Decide to step up. A champion is not made by default.

Go into writing the way that you once chased running. Remember getting up at 5 a.m. to run before school? Determine to be a writer in the way you focused on becoming a salesperson, learning presentations and product information and agreeing to opportunity.

It’s time to pour your love into your writing the way the way you’ve doused men with attention. Give your focus, devotion and care to your writing. Take the drama to the page.

Decide to do the work. Stack the bricks of discipline into a solid foundation. Continue developing your craft.

Be your own inner coach. Find what works for you and work it. Time is both your responsibility and your opportunity. No one can do this for you. It’s completely up to you.

People’s opinions, good or bad, stand irrelevant. You’re the only one who can be cruel to your calling. A writer who doesn’t write keeps her gifts from the world.

Decide to dedicate yourself to the giving of your gifts.

If you fall short, no one will know. Except you. You alone will know the extent to which you suffer or come alive.

Your soul knows if you’re talking about writing instead of doing the work. If you were born to be a writer, if it’s your destiny, but you don’t write, your life will ring hollow.

Without writing, if it’s in your blood, nothing will ever be enough. Writing is your livelihood; it awakens you into a new level of being.

It’s not the success or fame that brings you joy. If you’re a writer, it’s the pen to the page, the hands on the keys, and the reader connecting to something you wrote. That’s the reward.

Yet, if you want lots of people to read your words, if you want to influence people through your writing, you can’t just throw it on the page. You’ve got to spin it, shape it, and grind the dust away like a diamond cutter. Then, present your words to the world like an engagement ring to life.

Go after your story like it’s a lover you’re determined to win.

You can’t go into your writing hard and demanding. Sometimes you have to charm its little pants off. Other times, you must hold your own hand to get into your writing. Coax it and seduce it.

Go to your writing. Go through your writing. Be with your writing. Fully present and accounted for. Don’t just write the way a child practices multiplication tables.

Write like your heroes. Imagine the writing habits of Marianne Williamson, Joan Brady, Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, Dorothy Parker and JR Moehringer. Then, create your own writing rituals.

Honor the doors that have flung open for you. Know the world is conspiring and preparing for your success.

You must do your part so you can meet your destiny when she arrives. You must write like a champion.