Dearest readers,
It’s been 12 days since The Myth of Making It launched into the world, and I’m filled with every emotion you can imagine. Of course, I am brimming with gratitude for every person who preordered, ordered, bought the book at a local bookstore, came to an event, liked and shared on social media, sent me a DM, email, or text, and tuned in to one of my interviews. I am so lucky. Thank you.
In light of all the support and love, it feels crazy to admit this, but I’ve also been struggling with gnawing questions about whether I have been successful. What does success look like, especially for a book in 2024? When I signed this book deal in 2021, I was desperately trying to career pivot out of an editor job into writing full time. Given my own financial pressures and the unsteadiness of freelance work, I was never really able to do it in a way that felt sustainable. Ready for a new chapter, I dove head first into projects while writing. I only took about 6 months to fully focus on the book in the last 3 years (which was wonderful), but for the rest of the time, I juggled multiple responsibilities and part-time job demands. I didn’t have much time to consider what I hoped this book would and could do or how I would determine what would make it feel successful. I was focused on getting it done and not embarrassing myself in the process.
One of the core questions I ask in the book is how to determine success for ourselves and on our own terms—while recognizing that women are often asked to settle for less. As such, I’ve been asked to answer this question in interviews since the launch. I haven’t had a particularly clear answer (I generally say, as I write in the book, that it is an individual decision but also something we have to do collectively), but I realized in the process that I was desperately clinging to conventional ideas of what success would look like for myself at this moment.
Putting something out into the world you put so much time and heart into is complicated. This is, after all, what makes art and creativity so exciting! But also, you have to grapple with reactions: If you don’t get the response you hoped for, is that a referendum on the value of your work or voice? We can intellectually say, no, of course not! But I am envious of people who are unbothered by how their work is received. These secret inner narratives around success released themselves with reckless abandon for me the last two weeks. Having felt like an outsider for so much of my life, I am unwittingly beholden to conventional measures of success. I’ve been waking up and searching for my name in Google News to see if the book has been reviewed, or if I made a list I’m not aware of, or checking my Amazon ranking to see if it’s gone up or down. I am fully aware of how unhealthy these compulsive behaviors are, like checking the social media of the ex that wronged you, but I can’t seem to help myself.
I’m sitting with an uncomfortable truth: I need to take my own advice and embrace what it means to have enough—enough accolades, attention, sales, and engagement. This is all a work in progress; success is arbitrary, and what comes with putting anything out in the world are the highs (I was on Christiane Amanpour!) and the lows (why didn’t X person post about the book?!). And these feelings may not be reflective of my highest self, but I’m trying to let myself sit with the messiness of it all.
Here’s what I wrote about having enough in the book:
What if, instead of having it all, we all embraced having enough? What would our life look like then? What if we focused on our communities instead of just ourselves (as a deliberate practice, since often we already do)? What if we finally said, Enough is enough. I have what I need—I do not need it “all.” I refuse to do it all; stop trying to make me! Wanting it all has pushed us to the edge of our abilities: We are struggling with mental health issues, physical health issues, environmental disasters, global human rights injustices, a prison-industrial complex, and more, almost solely because we have been sold a false bill of goods about what makes a happy, prosperous life. And the fight to get there defines every aspect of our being.
What if we just said, I have enough. I don’t need anything else.
The irony of writing a book about how we need to redefine success while obsessing over whether that book will be successful is not lost on me. I’m realizing that no matter how successful one is—self-doubt will creep in. In fact, success for me might just be accepting these ups and downs. I’m also realizing it’s okay to feel disappointed sometimes and want more while also rejoicing in the wins. And there have been many, many wins.
Success will look and feel different daily. Today's success is that I got up, I’m still here, and I’m going to keep on trucking. Later this week, success will be unplugging for a few days.
How do you determine success for yourself?
Upcoming events for The Myth of Making It!
I’ll be in conversation with Cindi Leive, CEO of the Meteor, and Galinda Espinoza on July 9th at Flow Space. RSVP here.
I’ll be reading at Wine and Pine in NYC on July 15th at Ten Degrees Bar.
Press for The Myth of Making It
ICYMI:
My first book excerpt was in The Cut, and it’s a very vulnerable excerpt about how I grappled with getting fired from my dream job.
My second excerpt was in Fortune’s Broadsheet about how the girlboss got a funeral, but maybe what she needed was a reinvention.
I had an essay in TIME about what it means to have enough.
I was on Amanpour and Co. talking to Michel Martin about the history of workplace feminism and why the narrative of “having it all” failed us.
I talked to Cleo Wade for the Goop podcast about how I grew up and the limits of feminism within capitalism.
I talked to Katie of the Money with Katie's podcast about the myth of having it all.
And Jessi Hemphill for the Hello Monday podcast about how not to be a shit manager.
I talked to Cristen Conger for the unladylike podcast about the failures of corporate feminism.
Talked to Marquita Harris for the Gloria newsletter (which I love).
Talked to my dear friend and former colleague Liz Plank for her newsletter Airplane Mode about lazy girl jobs and the future of ambition.
And my friend and former colleague Allegra Kirkland for Teen Vogue about what Gen Z is getting right about work and where we go from here.
Thank you for reading and listening, for sharing, and for reaching out. I’ve read each message, sometimes more than once. I feel the love and am sending it right back.
xx,
Samhita
I don’t think it’s ironic that you wrote this book and you’re grappling with these issues. That’s why you wrote the book. And people are reading it because they’re grappling alongside you. That’s a success story — making people less alone and helping them make sense of their lives, while you do the same.
I read the excerpt on the Cut a day before the release and was so excited to buy the audiobook on release day! I'm almost done the book and am so grateful for it. I just read Emily and Ameila Nagowski's Burnout just after leaving a toxic tech job, so this compliments nicely, especially the chapter on hustle culture. (I ended up working in tech after leaving journalism.) I relate to a lot of the book, but even the parts I don't relate to are still incredibly valuable to me.