I often make things bigger than they are. A job is life-defining. Self-worth hinges on a task. Someone’s e-mail could read as disapproval.

Noelle Stevenson commented, on Slate’s Working podcast: “I think the hardest thing about creating something is just believing you can do it. Personally, I need to trick myself into that a lot because the second I start thinking: ‘This isn’t good enough, this is not what they’re gonna want, someone else is gonna do a better job at this,’ that’s when I start losing my vision. (…) That’s when fear starts getting the better of me; it’s just not as real, not as from-the-heart, it’s stilted. I just think it’s one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.”

I play this trick on myself too. Once, I pretended I was no more than a person walking a dog that a train driver saw while rumbling through a European town. On a cloudy day, I pretended I was an old woman, not yet retired, who had a fireplace in her home - like in those artistic videos full of atmosphere - and that on that day she had a few students to counsel on writing… I was surprised how comforting it felt.