When I called myself a writer, I became a writer

The no-bullshit guide to manifestation

I spent years saying “I want to be a writer”. And so that’s who I was - someone who wanted to become a writer and therefore, by definition, was not a writer. It was an aspiration, something just out of reach. Then I shifted my language. I started saying, “I am a writer". And, lo and behold, a few months later I was a columnist for national newspapers and a published author.

But I’m not here to give you a load of woo-woo manifestation talk. Manifestation is a real thing, but it’s nowhere near as mystical and impenetrable as some people (the ones who want to charge you thousands to show you the “secrets”) would have you believe. There’s a perfectly simple science behind it. Let me share with you what I’ve learned.

But first, an announcement: I Am Happy is now The Gathering.

This is a space for the misfits, the outsiders, the rebels and the daring thinkers to feel heard and valued. A place where you can find community amongst other people who exist outside the box. I want to help us all understand and appreciate our unique and precious selves, so that we can better value and support the other unique and precious souls around us. Meaningful connection will change, maybe save, the world. I truly believe that.

There’s a place for you in The Gathering - want to join us?

From becoming to become

It was one of

Beth Kempton

’s workshops that first got me thinking. Beth said, quite simply, “if you write, then you are a writer”. She talked about breaking down the barriers between the “real” or “worthy” writers, and those of us who considered ourselves lowly amateurs. That all writing was valid writing, even if no one ever read it. Subscribers, followers, publishing deals, reviews and bestseller lists don’t make a writer - the act of writing does.

Photo by Doug Robichaud on Unsplash

Beth’s words inspired me. I had been writing for years - both for my own pleasure and as part of my work. I was a content marketer for years, churning out blogs, social media, articles and press releases for a variety of clients. Not much of it was content that I particularly cared about, or that I thought mattered, but it was writing, and it paid the bills so that I could do the kind of writing I wanted to do. I worked on my own short stories, my novel and my personal blogs in what would otherwise have been my downtime.

With all those words under my belt, then, why did I still struggle to call myself a writer? There was some imaginary summit that I hadn’t yet reached - I wasn’t doing “proper” writing. I wasn’t receiving critical acclaim, no one had asked for my autograph, I hadn’t written anything that had set the world alight, I didn’t have millions of Instagram followers. My writing wasn’t special enough, not important enough.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, also makes the distinction between saying you “want to be” something and saying you are the thing. When I wanted to be a writer, I was subconsciously telling myself that I wasn’t a writer. I was reinforcing all those negative, self-abasing ideas about my writing not being enough. I was making writing something aspirational, that I hadn’t yet attained. And therefore making showing up to writing seem that bit harder.

According to Clear, when you tell yourself that you are a writer, a runner, an artist, a non-smoker, whatever your goal might be, you make the associated behaviours that you’re seeking so much more accessible. This is just who you are - you just show up to your writing practice, you just go for a run, you just don’t buy cigarettes. It’s an intrinsic part of you, not to be questioned. Your subconscious mind stops wondering whether you’re going to do it, whether you can, whether this time you’ll manage it, and just assumes it’s happening.

If I am a writer, then I just write. And it also follows that I just submit my work to publications, that I just share my work publicly, that I just put myself forward for opportunities. That I talk about myself as a writer so that everyone else also sees me as a writer. Because this is just who I am now. That doesn’t mean that doing all those things isn’t still absolutely terrifying, but it feels more natural, more automatic, less something to agonise about. This is just who I am.

Which is why manifestation isn’t all flakey and woo-woo at all.

The no-bullshit guide to manifestation

I love a bit of woo and mysticism. I’m totally here for it. I’m never going to put down anyone’s belief system, either, because there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than we could ever possibly dream of. No one knows what’s out there, we’re all just making our best guesses, and the guesses that we make and then live by are deeply personal and not up for anyone else’s scrutiny.

But.

I will, under absolutely no circumstances, hold with people trying to profit from pushing a belief system onto potentially vulnerable people. And hey, aren’t we all vulnerable, at least some of the time?

There are a lot of books out there by self-styled gurus who reckon they can teach you the secrets to harnessing the mighty powers of the universe. I’ve read several of them, and, in all honesty, there’s some decent ideas in a lot of them. But here’s the kick. Most of these “influencers” will, at some point, tell you that you have to invest big in your dreams in order to “show the universe you’re serious”. I’ve read several books where these people (who claim to be earning multiple six or seven figures a year) urge their readers (who could well be people who are already financially struggling - let’s face it, if they were living lives of great comfort, they probably wouldn’t have bothered buying these books) to go into debt. “Take out loans, max out your credit cards, borrow from friends and family, do whatever you can to invest in your dreams” is pretty much a direct quote from at least three books that I’ve read.

What the actual fuck?

The universe won’t believe in your dreams, they tell you, unless you show it that you do. You need to be willing to rack up all this financial risk (and stress) to prove that you deserve the support of the universe. Oh, and, as luck would have it, the author happens to have a $30,000 programme that you can book yourself onto that will do the trick.

Ah, right, it all makes sense now.

Honestly, it makes me sick. This priming of people who are feeling low, struggling with their sense of self-worth, desperately searching for a better way of life, to think that it’s their fault that the universe hasn’t blessed them with success because they haven’t been dedicated enough. All so that they can convince these people to give them every penny they don’t have in order to make all their dreams come true. It’s criminal. Seriously, it’s fraud.

You don’t need to convince the universe you’re serious. The universe doesn’t need you to put yourself and your family in danger. I don’t personally believe the universe is thinking much about any of us at all - I don’t believe that it’s a sentient being, I believe simply in a flow of energy. Like I said, no one knows anything about this stuff, all beliefs are just ideas. But what I do know for sure is that, if people are looking to make big money off it, then whatever they’re telling you does not come from a place of altruism and genuine belief.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Manifestation isn’t something you need a $30,000 programme to learn, anyway. It’s simple. I’ll teach it to you for free (although, if it makes you big bucks, feel free to post me the $30,000 later). Ready?

What you focus on is more likely to grow.

“Manifestation” is really just influencer jargon for “focus”. All the techniques that they claim to be teaching actually boil down to focusing your attention on the things you want. It involves changing your mindset to believing that something is possible and then looking for any opportunity to make it happen. It’s common sense that this approach is likely to bring results.

So many of us believe our dreams are unattainable. We tell ourselves we can’t have the life, the career, the home, etc that we want, because it’s too big, too hard, it’s not for people like us. So we don’t go after it. If we believe we’ll fail, we don’t want to try because that will be painful. If we can believe we’ve got a decent shot at success, then of course we’re more likely to give it a bash. So that mindset shift is key.

There’s a saying in business that “what gets measured gets done”. If you set metrics and objectives for something, people will make sure they work on it, because they want to report success. Partly for the sense of achievement, partly because it goes on their annual appraisal. If we just tell our teams that it would be nice if a thing happened, and leave it at that, it will never happen. The same is true in our lives. If we’re setting ourselves clear goals and objectives that we can track, so that we can see progress and recognise how far we’ve come, then we’ll work on those things. If we just think it would be great if that stuff happened, it’ll fall to the bottom of the to do list.

The other component of manifestation is being constantly vigilant. There are so many techniques that are taught in these classes, from vision boards to affirmations and mantras to looking for instances of serendipity, but it’s all designed to keep you focused on your goal. You need to be clear on what you want to achieve and what will enable you to get there. Then you need to look out for any potential opportunity that comes along, and jump on it. You need to tell the world that this is what you want - not because it’s sending a mystical message to forces beyond the veil, but because then someone you bump into might be able to help you. Once people start to think, “oh yes, Allegra, she’s a writer”, then when they’re next looking for a writer, or they come across someone in need of one, their brain will remind them “Allegra is a writer, you could ask her”.

A clear goal, defined steps and objectives towards it, and unwavering focus on reaching that goal aren’t guaranteed to get you where you want to be, but they’re the best bet for success you can make.

It’s not magic, it’s not ethereal, it does not cost $30,000 to learn. It’s perfectly scientific. Like James Clear says, when you decide this is who you are, you allow yourself to show up, which makes you more likely to get the job done.

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

And here I am

So back to the story of how I “manifested” a writing life.

After I finished Beth Kempton’s course, I changed my Instagram bio. The first word became “Writer.” I changed all my social media bios, and the standard “about me” paragraph that I use for business events, platforms and speaking gigs to include the fact that I am a writer.

A few weeks later, I pitched an article to a national newspaper. I’d pitched a few ideas to a few publications before and never heard anything back. But this time, I got a response. They asked me how soon I could file the piece. Three days later, there was my face, above my name, in print in the national press. This had been a dream of mine for years, and it had happened.

About a month later, I got an email.

An editor from Kogan Page - one of the foremost publishers of business books, the publisher that has produced all my favourite business books, and that my business partner and I had already said was the one we would love to work with if we were ever able to write a business book - wanted to know if my business partner and I would be interested in writing a book.

Erm, YES PLEASE!

It’s easy to say that this was the magical forces of the universe, of the vibes I put out there, and I’m not completely discounting that - like I said, I do think we’re all governed by the flow of energy. We’re all powered by energy, as is everything around us, as is the whole universe, so it’s not unreasonable to think that the energy you put out there has an impact on what comes back. But it’s also true that I approached pitching with renewed confidence and vigour once I decided that I was a writer, and that I became more willing and determined to bombard publications until something stuck. It’s also probable that the editor from Kogan Page (the wonderful Lucy) did a bit of googling when she was thinking about who could write a book about diversity and inclusion, and found our business, only to see that one of the founders had the word “writer” in her bio. That couldn’t have hurt the chances that she’d approach us.

Constantly banging on about how much I love writing books and just want to do that forever has also led to me now being hired to ghostwrite someone else’s book. Would they have had the idea to ask me if I hadn’t repeatedly publicly mentioned how much I loved writing, just at the moment that they were facing the huge hurdle of trying to get a whole book down on paper? No, absolutely not.

So now I have a book coming out in August. I write regularly for national newspapers. I’m now writing another book, albeit for someone else, and I’m actively seeking an agent for a non-fiction book, while my business partner and I make plans for our second business book.

My writing career has certainly been turbo charged. But, more importantly, I’ve shifted how I view myself, and my writing. I no longer view a writing life as a distant pipe dream. It feels real, within reach, even under my fingers. Partly because I’ve had success and I’m moving in the right direction, but also partly because I now see this as who I am. This is what I do. I’ve reframed how I see all the little blog posts, the guest articles, the social media posts - they’re not frivolous demonstrations of unworthy content, they’re part of my work as a writer. In everything I do, I am being a writer, because that is who I am. There are celebrations and setbacks, but I show up to it all - not in service of a distant hope, but as part of a continual process of making the life I want real, of living that life as a daily practice, of being the person I believe myself to be.

Manifestation works, not for fuzzy, magical reasons, but because believing in yourself, backing yourself and putting your heart and soul into what you want is always going to pay you dividends.

It can’t guarantee you success. Don’t put your house on the market or borrow thousands to pursue your dreams, not without a robust financial plan, a carefully drawn up business plan and evidence-based confidence that you’ll be able to make that money back. You don’t need to put yourself in danger to convince the universe you’re serious. My business partner and I started a business with zero debt, and four years in we’re still yet to take on any debt whatsoever, but the business is growing substantially nonetheless. The universe clearly believes in us - or maybe we just believe in ourselves enough. You can start small, you can take baby steps, you can take sensible measures to protect your wellbeing.

All that matters is you believe - not that you can but that you are. Because you are already awesome, you are already enough, and you can point that brilliant you in whichever direction you choose.

You’re already doing it. Keep going.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash