Hello to you!

These sticky notes have been on my refrigerator for many weeks. The photo below is exactly as I wrote them except that I crossed out some words because apparently when I'm talking to myself, I have a flair for melodrama - it gets me all riled up and inspired. As I typed this email, my instinct was to minimize these notes somehow. To call them silly or to talk about them without actually sharing the photo.

Why? Because our hopes and dreams are personal and make us feel vulnerable. But I think owning them is important and transformative, so here goes.

Yesterday morning during my run, my mind darted between all sorts of topics and one BIG decision that I've been wishy-washy about for far too long. It's been sucking my mental energy and time. As I was running, I realized that I already knew the answer; in fact, I've known it all along.

I thought back to these notes, which represent what is important to me right now and realized that filtering decisions through this vision is incredibly powerful.

Read the pink one again because it's important (side note: at the time of writing them, I didn't specifically prioritize this one, I just ran out of yellow stickies but now that seems profound. It's a GOOD one).

Do you know why you do what you do? Are you making intentional decisions about how you're spending your precious time?

I'm not always perfectly aligned, but I'm slowly getting better at this and I can tell when it's working because I'm filled with joy and passion. If you don't know your priorities, brainstorm, then write them down and display them somewhere that will be clearly visible on a regular basis. Don't worry about getting it perfect, because this will change as you and your circumstances change - just get something down and start practicing really thinking through what this means for your life and your decisions. Fair warning, writing them is easy compared to the hard work of actually applying them.

It turns out that I've been letting other things divert time and energy from my creative work. Some of this is me getting distracted or poor time management but I realize now that some of it is related to one of the notes above. Sometimes when our creative work goes into deep and meaningful places, it's a little scary so we may turn away to "easier" things.

"Your writing is going to hard places & so you avoid it. Jump in - this is the good stuff."

Because my creative work is so important to me and is so integral to my personal growth and transformation, I want to lean in and sink down deeper - and this is controlled by choices I make every day.

If you're not perfectly clear on your priorities (and I suspect most of us aren't!), I hope I've inspired you to try this approach. If you do, please reply and let me know how it went. Share your notes if you feel comfortable but no pressure.

I hope your creative life is vibrant and satisfying. Here's a photo from my studio yesterday:

You can see what else I've been up to or download Begin to Create, a free resource to inspire you, on my website.

I hope tomorrow is filled with birdsong - Robin