Is Your Subconscious Messing with Your Writing Identity?
by Jenny Hansen
In a recent post, I mentioned a moment that shifted how I see goals. I had a productivity instructor say, “When you don’t keep an agreement with yourself, it erodes your self-confidence and the ability to trust yourself and your own word.”
In other words, it's highly expensive to your confidence (including your writing confidence) to break your word to yourself.
What else happens when you don’t complete your goals?
On the surface, nothing happens. The danger to your psyche doesn’t happen on the surface. And it doesn’t happen right away.
But over time, there’s a subtle shift that happens when things repeatedly DON’T get finished.
At first, it’s just descriptive information. It’s you talking to yourself:
- I didn’t get that project done.
- I stopped partway through [fill in the blank].
- I didn’t follow [fill in the blank] all the way to the end.
But over time, something else happens…
That initial description often turns into something negative that you say to yourself. It turns into a conclusion. It often turns into a value judgment and a criticism.
- This always happens.
- I can’t seem to follow through on my own work.
- I don’t trust myself to see things to the end.
What actually changed?
The project itself didn’t change at all. What did change was the meaning attached to it.
“I didn’t finish” describes an experience. But all that self-criticism and value judgements we heap on ourselves? That’s what turns the subconscious into forming an identity.
And once that identity settles in, it quietly starts running the show.
What happens when a missed goal becomes an identity?
I’d like to really examine this, because I’ve been there and watched writing friends go there, and the subconscious is aptly named. It can sneak things into our behavior that we don’t always catch right away.
(Do please let me know in the comments if any of these have happened to you.)
- You hesitate to begin things that matter because you don’t trust yourself with the ending.
- You lower expectations so the disappointment won’t sting as much.
- You walk away early, not because the project is wrong, but because staying feels risky when past attempts didn’t turn out the way you hoped.
- You second-guess your talent or your value as a writer.
- At the first sign of writer's block or story problem, you jump ship to a whole new project.
This type of problem is easy to misdiagnose.
Most writers who experience the problems I listed above will chalk it up to a motivation problem. A time management problem. An inspiration problem.
But when a momentary setback becomes negative self-talk and then an identity. . .that isn’t a motivation problem.
It’s a trust problem. A SELF-trust problem.
If you look closely, most people who think they “can’t follow through” actually do so every day: for other people. They finish things for work, for clients, for obligations that come with external expectations. The struggle I’m describing usually shows up in projects where no one is watching.
When no one is waiting for the work, the motivation has to come from inside.
Reframing it all
Do you see how “I didn’t finish” is a very different story than “I’m bad at finishing things?”
When you say, “I didn’t finish,” there’s room to be curious.
- What changed?
- What got heavier or more complicated than expected?
- What didn’t you know how to do?
- What kind of support was missing?
When you say, “this is just how I am,” that curiosity disappears.
Curiosity is crack to a writer’s brain. Curiosity is what keeps us moving forward with an idea, a character, a story.
One keeps the door open. The other quietly closes it.
Final Thought
This is the real power of finishing. Completing even one meaningful task or piece of work matters. Why?
Not because it proves anything to anyone else, but because it begins to repair your relationship with yourself.
Yes, you also get a dopamine hit from the finished task. But the real shift of a finished task or project is how you view yourself. Completion doesn’t have to be dramatic to be powerful. It doesn’t even have to be the whole project. It just has to be real and important to you.
And often, the most important thing you resolve by simply doing a creative task isn’t the project itself. It's resolving the story you’ve been carrying around in your subconscious. Finishing creative tasks you've set for yourself helps you let go of those pesky value judgments about what unfinished work says about YOU.
Have you ever experienced this kind of "writer identity crisis?" If not, what does your self-doubt look like? What self-talk messages feel like they sabotage you? Please do share your story in the comments!
* * * * * *
About Jenny
By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.
Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.
Top photo purchased from Depositphotos.
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23 comments on “Is Your Subconscious Messing with Your Writing Identity?”
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Motivation. Getting stuck. Not having the time because of everything else that needs to be done. Not having encouragement from family.
These are the things that stop me. Or are they? Are they just excuses?
"Excuses" are often synonymous with "fear." I always wonder whether I'm not seeing my fears when I start making excuses.
The only way I know how to get through this is to set baby steps goals that are so small they almost feel ridiculous. As I meet those tiny little goals, my confidence starts to come back. The goals get bigger and bigger, and I start to move out the other side. But it's not a fast process (at least not for me).
My writer identity crisis didn't come during the writing of the book so much as the publishing of it. I finished the book, had it professionally edited, got the cover, the formatting - everything was in place. I published it. And exactly zero people noticed. I ran ads. No one noticed. I talked to people about it. No hits. No action. I pulled it from publication. It was book one of a trilogy and I'd been working on book three. So, I quit. I put everything away and stopped writing entirely, figuring I didn't have it in me to be a real author. Then what happened? A little over six months later I started writing again because my characters won't leave me alone. They demand to have their story told. So I'm telling it. Not sure what I'll do once book three is ready to go. Publish them all as free books and walk away? I still don't know. I enjoy writing, so I write, but the wound remains - semi-fatal as it were. Don't know that it'll ever resolve, but who knows?
Heather, what I've learned through some thirty years of playing at being a writer is platform and contact lists are what sells books. I'm only pointing that out because I, too, self published a book. About 150 in existence. My reach is fairly wide, but I didn't know how to make my contact list work for me. Still don't know much about how, only the why part. Perhaps Jenny can help you in that operation, if you need it.
Heather, I so understand the sense of defeat. "Zero people noticed." Ouch. All the work and the money, and then...nada. And not for lack of writing ability or a crappy story. My work is good. But people would ask me, "what are you writing now?" And my response was, " nothing. It's pointless." And I STILL struggle with thinking that, bc I'm not one of those people who has an insane drive to get it all down, regardless of who doesn't see it. The fact that you have a little voice niggling to get back to it, means something. Listen to it!
I know...it's so hard to publish to "crickets." It's just a terrible feeling.
Heather, I am so proud of you right now! Write those stories for YOU. Write them all, and then put them back out. Relaunch like it is the first time.
And please come let us know what happens!
I've definitely second-guessed if I was a decent writer.
Isn't that such a hard feeling, Sylvie? I know many many of us have been there, and it's sucky.
A Navy Admiral once gave a talk at a Texas college graduation in which he pointed out the importance of finishing tasks. Within the training of the USN boot camp is the completion of making one's bed (rack). The Admiral made this a key point in his address. Here's the talk.
[Link deleted]
Thought you might be interested based upon your list of things to do.
Amen, Warren! I think there is an amazing power in finishing tasks.
I have thought quite a few of my manuscripts were done. My critique group has thought so too. I sent them out and heard crickets. Long ago, people were more likely to get feedback on a submission. Now, they are unlikely to even get a reply. This makes it hard to figure out how to fix anything or if it's even fixable.
I changed age groups. I changed genres. I keep trying with something new, but the submission process looms ahead. Eventually, I may self publish. For now, I keep writing, revising my novel.
I am a freelancer with more than 20 freelance books with my name on them, so I know I can write publishable material. That validation has been very helpful to me.
Sometimes we have no control over the end result of our work. I can't control whether someone will publish my WIP, only whether I finish it to the best of my ability and submit. Submitting can become quite hard when you are shouting into the void.
Debbie, I think it's great that you keep at it. I'll confess something to you...non-fiction is WAY easier than fiction for me. I don't know if this is the case for you. But, for me, non-fiction is less threatening...it's facts and true things that I didn't make up. Making it up holds a lot more pressure. The feel is different, the craft is different, and it's hard because I never know "when is it done."
Next year, I'll be hiring a book coach, so THEY can tell me when it's done. 🙂
Wow, Jenny, this really hit home for me. I know how I feel when I've made a promise to myself to meet a certain goal and don't achieve it, even though I may have succeeded a bunch of times. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, a rule-follower. When I don't meet an expectation, I have failed. Imposter Syndrome soon follows. I need to follow your advice and reframe and repair. Thank you for this!
I have a psyche that I have to fight with on this front, Barb. I think it's early (bad) training and ADHD. But writers are a special bunch, and I think creativity is powered through joy. When we focus on the joy and the fun, we can get through it. At least that's what works for me. *hugs*
Interesting post, Jenny. Of the five bullet points you mention, I routinely fall prey to the first four. At the risk of oversharing, self-worth is something I struggle with in all aspects of my life, and that sadly seems to go hand-in-hand with self-doubt and as you say, self-trust. Thanks for some new insights to help the roadblocks seem a little less insurmountable.
There's no oversharing here, KJ. This community is a great trust circle. And I think lots and lots of writers struggle with self-doubt. It's not easy to yank a story out, and there's a lot of anxiety that comes with it.
The behaviors? Which have I done? All of the above. Last year, I even read a few books on the shadow and the psyche from a writer's perspective, and a few on forming good habits, to figure out why I was abandoning projects or not writing consistently. Those books made me depressed, not motivated. Their advice didn't fit ME.
Then, I kept things simple.
1) I wasn't writing consistently enough to get a book written before I lost momentum. Playing to my strength--I show up for other people--I committed to running a daily writing sprint for my local writer's organization at the start of January and suddenly (not really, of course, but it feels that way)...I'm writing book TWO of a new trilogy.
2) As a discovery writer, I fell into the trap of writing info dumps and wandering enough that I ended up off track or in a corner with no clear path forward in the story, usually around th 60-70% mark. I finally committed/learned to plot (instead of just reading about plot) so I don't write off course or into corners that tend to block my progress. Added benefit: increased confidence in my storytelling skills, which increased my writing productivity too.
Two problems with two (relatively) easy solutions. No therapy needed, haha. I'd say, lean into who you are. Identify your strengths and personal skills and attend to those. This comment got a bit off topic, but your post is the starting place to figuring this all out.
Fantastic post and I LOVE the new photo!
I was having a pity party just the other day and found myself responding, "STOP THAT! You can only control what you write and publish. Let go and let the universe and readers do the rest." My self-talk always includes a response. LOL
I can't quit.
Finishing volume 3, Pride's Children: LIMBO, is literally the only thing I have left of the pre-illness me.
I can't quit.
Because this is crucial to my mental health, including to being able to deal with the challenges disability and chronic illness pose in my daily life.
I can't quit.
Because even if the previous two volumes have been both almost standalones, and award winners and well reviewed, the STORY isn't finished until it is.
I can't quit.
Because a good day or a couple of hours of functioning brain - and the first thing I think about is 'getting back to work.'
I can't quit.
Because I have things to say, no one else is saying them, and the world doesn't seem to be getting kinder and gentler every day - and this is how I fight back.
You second-guess your talent or your value as a writer.
And isn't it so frustrating, Denise?
For me it's about deciding between a number of projects in different genres that tug on me powerfully when I think of them. It's not a problem with finishing. I've finished tons of work in the past. It's not a matter of not starting... I've even started all of my ideas.. with great success so far. It is more a matter of too many cool ideas.