“We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’” -Steven Pressfield

If you want to become a writer, define success by whether you wrote TODAY. If you don’t have the courage to write today, you’re not a writer. You are “a person who wants to write someday.”

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” -Stephen King

Half the battle is sitting down at your desk and opening your laptop to write. Once you’ve begun, many of your fears will dissipate — or at least their voices will be muffled. Once you’ve begun, you tap into the creative force that has been waiting for you all along.

“You don’t care about those first three pages; those you will throw out, those you needed to write to get to that fourth page, to get to that one long paragraph that was what you had in mind when you started, only you didn’t know that, couldn’t know that, until you got to it.” -Anne Lamott

Writing is an act of self-discovery. Sometimes you need to write to find out what you think about something. It’s strange, but it’s true. Picking up a pen is like picking up a shovel and beginning to dig in an open field. Who knows what you’ll find?

“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.” -Steven Pressfield

Art isn’t easy. Its cost can be high: late nights, self-doubt, failure, misunderstanding, etc. But the payoffs can be even more enormous: fulfillment, joy, spreading joy, inspiring others. We choose creative pursuits not because they are painless but because they are worthwhile.

“What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Don’t define success by whether your book sold well or your article generated tons of traffic. Define it by whether you enjoyed the intrinsic fruits of the creative process: whether you did something you love and whether you created something of substance.

“It doesn’t come easily. It took me 12 or 13 years of not being successful before I was at all successful, so you have to have a kind of absolute determination and drive that this is who you want to be, and hold to that in spite of disappointments and reverses.” -Salman Rushdie

Prepare for a long road. It often takes a decade of hard work to incubate an overnight success.

“All great opportunities cost ‘good’ ones. An extraordinary life costs a ‘normal’ life. You can’t have both. You will have to sacrifice something that you value less than whatever it is you ultimately want.” -Anthony Moore

It’s practically impossible to binge-watch Netflix or stay up-to-date on TikTok every day and also crank out novels in your spare time. Why? Because there are only so many hours in the day. Becoming exceptional at one thing (like writing, art, or music) necessitates that other things take a back seat. Are you willing to pay the sacrificial fee to be exceptional?