I’ve been having an enlightening experience lately as I’ve been focusing on my “ideal life.” Up until this past week, I’ve been thinking about it in terms of bringing my life more in line with my vision. For example, I have X, Y, and Z goals, and I’ve been working on identifying steps to reaching them.
I had an “aha” moment last week related to something my friend Karma once shared. She said that she knows what she’s committed to in her life by looking at what she’s doing. For example, she knows that she wants to attend a workshop when she notices that she’s taking steps to registering, handling travel arrangements, and so on. That approach is a real about-face when compared with my own. I decided to try it on in tandem with decluttering—getting rid of activities and things that no longer satisfy or serve me. Here’s what I noticed:
1. I quit two part-time freelance gigs. One was a recurring monthly editing gig that I’ve done for eight years and that’s been highly annoying for at least four. Every time it came around, I grumbled through it and comforted myself with the knowledge that it would soon go away again for the better part of a month. Then I made it go away forever! (Very liberating . . .) The other one was just something I outgrew. When I finally realized I had considered letting it go every week for the previous two months, I knew it was time to let it go for real.
2. Right after I let go of those two gigs, some new opportunities showed up that are much more in line with my passions. They involve new writing projects for educational publishers, something I’ve done for eleven years and utterly adore. (I’d wanted to be a writer for a decade before finding my writing niche.) Nature abhors a vacuum, the saying goes, and decluttering really works in attracting new possibilities.
3. I stopped holding the perspective that my work life isn’t how I want it to be, and I started noticing that 90% of it is exactly as I want it to be. Instead of thinking I “should” build my coaching business more, I realized I have exactly the number of clients I can give good attention to. And I realized that even though my writing and editing work can be too busy at times, I’m connected with good people and companies, and I have plenty of work.
I still want to add a few other elements to my life, and I’ll take steps to do that—just not today. Today I’m going to rest and enjoy.