#112: The secret to making all your dreams come true in 2025.

Dumb luck, putting yourself out there, and setting your sights on what really matters.

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“What the hell am I doing here?”

It was a frosty day in February 2024 when I posed this question to my editor Leona.

By ‘here’ I didn’t mean ‘in the treehouse’ or ‘on planet earth’.

I meant with my work. With The Luminist. Where was it going? What was the point?

Just to be clear, I was (and am) in no danger of stopping. Weekly — actually pretty much daily — writing has become a part of me. Because writing has revealed me. Like some archeological dig in a French cave or the Fertile Crescent, writing TL is like wielding a soft-fibered brush to sweep away layers of dust and dim thinking to discover the truth of what’s underneath. The truth of me. What I’ve learned, what my values are, the ever-accumulating wisdom of my transformational experience with loss.

I’d do it even if no one read my words.

But when I asked Leona this question, it had been one month since my ‘real’ job ended. Since 30+ years in corporate America came to a halt.

I’d kicked all my coping mechanisms into high gear. I’d begun meeting new people, building new community, looking forward to my upcoming pilgrimage. I felt exposed without my corporate-job weighted blanket, but I also felt free.

However, here is what I was not free from:

My WHAT’S NEXT mentality.

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“What’s next” — the when, where, how strategy of a linear life — has been my modus operandi since I became a sentient striver.

I’d pin that time to early high school, when the questions (in retrospect) felt smaller. When am I going to meet a nice guy? How am I going to set the Blackhawk High School record in the 500 freestyle? Where am I going to go to college?

Over the decades, the ‘what’s next’ questions gained size and impact. And the drive to find answers consumed my brain.

Is this the handsome prince that I marry?

Is this when we start a family?

Is this the new job that’s going to make my career?

Me, strategizing my entire life from start to finish.

Asking, then answering, then executing was both exhilarating and satisfying. I became addicted to the forward momentum, that crackling of electrons that comes with progress and clarity.

It also made it easier to ignore questions I wasn’t ready to answer, like what it all meant…

And if my actions were really aligned with who I was.

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We are always pondering, asking, fretting about what’s next.

I’m not knocking strategizing or taking action. I’m still deeply wedded to the idea that a body in motion stays in motion. It’s way easier to outrun my scarcity mentality that way.

But after (rhetorically) asking Leona where I was headed, strange things unfolded for me this year. Things that had bupkiss to do with what I would’ve imagined was ‘next’. I didn’t make a single plan, instead I just followed my intuition. An idea would arise in my mind… and I would either do it or not. No calculating, just imagining if doing the thing made me feel alive.

So, when I found myself in March at a workshop with the Do Lectures founder, David Hieatt, I thought, “why the hell not?” and pitched my idea for a talk. And when I was getting off the Do stage in July, I was approached by a publisher. Did I want to write a book? Admittedly this answer was easy. So I signed a book deal in October.

NONE, and I repeat NONE, of those things were on my “2024 Master Plan to Do All The Things” List.

This experience felt like a giant hand yanking me up by my bomber jacket collar — “This way, silly!” And so I came to realize ‘what’s next?’ is not the right question for me anymore.

And ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ isn’t either.

In fact, I don’t think ‘what, where, or how’ are part of my strategic thinking much at all these days.

Instead, my visioning revolves around ‘why’. Because ‘why’ brings us back to what really matters.

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I’ve checked off many of the boxes of a “successful” life.

Married the prince, raised the kids, built the career, then the dream house, traveled the world, etc. Sure, there was that hiccup where my husband died way too soon, but me and the kids made it out of that stronger, fiercer, more in love with life.

Don’t we look so fierce??

The point is, I tried the goal way. It got me a posh office, a bajillion frequent flier miles, and a damn nice house… but it didn’t make me feel alive. Like my life was full and electric, bouncing me out of bed in the morning.

No, I only found that when I stopped trying to think my way to what’s next, and started feeling my way instead. When I replaced goals with values, priorities, and purpose. (Sure, it helps that I first did many of the things I set out to do. But I also experienced a grief so world-shattering, I realized most of those goals were societally-conditioned. They worked for a time… ‘til they didn’t.)

I’m no longer living to check the boxes, to get the right answers, or to impress anyone else. I’m living to get the most out of life, to love the people I love well, and to help others’ struggling with loss and transition.

So, why would I arrange my life so I can see my kids in college every month? Why would I walk 500km across Scandinavia? Why would I deny an invitation to a party I don’t actually want to go to, but feel like I should to save face? Why would I pitch myself as a speaker for a boutique idea’s festival in Wales of all places?

Because, damn, that sounds like a rich, memorable, unapologetic life I can be proud of.

Who knows what 2025 will bring. I’m not too worried about it. I’ve got my trusty compass, and am pumped to meet more opportunities with “why the hell not??”

How about you?

Happy New Year!

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