Making Space for Purpose
5 Changes I am making to make time to write
If you had asked me two years ago what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I would have told you I have no idea. I was struggling with an identity crisis. My oldest son was about to graduate high school and my youngest was an independent teenager who wasn’t very interested in spending time with mom. I was a bartender in a sports bar, and it was fun, but I was working sometimes until four in the morning. I slept most of the day, I had no hobbies or real friends. I was drinking too much, and I had no plans for the future. I didn’t even have plans for next week. I was panicking inside because I had spent the last 17 years stuck in survival mode just trying to keep it together for my kids. I was hiding myself in living for them. Now my kids didn’t need me to live for them anymore, and I had no idea what I wanted for myself. My only identity was mom and bartender.
There were a lot of tears in the year before my son graduated and right after. There were a lot of questions I had no answers for, and a lot of emptiness. I floundered, and I was lost.
I’m tired of being lost. I’m not waiting anymore for a path to jump out in front of me. I have decided what I want. I want to write. I want peace and calm. I want to wake up every day filled with purpose, and I know it can be mine. These are the five habits I am committing myself to in order to achieve these goals:
Making a decision
I have always believed that you can have whatever you decide on. I got most of the jobs I wanted. I got promoted when I wanted to. I finished my bachelor’s in psychology, even though I didn’t really believe I could do it. I decided and I did it. But when it came to the future, I had no idea what I wanted. I couldn’t decide on a path. I was surviving, not living.
I couldn’t have decided on a path two years ago. I couldn’t imagine a future where I wasn’t living day to day, hour to hour. It has taken a lot of journaling and meditating and thinking. I have spent time visualizing how each path looks in the future. And I have decided. Now all of my decisions can be made in support of that decision. And when all of your decisions are made for one purpose, you can’t help but move in that direction.
Making peace
Making peace means so much more than just accepting. It means forgiving myself for the time that I have wasted not knowing what I wanted. It means acknowledging that I am a product of the environment I was raised in, but that I was never a victim of circumstances. It means forgiving others for the ways I have been hurt and understanding that they did the best they could. That I allowed myself to be in those situations, and even used other's struggles as a way to make myself feel more worthy by playing the hero. That I blamed others for pushing past the boundaries I refused to set and enforce. Accepting my own role in my life is hard, but it has been necessary.
Making space
This is making a space where I feel safe stay. I like to go. But I can’t create when I am on the go, so it has been necessary for me to make a space to stay. A space where I am comfortable and inspired. I have made my writing room into a space that is reflective of me. It feels comfortable and whimsical and magical. It has fairy lights all around, a comfortable sitting area, candles and a even a water fountain for the sound. If stays clean and maintained and when I am in here, I don’t think about my to-do list. I think about my writing and I am filled with joy. Your space may not have fairy lights and a water feature, but it should be somewhere you want to be and feel comfortable and can focus.
Making a schedule
This isn’t just a schedule of things to do. It’s not a list of things I want to accomplish. It’s a schedule that works with my real life and gives me an outline that keeps me focused and on track. No, it doesn’t make my house spot less and my social life active and me at the gym 7 days a week. But it does work with my natural energy rhythm. I know that if I go to bed at 10 pm I will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. So I schedule swimming at 10 because it relaxes me, then I go to bed at midnight, relaxed and I can actually sleep through the night. I work three long days in a row every week, so on those days I don’t plan chores or cooking. I just schedule work and I let that be enough. I know the morning after those three days I am tired, so I schedule rest. Scheduling my rest helps me not feel guilty for it. I know I need it to be productive at other times.
Making it simple
This is maybe the hardest step because I want to do all the things. I want to run errands and go out to lunch and pay my bills in person. I like to cook different meals every week with lots of ingredients and using all the dishes in the kitchen. I like to start big projects and then get mad at myself for not finishing it.
I’m not saying I will never do those things again. But at this moment, at this stage of my goals, it is necessary for me to keep things simple. I am taking things off my plate. I am delegating where I can. I have automated my bills. I am shopping online. I have the same laundry and cooking days every week. I am making simple meals that can be portioned so that food takes up almost no space in my brain. I know what I’m eating and when I’m making it, and I have almost no dirty dishes to do because I’m only cooking twice a week. Keeping it simple is freeing up my mind to focus on my creative goals.
I am new at this, so it isn’t an art yet, it’s a practice. The first week I didn’t do a very good job at it at all. The next few weeks were better. And yesterday, my boss told me she can tell I am doing something different and it’s working because I am calmer and more focused at work and she asked to collaborate on what I am doing. So, no it’s not perfect, but here I am, writing, so it’s getting there. I’ll keep you updated!