The Writer Who Didn't Write

How I redefined my life purpose and got creative again

It was another day of living a lie. I had ran into an old friend that morning at the grocery store and she immediately asked how my new novel was coming along. Because I was a writer, my friend naturally expected me to be writing. I hummed around a bit and told her things were great, when in fact I hadn’t looked at my work-in-progress in years. Not months. Years.

I was a complete fraud.

A writer who never wrote

I lied to her because I couldn’t admit that I froze every time I sat down to work on my novel. I was a writer who never wrote. And not being able to write made me depressed and rudderless — I was drifting through life without any direction.

I knew being a writer was my life purpose. Or should I say being a traditionally published author was my life purpose. But I had spent years querying agents and trying to get published without success. Instead, I’d stare at my laptop screen too afraid to write a word because I didn’t want to fail again.

I didn’t see the point of writing another book if it never got published, so I quit working on my novel even though it broke my heart to abandon it. I could still whip up marketing content for my clients no problem because I didn’t care about that work the way I cared about my novel. Being a marketing specialist wasn’t my life purpose.

But writing fiction was an entirely different story. I had wanted to be a published author since I was 15 years old and if I had to pick only one thing to do for the rest of my life, it would be writing fiction. Even though I was paralyzed with fear, I kept reading books about writing and talking to other writers — I was really good at helping other creatives stay motivated and productive, I just couldn’t help myself.

My light bulb moment

Then I read Life Purpose Boot Camp by Eric Maisel and had an awakening. A proverbial light bulb moment.

A life purpose is something that’s more important to you than something else.

In the book, Maisel defines a life purpose as something you focus on, something that’s more important to you than something else. And when you do this thing you usually get a sense of meaning from the experience — it’s by having these meaning-making moments that you live your life purpose. He also explains that you can have several life purposes — not just one — which definitely takes the pressure off figuring out that one magical thing you’re supposed to do with your life.

It’s by having meaning-making moments that you live your life purpose.

Maisel advises against making your life purpose too narrow or rigid, which I had been doing. I believed my life purpose was to be a published novelist, so I felt like a failure because I hadn’t achieved that yet.

I now knew I needed to tweak my definition to say that writing was my life purpose because it was meaningful to me. I had been focused on the wrong end of the equation.

By turning my attention to the sense of meaning I received from writing instead of expecting to be published, I could start writing again.

Meaning-making opportunities

So how does this relate to you? Well, in simplest terms, you could decide that reading is more important to you than watching TV and presto! Reading is your life purpose. That’s a very basic example but you see what I mean.

Say protecting human rights is a cause that means a lot to you. Maybe you can’t work at Amnesty International, but you can make regular charitable donations to the organization, which means you’re living your life purpose when you do that. You don’t have to be making huge gestures to have a meaningful life, you just need to do the things that are important to you. Every time you have a meaning-making moment you’re living your life purpose.

It’s that easy.

For me, as long as I’m writing, I’m living my life purpose. Even if I never get published.

Lesson learned: I had been confusing my end goal of getting published with my life purpose and that completely blocked me.

How to figure out your life purpose

• Take at least 30 minutes to write down what’s important to you. What are your values? What’s most important to you? How can these be turned into meaning-making opportunities?

• Spend a day living as many meaning-making opportunities as possible.

• Evaluate your day to see how different it was compared to a typical day. Are they close? If not, you have some work to do. For example, you might not have planned to attend a gallery opening on the weekend, but if appreciating art is one of your meaning-making opportunities, you can go to the gallery and live one of your life purposes.

• What will happen if you don’t have any meaning-making opportunities for several days? How will you get back on track?

What I’m reading right now

A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born to Do
by Thomas Moore

I’m drawn to anything that reassures me my life is headed in the right direction. In A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born to Do, author Thomas Moore explores the obstacles, blocks, and hardships we go through on our way to discovering our purpose and the joy we can find when we’re on the right path. Since he’s a former monk, Moore does this from a spiritual perspective. I’m not religious, so I simply substituted the word meaning wherever he used spirit. I’ve included the Amazon.ca link if you want to buy it (I’m not an affiliate, I just order a lot of books online) but it’s probably available at your local public library.

You can be in the newsletter!

Are you living your life purpose? How do you define a meaningful life? Or are you struggling to find your way? I’d love to talk to you about your experience and feature you in a future issue of Meaning Full. Comment below and we can make the arrangements.

Thanks!

Leanne