I spend a ridiculous amount of time in my head. It's a lovely neighborhood, really. No traffic, no HOA, and absolutely no annoying people telling me what to do. In there, I'm a writing assassin. A strategic, fearless, take-no-prisoners mercenary who can dismantle a bad argument with three sentences and a well-placed metaphor. I don't care what people think. I don't ask permission. I walk into the room, take names, and occasionally leave a smoking crater where someone's ridiculous opinion used to be.

Then I look in the mirror.

And therrrrre's the plot twist.

The woman staring back at me is considerably less cinematic. She's obese, dealing with health issues, taking blood pressure medication, and trying to figure out how to get her physical life to catch up with the woman she's been imagining for the better part of twenty years.

My alter ego didn't get the memo about the body she's supposed to be operating.

And that's where things get interesting.

I've spent a lot of years thinking about the difference between the person I am and the person I want to become. The writer I envision is powerful, confident, financially independent, physically capable, and completely uninterested in shrinking herself to make other people comfortable.

The real me? Well, she's had a few detours.

Somewhere along the way, food became a distraction. Survival became a distraction. Control became a distraction. I got caught up in managing circumstances, putting out fires, and trying to maintain some semblance of order while the bigger picture sat over in the corner looking like an abandoned shopping cart.

And the longer I stayed there, the more disappointed I became in myself.

Twenty years is a long time to keep waiting for the woman in your head to show up.

But I've started to realize something. Maybe the problem isn't that I haven't become her. Maybe the problem is that I've been allowing the circumstances of my current life to convince me she doesn't exist.

That's a dangerous distinction.

Because there's a difference between acknowledging where you are and deciding that's all you'll ever be.

And I think a lot of writers get caught in that particular trap.

We develop this picture of who we want to become. The writer who publishes consistently. The writer who makes money from her ideas. The writer who commands attention, builds an audience, and doesn't need to spend twenty minutes rehearsing a Facebook post before hitting publish.

We imagine the confidence, the authority, the freedom.

Then reality walks in wearing yesterday's pajamas.

Suddenly, we're comparing our current circumstances to the person we believe we're supposed to be. We haven't written enough. We haven't published enough. We haven't made enough money. We don't have enough readers. We aren't disciplined enough, talented enough, attractive enough, or whatever other arbitrary measurement we've decided to use as evidence against ourselves.

It's amazing how quickly we can turn a temporary circumstance into a permanent identity.

And that's where I think we're getting played.

As a Christian, I believe there's an enemy who has absolutely no interest in seeing us become everything God designed us to be. The Bible describes him as one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And I don't think we always recognize what that looks like in everyday life.

Sometimes destruction doesn't look like a spectacular catastrophe.

Sometimes it looks like a quiet, persistent lie.

You're too old.

You've let yourself go.

You missed your opportunity.

Nobody cares what you have to say.

You're not the woman you used to be.

You're certainly not the woman you thought you'd become.

And if you hear those messages long enough, you eventually stop treating them like accusations and start treating them like facts.

That's the deception.

The devil doesn't necessarily need to stop you from writing. He just needs you to believe you're no longer the kind of person whose words matter.

He doesn't need to destroy your creativity if he can convince you that your best days are behind you.

He doesn't need to take away your calling if he can get you to abandon it yourself.

Now, before we get too serious, let me take a brief detour.

Have you ever noticed that dogs have absolutely no concept of your personal development journey? You can spend three hours questioning your purpose, your identity, and your place in the universe, and your dog will still look at you like you're an incompetent employee who hasn't figured out how the treat department operates.

There you are having an existential crisis, and somebody's licking the carpet.

Honestly, there's a lesson in there somewhere. Probably about priorities. Or carpet cleanliness. We'll let the theologians sort that one out.

But here's what I've come to understand: I don't have to wait until I look like the woman in my head to start behaving like her.

I'm already a mercenary.

That's not a future identity I'm waiting to earn. It's something I believe God designed me to be.

A mercenary fights for something. She defends truth. She goes after what matters. She doesn't abandon the mission because the conditions aren't ideal or because she woke up looking less like an action-movie protagonist and more like someone who needs to schedule a physical.

And that means I have responsibilities.

My health is my responsibility. My physical fitness is my responsibility. My values, my treatment of other people, my writing, and my finances are my responsibility.

I can't keep blaming circumstances for things I'm responsible for changing.

God has already given me abilities, creativity, opportunities, and tools. I have a brain. I have experience. I have words. I have ideas. I have everything I need to start moving in the direction I'm supposed to go.

At some point, I have to stop treating my potential like a fascinating theoretical concept and start putting it to work.

And no, that doesn't mean shame, condemnation, or beating myself into submission every time I fall short. We're done with that nonsense. Shame is a terrible project manager. It holds meetings, produces absolutely nothing, and somehow manages to make everybody feel worse.

I don't need another internal bully.

I need to fulfill the mission.

So I'm learning to stop confusing my present circumstances with my identity. I'm not just an overweight woman on blood pressure medication. I'm not a collection of disappointments, unfinished projects, financial frustrations, or missed opportunities.

I'm a woman with a purpose, a responsibility, and work to do.

And the same applies to you.

If you're waiting until you feel confident enough, successful enough, or established enough to become the writer you envision, you might be waiting a very long time.

Your current circumstances are not a binding contract with your future.

You can start writing like the writer you want to become. You can make decisions like the person you're becoming. You can take responsibility for the things that need attention without turning every shortcoming into a referendum on your worth.

You don't have to pretend the mirror is lying. You just have to stop letting it tell you who you are.

Because that woman in my head?

She's not some imaginary character I've invented to entertain myself between trips to the refrigerator.

She's a reminder of what I'm called to become.

And I'm done waiting for her to magically show up.

Besides, I've got a writing mercenary business to build, a mission to fulfill, and dogs who apparently believe I'm withholding snacks.

The woman in the mirror and the woman in my head have some catching up to do.

Fortunately, the mission doesn't require either one of them to be perfect. It just requires me to show up and fight.

P.S.--- If you're ready to stop letting other people's opinions dictate how you write, create, and use AI, come join me inside The AI Outlaw. You don't need permission to use the tools available to you. You need to learn how to use them without surrendering your voice. Write your rules. Own your words. Become an AI Outlaw.