There’s an adage in the writing world that I love: all it takes to call yourself a writer is to write. You don’t have to publish, you don’t need to make a living from your writing. You don’t even need to be very good!

Now that I’ve actually started writing my first novel, it’s a reminder I need almost hourly.

You are who you say you are.

But there’s a danger too, one we don’t talk about much in encouraging, self-help circles.

You are who you say you are, and you alone get to decide who you are.

For example, a family friend sent me a pack of letters I’d written during my early years in the military. Tucked among them were a couple of watercolors of cats, with my name scribbled along the bottom.

When my daughter saw them, she exclaimed, “See Mom, you are an artist!” A comment that stemmed from years of me admiring her own natural, artistic talent while bemoaning my apparent lack of it.

She meant well obviously. But what makes me not-an-artist is that, despite dabbling with sketching and painting over about ten years, I was just never that interested in getting better at it.

I’m not an artist, and that’s okay.

I think the danger is that when someone tries to pump us up by saying, “No, you are that thing,” it can put pressure on us to try to become that thing. Especially when that thing is something we enjoy or admire. Or something society holds up as good. In my younger days, I might have said in response, “You think so? Maybe I should pick up some art supplies…”

It’s harmless enough I suppose if we’re talking about hobbies—although I wish I’d spent even more time investing in my writing. It feels crazy to me that I’m just now experimenting with fiction in my fifties.

But people make much larger life decisions on little more than some encouragement. A teacher gives them a good grade, a boss promotes them into a new position, a friend imagines a future where people are buying what they’re selling.

“Don’t give up!” they say.

But instead of encouraging me, I wish now that someone had asked about my art, “How did you feel while you were creating it?” And I might have reflected that, at that moment anyway, it didn’t really light me up.

Knowing “you are who you say you are” is helpful because it takes the pressure off once you know who you are. But what we really need is to give ourselves and others the space, and dare I say the encouragement, to figure that out.

Maybe it’s just middle age talking, but finding yourself, even if it’s just circling back and then circling back again, feels better than all the external validation anyway. Not that I don’t love a reply email telling me how much you enjoy these newsletters and can’t wait to read my book someday. Of course I love that.

I just don’t take for granted the deep satisfaction that comes from saying: I’m a writer. I’m writing. This is what lights me up.

Growing up, I always wanted to “be somebody.” There’s nothing wrong with that if it happens of course.

But it’s so much better to focus on being yourself, whoever you decide to be.