Today, I want to talk about the power of making a decision.
I didn’t start writing until I was 30. Oh, I wrote before that. When I was 12, I started my memoirs. That makes me laugh so much. Especially since I didn’t get past the first line, which was, “When I was born, I cried.” I was an existentialist before I even knew what the word meant.
Anwyay, I wrote. In college, I wrote angsty poetry about frat boys. I wrote homemade greeting cards for my family. I excelled at essay tests. I worked for a magazine and was a freelance writer. But I never considered myself a Writer. I thought it was something you were called to do. I thought if I was really a writer, I’d just know it. And every time I tried to write an essay or a poem or a short story, it was hard, so I figured it must not be my thing.
But then I turned 30. I had a three-year-old and I was restless. I’d talked for years about writing novels, but I’d never really tried to do it. Luckily, by then, the budding existentialist was pretty developed, and I realized that it was time to actually do the damned thing or stop talking about it.
So I signed up for a class at the community college. I started my first novel in that class. From there, I joined a local writing group. I wrote when my son was in preschool and after he went to bed. I learned about query letters and read every craft book I could find. It took me about nine months to write that first book, but I did it. When I finally wrote “The End” for the first time, I burst into tears.
It took three years of writing to finally get a novel published. Three years is not a lot of time in the writing world. I went from never having written a novel to getting a six figure contract in three years. Now I’m 20 years into a successful career as an author. How?
I made a decision.
Another example, two months ago, I was thinking about leaving New Orleans. I was lonely and bored. I spent too much time by myself in my condo watching reality tv. I was half-heartedly working on my novel. I decided what I really needed was to move somewhere else—a fantasy place where I could outrun myself.
But then, one day, I realized this is something I’ve done over and over in life. I am always daydreaming about the next place. I never root where I am because I’m tell myself that I won’t be there long. The problem with this is that you never really invest in where you are. You never make where you are home because you’re always thinking home is somewhere else, if you can just find it. However, as the saying goes: No matter where you go, there you are.
So I recognized this pattern and decided to interrupt it. Instead of leaving, I was going to stay and invest in a life here. Make New Orleans my home. This is where my “dating my city” idea came from.
Guess what happened? I got happier. I joined a gym. I reached out on social media for suggestions of ways to date the city and got a ton of responses from locals. I met a new friend through that post. I went to a book signing and met some local authors. I started going on artist dates and going by myself to events. Sometimes, I meet people for coffee or dates. I go to the gym to write and workout six days a week. In six weeks, my daily life looks radically different. Why?
I made a decision.
Do you get what I’m saying? We spend so much time halfheartedly wishing for things. We hedge our bets and we don’t put any real skin in the game.
But when you make a decision, when you have a purpose and a plan? Everything changes. The universe starts opening doors. Action begets action.
Speaking of action, make sure this decision is supported by investments. The gym I joined requires a yearlong commitment. This is a financial and time commitment to my decision. I’ve committed one full year of making New Orleans home. Decision, investment. See?
I can hear you: But Jaye what if I choose the wrong thing?
Here’s the beauty of this, friend, you get to alter course. You get to respond in real time to new information. The most important thing is that you choose a path and walk down it. There may be forks in the road or detours. The important part is that you’re moving.
I mentioned I gave myself a year here. If, by then, I realize that New Orleans isn’t my long term home, I can come up with another plan. If that happens, I will at least know I made an effort and that my new decision is being made from actual lived experience and not just avoidance.
You can change you mind, is what I’m saying. But only after you’ve given it a genuine effort.
What’s the alternative? To sit on your couch thinking about doing something until you die? No thank you.
If, like me, you are an idea person and a multi-talented creative, you may struggle especially with choosing a path. My advice here is to focus on the thing you’re resisting the most. That’s because if you’re afraid of it, you’ve got emotional investment in it.
For more on how to choose between compelling ideas, check out my post on Creative Limerence.
Decide. Decide to be a writer. Decide to stop abandoning yourself. Decide to water where you’re planted. Whatever it is, decide.
Then go after it like you life depends on it. Because your mortality may not depend on it (thought it also may), but your sense of self—your ability to live an authentic existence—has everything riding on your ability to make a decision and take aligned action.
Mondays are especially great days for decisions. Just saying.
Tarot Prompt: The Nine of Wands from Modern Witch Tart Deck by Lisa Sterle
Traditionally, the Nine of Wands is a card about perseverance . The figure in the card has already fought so hard, but there is more work to do. She’ll need grit and every resource for this last push to success.
For me, personally, this card is a reminder to have healthy boundaries. Since wands is the suit of passion, I deeply associate it with my writing. So for me, this card is saying I need to protect my writing. That means prioritizing it and creating a container for it in my day so that life’s other responsibilities don’t encroach on my progress.
One or both of these meanings may apply to your current creative efforts. The bottom line regardless is to buckle down and keep going. Since this is the Nine, we’re almost at the end of this journey. Things will lighten up soon. So we need to reach deep down, find our grit, use what we’ve already learned along the way, and keep fighting.
It’s a great message especially if you’re working on a novel and you’re struggling to push through to finish it.
Prompts:
-Review your daily schedule. How are you ensuring that your creative projects get enough time and attention? Can you carve out an hour in the morning before the kids get up? Can you dictate pages on your commute? Is there time on your lunch hour to jot down notes?
-Make a grit playlist. This is the music you put on when you need to get hyped up. The songs that help you dig deep and find that extra bit of energy.
-Remember your why. Reflect on why you made the decision (see what I did there?) to start this journey. List out the reasons to remind yourself why you’re doing this.
-Write a letter to you the you before you made this decision. The person who didn’t think it was possible to come even this far. Brag about how much you’ve done already. Tell them about how close you are to accomplishing what they never thought they could do.
I’d love to hear about a time you made a decision and it changed everything. Let’s chat about it in comments.
I hope you have an inspired week, friends!
-The Messy Muse