Do You Actually Know Who You Are Right Now?
A life audit and the permission to change direction.
Somewhere into my late 30’s, I realized life was just whizzing by. I was married, had a child, and was happy, but I realized life was just happening to me. A crazy thing happened to me, and I won a life-coaching package. I truly changed my life.
I realized that I wanted to expand my connections with authors (I had been helping multiple authors with the online marketing… this was the early days of Instagram) and start my own business. The Literary Assistant was born.
I found who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Fast forward to now, I regularly check in with myself to see if I’m living the life I want, right now in this moment.
You might have noticed I’ve recently become certified to teach Barre and Pilates classes. This wouldn’t have happened, if I didn’t take the time to check in with myself and see what do I want to do my life and act on that.
Life goes by in the blink of an eye, and if we don’t live with intentionality, it just becomes a blur of business that might not be taking us in the direction we want to go.
Are you living the life you actually want or just the life that happened to you?
The one you want. Right now in this season.
Most people can’t answer that question because they’ve never stopped to ask it. I think it happens to most of us at multiple times throughout our life. We get busy doing, working, parenting, creating, hustling without ever checking if we’re still heading in the right direction.
Today, we’re going to stop and check.
This post is going to walk you through a couple of things…
A honest life audit… so you can see clearly where you actually are
A way to bring it all together… starting with who you are as a creative
Before you can change anything, you have to be honest about everything.
A life audit isn’t about judging yourself. It’s about finding clarity. Think of it like looking at a map before a road trip. You can’t plot a route until you know where you are at and where you are going.
Your Life Check-In
Grab a piece of paper and rate each area of your life right now on a scale of 1–10. Be honest. Not “where I want to be”, but where you actually are.
Health & Energy
Relationships & Connection
Creative Work & Career
Financial Wellbeing
Personal Growth & Learning
Fun, Joy & Play
Home & Environment
Spirituality & Purpose
Now look at your scores. Where are you thriving? Where are you coasting? Where have you been avoiding looking? Now is the time to be honest with yourself.
Circle your lowest score. That’s a sign of where you can make the biggest impact.
The Next Step…
For each area, ask yourself:
1. What’s working? What’s going well that you don’t want to disturb? Name it. Honor it. Too often we skip straight to what’s broken.
2. What’s not working? Where are you feeling friction, resentment, exhaustion, or that quiet dread you don’t talk about? Write it down. You can’t fix what you won’t name.
3. What am I tolerating? This one is the game-changer. Tolerations are the things you’ve decided to live with… the pile on the desk, the conversation you keep putting off, the habit you keep saying you’ll change. List one thing you’ve been tolerating in your life right now.
4. What do I actually want? Not what you should want. Not what would impress someone. What do you want? Finish this sentence in writing: “When I change (fill in the blank), I want to feel...”
Based on your audit, write one paragraph that starts with: “Right now, I am...”
Describe where you are without apology, without spin the justifies what you might not have accomplished yet that you promised yourself you would, without the version you’d post on Instagram. This is for you. The clearer you are about where you are, the more powerful your next steps become.
Something I’ve learned from working with authors and creatives for year is that the clearest sign that someone is living out of alignment is when they can’t answer the question: “Who are you, and what do you stand for?”
Not your job title. Not your bio. Not the thing you do. Who you are.
You did something today that most people never do.
You stopped and honestly at where you are. You started imagining where you want to go.
That’s not a small thing. I’m proud of you
— Melissa
Join Me: Define Your Author Brand Identity
Your brand… as an author, a creative, a person building something… is an extension of your identity. When your brand reflects who you actually are, it doesn’t feel like marketing. It feels like showing up. It attracts the right readers, the right clients, the right community.
But when your brand is disconnected from your values, your voice, and your story? Everything feels harder than it should.
That gap… between who you are and how you’re showing up… is exactly what we’re going to close together in my upcoming workshop.
✅ Define your author mission — the why behind everything you create
✅ Craft your brand statement — a clear, confident articulation of who you are and who you serve
✅ Create a cohesive brand story that resonates with readers and stands out online
This isn’t about logo colors or fonts. This is about identity. This is about stepping into your story with confidence and building a brand that’s memorable because it’s authentically yours.
I’ve helped New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors build their brands, and I can tell you… the ones who thrive are the ones who know who they are.
This session is for you whether you’re just stepping into your author identity or you’re ready to strengthen the one you’ve already built.
👉 Register here: Define Your Author Brand Identity
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