your right to your dreams day after day and year after year even if they haven’t happened yet.

I round the corner for home. The house is lit, a beacon in the dimming winter afternoon.

I rush inside.

Me, drinking my victory champagne and holding my book deal.