A few months ago, having just read a book on becoming the person you’re meant to be, I asked an essential but scary question of myself:
What precisely do I want to do with my life? Who do I want to be more than anything in the world?
There a number of things that I enjoy, of course, even professionally. I love freelancing and writing feature stories and personal essays brings me much joy. I love building businesses and can’t stop myself from coming up with new and varied ideas. I even… dare I admit… quite enjoyed speaking the last time I did it, the sweaty palms before the event notwithstanding.
But if I had to strip it all away to its absolute core, what would I keep and what would I let go of? What do I want to do most in the world? Whose are the careers I most envy? What could I fill up my days with completely and feel utterly fulfilled?
And it came down to this:
I want to read and write books, and I want to travel.
That’s it. Those are my core values, the things I want to do most in my life.
I realized in that moment, not so much with shock as much as with shame, that up until that point in my career, I had done anything and everything, but I had not written books. The only thing I want to do with my life. And I had not done it.
I mentioned this in passing to my husband, who considered it for a second, before reminding me that the reason I hadn’t written books in the last three years, the reason I’d put aside my novel and focused more on freelancing and content marketing was so that we could increase our income, set up home base in the UK, and pay for things like expensive preschools for our son. It was a trade-off, he said, one we’d made consciously and with a specific timeframe in mind.
This was an easy excuse. Money almost always is.
But the truth, and I couldn’t hide from it any longer, is that I’ve been a writer and dreamed of books since even before I met my husband. I wrote and published my first book in early 2005 when I was 22 years old and living with my parents. It was pretty successful, even. I made money. I half-wrote several manuscripts after that, but they never went anywhere, they were never published. Somewhere along the way, I lost my nerve. Then, life intervened. My freelancing career took off, I traveled, I fell in love, and I got married. I could use them as excuses. Or I could face facts. And the fact is simple: I wrote a lot. I wrote articles and essays and blog posts. I found time for all of those. But I never wrote books.
There is always a reason not to do something. And there is always a reason to do it. You simply have to choose.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to give up my freelancing career and suddenly start throwing all my spare cash on books and travel. That’s not the point. But I can plan. I can save up. I can make other sacrifices. I can read a book a week. I can work on my fiction for an hour a day.
I realized that I have dozens and dozens of short-term and long-term goals: Write 52 articles a year, create a successful business, put together passive income streams that will fund retirement, become a millionaire. But I also have life values, things that I want to live my days by: Reading books, writing books, traveling. And while I’ve been focused on my goals, I’ve done so at the expense of my core values.
Yet, my excuses (and yours) are very real. How can I go off and write a novel when I have a family that depends on my income?
I thought about this and I did what I do every time I’m put in a position where I’m unsure of the answer. I ask myself what advice I’d give to my son were he to come to me with the same problem.
What I would tell my son is this: Your family comes first. Their well being, both financially and otherwise, has to be your first priority. Ignoring this fact is neither responsible nor an act of love. To love and honor your family, and indeed yourself, you must put paying work first.
My husband says that had I not met him and had our son, I’d be one of those obsessive writers who sit in a small room all day and write. He says that if it weren’t for him, I’d have written thirty books by now, some probably bestsellers. I’d be a prolific author, a satisfied writer.
This, I will admit, is true. But I also know that I don’t want to be a satisfied writer; I want to be a satisfied person. My husband is my best friend. I’d give up any number of literary aspirations to have the relationship we do. If I were giving advice to my son, I’d tell him to choose being a better and a happier person over being a better and happier writer any day, because in the long term, a happier person is a happier writer.
Yet, I would also not advise him to sacrifice himself so completely and so utterly that he becomes bitter about his lack of, not success, but effort. I would give him the exact advice my own mother-in-law gave me not too long ago:
Nourish yourself. Take some time in the day just for you. Write your books.
And so, for an hour a day for the last three months, I’ve been writing my books. It is exhausting, after an entire day spent writing for other people, to come to the page and write for myself, but it is also extremely satisfying.
You’d be surprised what can happen in an hour a day. I finished my first novel, a manuscript that has remained unfinished for five years and I wrote another book for writers that is now in the hands of my editor and that I’ll tell you about next week. Just this week, I wrote 6,000 words on a new novel, novel #2. I’ve given myself a year to finish, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t take that long.
All this extra writing time that I’m gifting myself? It’s taken absolutely nothing from my life and has added so much to it. I still work on my freelancing and my business and I’m still growing my income. But now, I also experience creative fulfillment on a daily basis, something that has given new energy and drive to my days.
In the end, life is and will be what you make of it.
What do I want to do with mine?
I want to read books.
I want to write books.
And I want to travel.
But to do those big things tomorrow, I need to start with the small things, the tiny things, today.
What do you want to do with your life?
Can you take a tiny step towards your dreams today?