What are you even doing with your life?

how to stop the existential spinout

First, you were sure it was editing. Then you were sure it was the podcast on creativity. Then you tried creative coaching, but you couldn’t find anyone to pay you so you went back to freelancing. Then you had that history-of-cast-iron-stoves-blog-idea and you got halfway through it before you realized no one cares (even though you had fun, but the baby keeps crying and your partner has to work and your nanny canceled because she’s got a cold) and now you’re thinking, what am I even doing with my life?  

You’re about to be 44. Maybe it’s time to call it? Maybe you don't have a vision? Maybe you just drank the Kool-Aid and maybe the whole follow your dreams thing was all a lie?

You’re scared to get excited again because you’re terrified of disappointing yourself. Because somewhere deep inside you're afraid that you don't actually have what it takes. John has been coding since he was 11. Arma knew she wanted to be a doctor when she started university. Carlina has been doing lettering on the side for years. And what do you have? You have nothing to show for your efforts. You bail on things. Sometimes it’s not your fault and sometimes you know you didn’t shoot your shot. Sometimes you need to have a job and hit pause. Sometimes you lose steam. Sometimes you’re nervous that you don't know what you want and you’re fooling yourself. You're too scared to dream now.

You’ve made the “wrong” choice before. You’re afraid to choose the next thing. The idea you’ve got sounds good but maybe it’s not? You thought you went after your dream before, but then you got there and you were unhappy. This has happened four times now.

Except did it? How far did you get before you pulled the plug? How deep into the work did you really get? Or maybe the dead end led you to the next question or curiosity or to the project you’re contemplating now?

We’d like to call a timeout on the existential spinout.

We’ve all felt this kind of spin, right?

Here’s how to get out of it:

1. Remember: Your life doesn’t have to be one perfectly cohesive whole. You can be a marketer by day and create watercolor pet portraits by night – simply because you want to. Your Dream Project and your day job may be worlds apart. That’s cool. Let them stand on their own. Everything about you doesn’t have to be integrated into an easily digestible narrative. The endless search for The One Thing is dizzying and misleading because there isn’t one thing. There are many things. You are full of many dreams and ideas and gifts. You contain multitudes, baby.

2. We’ve been sold the illusion that our Dream Project will save us, if we could only figure out what the heck it is. We believe that finding The One Thing will rescue us from our current state of existential dread and we’ll be imbued with purpose, fulfillment, and likely fame and attention too. Deep down we know this isn’t true, but we still harbor secret hopes for wealth and freedom and we hitch them to our Dream Projects. Your life is bigger than any project. This one project probably won’t change everything, but it might change you and that is an outcome worthy of pursuing. We’re different on the other side of creating work we care about.

3. What will save you: The doing. Showing up and humbly working. Not hustling for our self-worth, but allowing the work to teach us about ourselves, about our hearts, about the nature of things. Committing to a practice, whether that’s ten minutes a day or 15 hours a week. Taking ourselves, our dreams, and our desires seriously enough to commit to doing them, to integrating them into the lives we have right now. If we do this on enough days, somehow, magically, we move from working at a craft to relaxing into a practice. And that, friends, is the whole ballgame. 

It’s ok if there’s a trail of abandoned projects behind you. It’s ok if you’re not sure what’s next and it’s totally normal to feel some anxiety about choosing a project.

There is no wrong choice. That’s the big reveal. Because when you pursue a project from a place of heart, sincerity, and love, you are quite literally doing you. You’re connected to what you care about and you’re acting from a place that’s true. 

We all spin out from time to time. It’s part of being a human with a heart and a desire to do something you care about. When you’re dizzy and the room is swirling, that’s a sign that it’s time to make a choice. Choose with heart and you can’t pick wrong because that’s how you do you.

Kristin + Margo

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