Why Not Me?

Comparison is the thief of joy. | 10-Day Affirmation Challenge Day #7

follow your dreams 💜

“You deserve a thousand beginnings” -Yrsa Daley-Ward

Fun fact: I never reread anything I’ve ever published online (with the exception of my REWIND journaling challenge last month, Phew, that was an emotional journey!) Whenever I post something on social media, I throw my phone across the room and don’t look at it for hours so I’ll never know if I don’t get any likes. I’ve broken many a phone case this way.

As a creative person, it’s easy to doubt myself. It’s easy to convince myself that no one cares about what I’m creating and that I’m silly to even try. I wonder how many other creative people feel this way. 

I felt a lot of shame when I started my Substack and my podcast. It felt shameful to try something new, to try to work for myself. It felt like a fall from grace to go from working for a Fortune 100 company to be basically blogging again. I still get a real cringe when I share my work online with others. Like people are looking at me like, “what is she doing?” “Who does she think she is?”

My issue isn’t that I’m not proud of myself (because I am!). My issue is that I don’t ever think other people are proud of me. And I’ve spent a lifetime believing that what other people think of me is much more important. As a creative, it’s really easy to compare yourself to other people out there who are creating their own art (especially if they’re creating art in the same field as you. Hello, my fellow writers!!). I get nervous about my numbers of likes, subscriptions, and reads. I look around and see others growing when I am not growing as quickly. 

But looking back, I remember that every time I bet on myself and invested in myself, the pay off was transformational, even if it took a little bit of a wait. 

affirmation for Day 7.

Something I’ve been telling myself for years (and has been in my Twitter bio for idk how long) is that it’s never too late to live the life you’ve always imagined. In fact, I want to add to that mantra that I deserve to live the life I’ve always imagined. I don’t need to be afraid of creating or laying in fearful anticipation of being ridiculed or rejected. I deserve to give the things I want to do a shot. 

But if I believe I’m deserving of the life of my dreams, that means I have to try. I have to go for it, I have to put myself out there, regardless of what I think people are saying. I have to start somewhere.

I was reading “The How” by

Yrsa Daley-Ward

on audiobook a few months ago (HIGHLY recommend! Quick, easy, impactful read) and she was writing/speaking about how when we want something, when we’re creating our vision of life, 

She wrote: 

“You are always walking in some abundance…focus on these things, this is how you get what you want…do not waste your own time by focusing on the lack of the thing. Allow yourself the satisfaction of knowing that it’s on its way. When what you want is an idea, your job is to find a way to believe it. Believe in what you want so much that you do not feel the lack and trust that the thing is on its way.”

I’m thankful for this season of affirmation I’m going through because I’d really rather use my imagination to, as Yrsa writes, believe that what I want is on its way to me. It’s a much better use of my brain space than believing people hate what I do or that I’ll never be as good as the other creators around me. 

Why not use my imagination to continue to create, to continue to be inspired by others, to continue to see myself starting something new and ending up somewhere amazing?

If I can imagine it, I can be it.

This journal entry was written for DAY 7 of the Finding the Right Words September Affirmation Challenge. Follow Finding The Right Words on Instagram for more prompts and affirmations. Write your own journal entry and share it with me!

There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!