Life-Crafting 101: Priorities, Boundaries, Mysticism
A few days ago, in between blood draws for my gestational diabetes test (so awful! Why do we make pregnant women chug 80 grams of sugar water in a world where continuous glucose monitors exist?!), I tuned into a “masterclass.”
Fancy, huh? A “masterclass.”
It was offered by an entrepreneurial community I’ve joined in Hong Kong called Launchpad. And the topic was “How to Become an Expert.” (Double fancy, if I do say so myself. If you’re a Launchpad member who didn’t tune in live, I highly recommend watching the replay.)
My over-sugared self was wildly participative (80 grams of sugar on an empty stomach, folks! So crazy!).
Except for one portion of the class. The instructor, Penny Locaso of Hacking Happy, shared her belief that courage is an essential ingredient in becoming an expert. You can’t have the impact you want to have, she said, if you’re not willing to put yourself out there.
Then she asked us to share in the comments where fear was holding us back.
And I couldn’t think of a single area where “fear” or “a lack of courage” is holding me back in my business. Not because I don’t agree with Penny’s hypothesis – I believe she’s 100% right – but because I have, over the years, strengthened the “putting myself out there” muscle. I currently have a live Instagram story about when I used to stand over my sink and vomit until I could get enough 8:00 AM vodka down to stop my morning shakes, for goodness’ sake. I’ve been writing openly about my experience with addiction, depression, and chronic dissatisfaction for close to a decade at this point.
But there IS something that’s holding me back in my business. Which, honestly, isn’t actually a business but a vocation. A calling. A pursuit that makes me feel so vibrantly alive and glad to be a human on planet Earth that I’m sad any day I don’t get to work on it.
The thing?
It’s not fear, but a lack of structure.
2024 – it’s been a wild ride. I was intensely overmedicated in January, February, March, April, May, AND June as part of our IVF journey.
And, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but that’s a long time to be overmedicated. To be dysregulated. To feel like your entire mental, emotional, and spiritual systems have been hijacked by outside forces.
Please don’t read any victim-y vibes into anything I’m writing, because that is not the frequency I’m transmitting. While I would 100% do IVF differently if we ever do it again (there are options I didn’t know about where you don’t have to take a single medication), I didn’t feel like I was being wronged or punished. I made a mistake (consenting to more meds than my “orchid” system could handle) and I needed time to get back to a state of homeostasis.
And now that I’m there – well, a few things.
First, goodness, am I grateful. Nothing like a period of feeling horrible to make you feel grateful for the days when you wake up feeling good.
Second, there’s rebuilding required.
For many years, I had more or less “perfect” structure in my life. I’ve written about it prolifically, pinching myself to have landed in a life that suited me so well.
But, when foundations collapse – none of us can just go back to how things were. We need time to rebuild a strong foundation. Space to rebuild a strong foundation. Resources to rebuild a strong foundation.
Liz Gilbert, who always makes things fun, would say that we need:
Priorities
Boundaries
Mysticism
So, while my adventures in business-slash-vocation-building may have no relevance to your life, the place I’m in – it’s a human thing.
Almost everyone I know has woken up at some point and realized that their calendar in no way reflected their priorities.
Where we cause ourselves pain is thinking that that’s immediately fixable. That we can snap our fingers and sort it all out.
But that’s not how it works. That’s an unrealistic expectation and, in recovery speak, expectations are premeditated resentments.
Transition time is required, friends. Foundation-building (or re-building) time can’t be skipped.
Priorities. Boundaries. Mysticism.
Our best friends in lifecrafting.
Xo,
Keely
P.S. This musing was supposed to be about how we need to listen to our inner knowing to avoid chasing our tails (courage isn’t where I need to focus my attention; structure is), but this is what came out instead. Isn’t surrender fun?
Morning Musings is a delight-first writing practice where I wake up, put my fingers on the keyboard and see if any ideas want to play. The delightful humans who read these musings tend to see them as an invitation to slow down, have a virtual cup of coffee together, and contemplate the human experience. If you’d like to join our tribe, subscribe here: https://keelyc.substack.com/
