A week and a half ago, I turned up at a women’s event. It had been a very long week, and I honestly did not feel like going out. Only I had promised my teenage daughter that I would take her so she could meet up with friends.

But then I saw the knitting corner.

I learnt the skill in primary school, by knitting endless egg warmers with four needles as part of a school project. I had also dabbled in knitting jerseys and scarves as a teenager. It was a skill I rarely use, but after the week I had, I thought, “How wonderful. I can just sit here, knit, and imagine there is no one around me.”

I did not realise this was a winter warmer project for charity blankets. The foundation provided a neat little image of a block and told us to make sure our squares were exactly 10 by 10 centimetres.

“This is easy,” I thought.

But I had forgotten one important thing. The first row of stitches always looks smaller than what it becomes when you add the second row.

It is exactly like when my executive book coaching clients do a 15-minute typing speed test with me. We use it to project how many words they can write in six months. At the surface level, it sounds straightforward. Then they get into the actual writing and realise, “Yikes, this thing is not what I imagined it to be.”

Because I had too many commitments to attend the Wednesday volunteer training evenings, I tried to figure out how many stitches I needed to get the block size by trial and error. In the end, none of my blocks was 10 centimetres. I ended up making rectangles.

I had got into a rhythm, but because I was winging it without a guide, I realised I would have to knit the entire blanket myself. None of my blocks would match the other volunteers’ squares. I should have just stopped, gone to the training, and learnt what the experts knew. It would have saved me so much pressure.

But I was stubborn. I wanted to do things my way.

I see this with senior leaders and coaches all the time. They are highly successful in their fields, so they assume writing a book will be straightforward. Then they realise this writing thing is bigger than they imagined. They lose momentum, get embarrassed that they are behind, and start skipping their writing sessions.

Only in my case, I am not a quitter. So, I pushed on.

At block number 24, I ran out of wool. In the writing world, we call this the marathon in the middle. This is when you feel like you are running out of steam. My neck and shoulders ached from my posture whilst knitting. (Posture, by the way, is something I cover in one chapter in my book, Escaping the Well of Silence. Although this is a writing prompt book, it also guides you on looking after your body as a writer.)

I was in constant pain, clenching my jaw, and only a quarter of the way there. I was so ready to quit this knitting thing.

I sat staring at my pile of mismatched rectangles.

Part of me wanted to stuff them into my bag and pretend this entire project had never happened.

I had been so stubborn about doing it my way, and now I had nothing but a heap of uneven wool to show for it. Who was I to walk up to that desk?

But then I thought about the promise. Not the promise to the foundation, but a much older one. A promise I had made to myself years ago about paying things forward. So, I gathered up my imperfect blocks, took a breath, and walked to the desk anyway.

The volunteer looked up, glanced at what I was carrying, and her face broke into a wide smile. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, reaching out to take the stack from me. “Look at this!” She called her colleague over, and the two of them held up my rectangles, turning them over and counting them. They were not laughing at the uneven edges. They were delighted. When I looked at their drop-off basket, I understood why. A few single blocks were lying inside, all perfectly square and neat. I did not fit the mould, but I was the person closest to a whole blanket, and to them, that was the most important thing.

This taught me an important lesson.

You may feel like you are ill-equipped to be a writer. You may feel like your story is messy, or that no one wants to hear it. But your story matters to someone in ways you could never imagine. I realised there is someone who will be warmer this winter if I continue, even if the process is painful.

As I shared the photos of my progress, one friend told me to quit.

But my eldest daughter told me to keep going.

That is another lesson for writers. Choose your tribe carefully. The people who love you most will often be the first to suggest you stop, not because they do not believe in you, but because they cannot bear to watch you struggle. They see the pain and the mess and the mismatched rectangles, and they want to protect you from all of it. What they cannot see is what you are building, the vision that keeps you gathering up your imperfect work and walking back to the desk. Your tribe needs to be made up of people who can hold that vision with you, even on the days you cannot hold it yourself.

So, what was the promise I made?

Years ago, when I was a young pregnant woman facing an uncertain future as a single parent, a total stranger crocheted a beautiful blanket for my soon-to-be-born baby. I want to be the person who pays it forward.

So, on Sunday, I collected two new balls of wool, a crochet needle to connect the rectangles, and asked my husband for a shoulder massage. I am finishing this blanket.

For those who are still carrying your writing project in your heart, know that your knowledge capital is your legacy. It is the blanket that will provide comfort, guidance, and warmth to the next generation of leaders.

But you do not have to piece it together alone.