Author’s note: if you know anyone who has ever wanted to write, please share this article with them. Dreams come true; even before the Academy course finished, I pitched an article to a magazine and got hired. I will be published professionally. Whatever the person you send it to wants to get out of their writing, they can find it during the next Elephant Academy Find Your Voice course.

After thirty years of wanting to be a writer who could be published, I’m finally stepping into my writer’s journey with a level of commitment I’ve never had before.

For so many of those years, I lived with the cherished belief that “I am a writer” who would get books published.

If anyone asked, I could tell them ideas for whatever book I imagined I would be writing by the end of the year. Hearing their genuine curiosity about my writing, I bathed in self-congratulations.

Even though I stopped every time I got more than a detailed outline on the page, that was enough to polish my belief that “I am a writer.” In truth, that was a fantasy.

I would stop writing and escape to an imagined future where I had finished and was successful. My contrived identity of being a writer was a shallow experience devoid of any real good.

I wasn’t nourishing myself by writing – I was feeding the worst parts of my ego.

I never wrote what I wanted to get published. I’d avoid my dream and instead write letters to friends, scribble some notes for the book, and do technical writing to earn a living or receive unpaid accolades.

Any form of writing that wouldn’t cause me to encounter the voice inside of me that wanted to express ideas to a broader community.

If I wrote to get published, I could fail, and I wouldn’t face that.

Protecting my toothless imagined identity was more comfortable and easier than trying to get published. I was forever taking myself away from reality and the writer’s life I desperately wanted.

I couldn’t hear for a long time when people told me my writing benefited them. They’d say you should write that book I was always talking about. Their encouragement bumped up against my fears.

I was a writer stifling my calling by buying into the grandiosity of my imagined future self. I believed I would be a writer of consequence even though I had barely begun to give the time to writing that would make that possible.

I’ve let go of having to hide and thinking I’ll connect with everyone who reads my words. I cheated myself by not writing and cheated others when I wouldn’t share my writing.

How often had I read another writer’s words and grown because they’d bravely shared their writing?

My writing might benefit others, but if I never share it, that can’t happen.

Now I write to be in the moment and let go of the future self, and I’m on a journey without needing a destination. Without needing to be good enough, I already am because I write from that inner voice that was an ignored part of me, waiting patiently for me to wake up and write.

It knows that it has finally been heard. It’s very insistent. Write right now!

I thank Spirit for bringing the Elephant Community into my life. I thank the Writing Academy for being the space I came to release my delusions.

When I signed up for the Spring 2023 – “Find Your Voice” course, I decided to get brave and leapt into the writing. I wrote a simple one hundred-and-forty-two-word post, and with the press of a digital button, my cherished belief died instantly.

I received feedback on that post from an Academy Mentor who wrote, “if inspired, please expand on this & post it on Elephant!”

That act of caring encouragement cracked me wide open, and I knew I was a writer who would dare to be published. This is the first piece of writing I’ve bravely shared, putting my new belief to the test.

At the Elephant, I have found a community where we grow alongside each other, generously sharing and giving support.

I have given myself the gift of finding my voice. I’ll be back at the next “Find your Voice,” I’ve got a lifetime of learning, exploring, and creating ahead of me.

If you feel the pull to find your voice too, say hello when you arrive, I will enjoy meeting you.