Certain stories are told to us, and there are others we tell ourselves. But when a narrative becomes our identity, it can be challenging to discern the difference between who we are and what we’ve grown used to hearing. For years, I’d been told (and eventually internalized) that speed and ruthless productivity would result in a “successful” life.
In some ways this ended up being true. Growing up, there was no question that I wanted to become a writer, but instead, the Tumblr blog I’d started to include in college portfolios evolved into a boutique content business that I went on to run for over five years. I had always been good at working hard and fast, and I knew that the praise I received was directly linked to my output.
If I just kept moving, that had to mean that I was moving in the direction...
(Right?) For too long, my tendency was to get ahead of the problem before recognizing the real problem was my pace. I was outpacing my mistakes instead of learning from them. It started innocently enough: In 2019, I was at the beginning of the end of this tumultuous chapter of my professional life.
Rather than answering client emails, I found myself attempting flash fiction and essays during working hours, leafing through a literary journal instead of a fashion magazine spending the night with a spellbinding novel rather than attending an industry event. It had been years since I had allowed myself to focus on stories that didn’t connect to a call-to-action or produc.