For almost 15 years of my life, I tried to make a habit of writing fiction every day. Fiction writing is not only something I love to do, it’s something I know I’m meant to do.
But it was a habit I avoided like Covid (too soon?)
I tried so hard to do it every day, but somehow, everything else just became more important and more of a priority. This happened over and over again.
Until the day I finally got it. Like fully got it.
Got what life is really all about—and that if you’re meant to do something, and you know it, then you must do it.
Even if you don’t know why. Even if it seems like there are more important things going on. Even if you’re not making money from it (yet) and have no idea if or when you ever will.
You still have to do that thing you know you’re meant to do. Or, suffer the consequences.
For me, that thing is writing fiction.
I know this and have known this since I was 11 years old. But I didn’t really fully get it until this year.
This year, I made a decision to finally go all-in on the business I actually wanted, and to get rid of anything else I was doing that wasn’t that.
It was a scary decision because what I wanted to be doing wasn’t yet making me an income, and I feared for what would happen if I just up and stopped doing the stuff that was making me an income (that I didn’t want to be doing anymore).
But I decided anyhow because I realized that if I didn’t do it now, I might never do it.
So I jumped in with both feet and began tearing down my old business and rebuilding it as the business I actually wanted. Things got pretty interesting after that.
Old projects disappeared. I walked away from previous clients. I took down my book editing sales page, which was the one thing that made me most of my income at that point. I stopped calling myself a book editor.
I was getting more in tune with what I truly wanted to be doing. I had more clarity around the type of business I actually wanted. And I was doing the work to build it back up to where my previous business had been and then way beyond that.
It was a fun, but also very frustrating and highly stressful. I kept questioning myself and worrying that I’d made a mistake burning my old biz to the ground.
I had all kinds of noise in my head about whether I was really “meant” to go this direction, or if maybe God truly did want me to edit books, even though I didn’t want to.
Then I was listening to an audio from one of my mentors, and she said something about, “what is that thing you constantly think about? That thing you’ve always known your life was meant to be about, but you’re just not fully giving yourself permission yet? The thing that would be a huge regret for you if you died not having done it?”
And I realized, when it really comes down to it, what I choose to do in my business doesn’t actually matter. I can choose whatever lights me up and makes me feel good at the moment. It’s not about the business for me. I’m not constantly thinking about my business. I don’t have visions every day about the business I want to create.
But I am constantly thinking about my fiction writing. And I have visions almost daily of stories that want to be told by me.
And if there’s anything in this world I KNOW I’m meant to do and am called to do, it’s to write stories. And specifically, love stories.
I’ve been obsessed with love stories and love and relationships and the dynamics between people in a relationship for my entire life. I’m always analyzing this stuff. I’m always coming up with ideas for stuff related to this that I can write about.
That is what I’m constantly thinking about. That is the stuff that’s always on my mind.
And so I finally gave in. I finally bowed down to the one thing I’ve always known that my life was meant to be about… writing fiction.
I finally got it. At a deep, deep level.
It doesn’t matter whether writing fiction makes me money or whether I get the outcome I desire from it or whether I even do anything with the fiction that I write.
What matters, is whether or not I wrote fiction. Period.
Now I write fiction every day (it became a habit almost instantly). Not to get an outcome or to make money (although that will be fabulous when it starts happening), but simply because it’s what I’m meant to do. It’s the joy of my life to be a storyteller. It’s in my soul to spin words and worlds and create characters and storylines.
And I’ve finally given into being ALL of me.
The consequences of not doing what you know you’re meant to do with your life are far greater and more troubling than the consequences of making that thing you know you’re meant to do a priority… even when it doesn’t logically make sense to.
That is the truth I have come to, and my life is now better because of it.
What are YOU avoiding in your life that you KNOW in your soul you’re meant to be doing? And how can you start doing that in some way, starting today?
‘Cause I promise you, while it may not make sense right now, if you were to die tomorrow, it will be the one thing you regret not doing.
And the consequences of that are not ones I’m willing to live with. How about you?
