What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?

I had a little "come to Jesus," moment this morning, as my friend Trisha likes to say.  I was thinking about all the "opportunities" that had come my way lately and whether these items really are opportunities or me just flailing blindly around in the pool of life, searching for something to cling to.  I suspect they are a bit of both.

Look at what I've blogged about for the last few days.  Substitute teaching...running a marathon. Hello--where did those come from? There are also some items I haven't blogged about.

In pursuit of the possible side career as a speaker, I'm signing up in August for a Dale Carnegie course. (Trisha warned me it's a cult but I'm aware of that and--frankly--think I would make an excellent cult member. I excel at following directions). A member of my networking group called me yesterday because she thought I was a member of the Greensboro Merchants Association and wanted me to be on her team. I'm not a member but she got me to thinking maybe I should be--more networking means more potential writing and speaking assignments coming my way.  I'm also working my way through Advanced manuals in Toastmasters, trying to earn an advanced speakers designation and just a host of other little things.

My point is, I think I'm grabbing at all these things, hoping one of them will "stick," and I'll figure out what I really want to do to with my life.

I do think writing is my niche. I've no plans to leave that. But almost all of my income comes from magazine writing and while I enjoy it and am good at it, I don't recall ever thinking to myself, "Hey, my life's dream is to be a famous magazine writer."

The problem is I don't know what my life's dream is at this point. Is it teaching? Writing for children? Writing non-fiction books? Humor books? One of the plus/minuses of my personality is I get very excited about whatever is set in front of me. Very good for getting me through projects, but I'm also easily distracted and thrown off track from the end goal--whatever that may be.

I think part of the problem is if I face up to the fact that my "dream" is to, let's say, write books for a living, that may mean I need to refocus my life and give up a lot of what I've been working hard for these past couple of years. Namely, building a reputation as a freelance writer. What if I give up my income, my ego-pleasing "Look--my name is in a magazine!" moments and my columns to stay home and write said book and nothing happens?  Aaaauuugh!  I am not a process person. I am a "let's see the end result" person.

Just talk for now. But we'll see where it leads. Meanwhile, let's throw it open to the crowd. Are you following your life's dream? Do you know what it is? Care to share your process? We're all ears...