It took me way too long to call myself by what I am: Writer.

Because I worked another job, and I had a title there—journalist—and what I did in the margins—writing—wasn’t really who I was.

Or at least that’s the lie I believed for years.

I tried to do without writing, for a time, because there were babies, one after another, and the margins felt cramped and tight, but the need to write always blazed from within.

Creating something from nothing, arranging and rearranging words into art felt good and right and true, but when people asked me what I did, I gave them my job description—“I produce a newspaper.”

Because producing a newspaper seemed like a more viable job than “writer.”

And then I lost my job.

I stumbled along for a while, worried that I would not have anything to say to people when they asked, “What do you do?” because I had no “real” job.

I had the writing I did in the hours I could manage it, but I knew that wouldn’t satisfy them. I was not published, at least not beyond magazines and newspapers. I was not legitimate.

I didn’t create rain or shine, eight hours every day, because there were always babies crying and dinner to prepare for perpetually-hungry children and fun days to plan on the weekends, when we were all finally together without work pressing in on us.

And yet I still wrote consistently. Every day. Some days it would look like opening a journal and jotting 200 words down before a kid started screaming, but I was still doing the work. I was still showing up.

I was a writer.

I wrestled with that question, “What do you do,” for a couple of months before I finally found myself able to answer, simply, “I write. I am a writer.”

We can feel like phonies tossing those words around. Writer. Dancer. Singer. Painter. Sculptor. Artist.

Because doesn’t everybody do it now?

Aren’t all the arts incredibly accessible to all people now?

Of course they are, but that does not make me any less of one.

I am a writer because I do the work. We are artists because we do the work. So we should start calling ourselves by our true names.

It can feel uncomfortable, because we don’t think we’re legitimate, maybe, or because we don’t have a publishing contract or ten million followers or unlimited hours to pursue our craft.

But the truth is, all we have to do is show up. Every day. For ten minutes or ten hours.

Maybe it takes us a few months to settle into that name, but when we are brave enough to try it on for size, we will see that it really does fit.

We will see that we become what we speak over ourselves. When we call ourselves an artist, we will become an artist.

There is something about calling out our true nature that helps us live into it.

So we must let go of the fear. We must dismiss the fear of what “they” might think. We must dismiss the fear of what it might mean, the commitment it might demand (and it will commitment. But if we love it, commitment will come naturally). We must dismiss the fear that we are not good enough to call ourselves by our true names.

We are good enough.

Becoming an artist is more about what we do than anything else.

Do we create on a daily basis?
Yes.

We are artists.

Do we show up for the work even when we don’t feel like it?
Yes.

We are artists.

Do we burn to pursue the art that lives inside us?
Yes.

We are artists.

It really is simple. But we must first climb over that mental mountain that says we may not be who we say we are. And this takes everyday work, every day pulling out a notebook and writing, pulling out an art book and sketching, pulling out a guitar and tinkering with that new song.

Artists become artists in the practice.

So let’s get practicing.

Challenge: Wear your artist hat for a week. When someone new asks you what you do, tell them you’re a writer or a painter or an actor or whatever you are, at your deepest place. Sometimes saying it aloud to someone else helps us believe it more easily.