Let’s Become Seamstresses and Alter Our Entire Lives ✂️🧵🪡

Or, the secret to actually showing up the way you really want to.

I worked as an Administrative Assistant for a really long time. And if I’m being honest, I was really fucking good at it. 

I am an Excel nerd through and through. 📉 💻 🤓

Need it scheduled? Done. 

Need that organized? I got it. 

Want those files from 387 years ago that no one else can find? Here you go!

I was good at showing up. I was good at getting shit done. I was efficient and organized and the absolute poster child for consistency. 

At work. 

But at home? When there’s no one but myself to answer to? When I desperately wanted to write that story or poem or even the goddamn grocery list? 

THAT - was another story. 

I was … whatever the opposite of the absolute poster child for consistency is. 

I simply could not do it. 

I struggled to stick with anything. 

I would read about how Jane Doe was forming her morning writing habit in order to draft her novel and I’d try to copy what she was doing for a while. 

Then I’d quit because, mornings. 

I found another creative I admired, read an interview where he talked about how he gets his work done (1,200 words a day), and tried to do that for a while, too. 

I’m not even sure I made it a week with that. 

There were at least 37 other ways to create a writing practice that I read and tried and quit and cried. 

I finally just gave up. 

And it was the best thing I could have ever done. Yes, quitting. THAT was what finally worked. 

Well, sort of. 

It’s what led me to finally busting out my cutting shears and going to work severing ties that bound me to doing things the way everyone else was doing them. 

I started letting go of my need to “do it right” and started listening to what I actually wanted. 

The best advice I ever received along this process was from Ash Ambirge: when you wake up every morning, for one week, answer this question in your journal - what do I actually want to do? 

Not what I felt like I “should” do or what I thought other people wanted me to do, but what I actually wanted to do. 

Forcing myself to eliminate everything else for the week and focus solely on what I wanted to do, changed the game for me. 

It was a crucial step in a process I now call Courageous Writing and share with you!

When you try to do it like everyone else, you're going to start, stop, start, stop and feel like a total failure. But you can go through the Courageous Writing process and create a writing practice that is specifically designed for you. 

Pro-tip: That journalling prompt works for literally everything. Struggling with a work decision? Not sure what move to make next? Questioning every life decision you’ve ever made? Spend a week answering this question: what do I really want?

You might be surprised at what you see start showing up on the page.

Whether you’re crafting your own writing practice or just navigating a tumultuous holiday season (or life), I hope you find some space to get quiet and listen to what’s inside.

Until next time. :)