A few years back, I joined a money-mindset program because I recognized that my relationship with earning had been clouded by my past—my parents’ attitudes, early financial mistakes, my deep-seated fear of loss and making even bigger mistakes. The course was genuinely useful in helping me identify the lessons I’d internalized and consider whether they still served me, or if I had evolved beyond them. (I had.) It showed me that financial security didn’t require me to be as incessantly stupendous as the celebrities and influencers we see plastered everywhere. I could be a regular ole’ human being with strengths and flaws and still enjoy business success, complete with healthy bank account.
But there was one aspect of this program I couldn’t stomach: the relentless push toward “effortless” passive income, the idea that wealth and success required nothing more than the right mindset plastered on a vision board. Hard work, according to this philosophy, was a vestige of old, limiting beliefs—something we needed to transcend. If you weren’t “doing it”, you simply sucked at manifesting. (Don’t even get me started.)
This “effortless” mentality has infected far more than financial or business advice. We live in a world obsessed with outcomes. Social media feeds us a steady diet of polished success stories—the bestselling author holding their debut novel, the writer celebrating their six-figure book deal, the literary genius accepting their prestigious award. What we don’t see are the years of terrible first drafts, the chapters thrown in the trash, the moments of sitting at a keyboard wanting to quit because the words won’t come and when they do, they’re garbage. ( Let’s not forget the team of editors and proofreaders and marketers and publicists no one likes to mention, or the barrels of money that fuels the whole shebang.)
This obsession with instant gratification has infected how we approach writing. We expect our muse to download perfect prose directly from the universe. We believe that if we create the right vision board, repeat enough affirmations–I AM a New York Times Bestselling author– and align our chakras properly, the words will flow like honey onto the page. Look, while mindset matters and vision provides direction, you still have to do the f*@ing work.
The reality is that writing—good writing—looks nothing like what we imagine from the outside. Not even a teeny tiny bit.
Have you ever watched a professional runner? They make it look effortless, gliding across the asphalt with that half-smile, hair flowing in the wind. Inspired by that image, you lace up your sneakers and discover that instead of floating like a gazelle, you’re ready to throw up by the end of the block. You assume something’s wrong with you, that you’re missing some essential gene that makes running natural and easy.
Writing works the same way. Your favorite authors make it look deceptively simple because you only see the polished end result, not the messy, inglorious process that created it. The messy middle.
Here’s what actually happens when you sit down to write something meaningful: You start with what feels like a brilliant idea. You practically vibrate with creative energy. You sketch out your story, your argument, your insights. You write page after page of what feels like paydirt. Then you reach the end and realize you have no idea what your point actually is. The sweat begins to flow. Copiously.
You step away, eat everything in your refrigerator, come back, and suddenly see what the piece is really about—something entirely different from what you started with. You cut the first four pages, the ones you slaved over, because the story actually starts on page five. Then….then….When you look at your draft the next day, it appears that some cruel six-year-old snuck into your computer overnight and turned your brilliance into complete shit. You want to deep six the whole idea.
But here’s the secret that successful writers understand: this is the process. This isn’t a sign that you’re failing or that you lack talent. This is simply what writing looks like for everyone, with rare exception.
The book you set out to write will not be the book you end up with when you’re done. You will throw out half your chapters. You will move enormous chunks of “brilliance” from one section to another. Your final structure, message, and tone will look nothing like what you envisioned in the beginning. And that’s not a bug—it’s a feature.
Yet we resist this reality with every fiber of our being. We want to skip to the front of the line. We want to run like an Olympic athlete before we can jog around the block. We expect our first draft to read like a published novel, forgetting that published novels are often the result of a dozen drafts, professional editing, and years of refinement.
The people who quit writing—and there are many—usually fall into predictable patterns. They discover that muses don’t actually exist (unless you have access to psychedelics). They can’t tolerate uncertainty and inadequacy for longer than fifteen minutes. They’re shocked to learn that writing is time-intensive and that thinking is laborious work. They expect to tell a great story and are stunned when it doesn’t translate smoothly to the page.
The writers who succeed understand something different: sucking at something for a good long time is part of the deal. Being a beginner is uncomfortable, especially when you’re used to being an expert in other areas of your life. The drudgery and uncertainty aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re integral parts of the process that transform both your writing and you as a person. (Ask me, that transformation is worth more than the end product.)
Your job isn’t to write a perfect first draft. It isn’t even to write a good one. Your job is to write a truly shitty first draft and keep going. Because you have to start somewhere, or you’ll never get anywhere.
Nothing is wasted in this process—not the time, not the effort, not even those beautiful sentences you’ll eventually cut. It’s all part of becoming someone who can create something worth reading. One day, often when you least expect it, it all clicks into place. You finish your book, and you realize you’ve become someone else entirely: clear, concise, powerful, because you did the work.
The process isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary. And it’s exactly where every great writer began.
