Embracing Entitlement and the Arrogance of Belonging
By Jessica Garza

Hi, my name is Jessie. I’m a writer like you.

I’m also a big reader. When I read something that helps me or inspires me, I can’t help but want to share it.

So that’s what I’m doing today … sharing advice from one of my much-loved books that helped me with my own writing and creativity. I hope it helps you too.

“ … you will never be able to create anything interesting out of your life if you don’t believe that you are entitled to at least try.”

This quote is highlighted on a dog-eared (don’t hate me) page of my very loved copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. It’s a quote that sounds so great when read or said out loud. But it's not so easy to live by when you’re a writer.

Being a writer myself, I’ve found that some of the worries many of us have are the ideas that we aren’t good enough … . or we aren’t ready to be writers … or that we don’t even belong in the copywriting world yet.

As writers, we’ll take class after class and read book after book and convince ourselves that if we just learn that “one more thing” then we can get started.

What it boils down to for us is that we don’t feel we’re entitled to call ourselves writers yet.

So how do we overcome that?

It starts by making the choice to give ourselves the “entitlement” to try new things and take creative risks just like Elizabeth Gilbert encourages us all to do.

Making that choice every time I sit down to write has helped me get those first words flowing. It’s helped me finish my writing projects. It can have the same power for you.

The beauty of feeling entitled to start somewhere, to start anywhere, is it gives us permission to allow our creativity to flourish. It’s in all of us … we just have to get out of our own way.

In both creative writing (which is what Elizabeth Gilbert tends to focus on in her book Big Magic) and our copywriting careers, giving ourselves the entitlement to take risks is about understanding that every journey, no matter how grand, starts with that single, often small, but brave step.

By taking that first, proud, imperfect step, by being arrogant about belonging in the writing world, we can unlock the potential for happiness and fulfillment in our creative and copywriting endeavors. So, we need to tell ourselves we belong, be proud of our small steps, and start to embark on our journey to success and self-expression so we can create our writer’s life.

We are all entitled to that!