Do you know what your “one thing” is?

The thing that makes you feel most alive when you’re doing it?

I came into 2019 feeling tired and a little lifeless. It felt harder to dream or come up with new ideas. Quite honestly, I felt exhausted by the pressure to prove. I felt like everyone was making progress and I was just trying desperately (but not so graciously) to keep up.

Here’s what I’ve learned: you cannot run your best race if you are always looking at how others are doing and comparing yourself. If you’re always entertaining the fear of missing out then that is exactly what will start to happen… you will miss out what is directly in front of you. You cannot do things for the sake of pleasing everyone around you. You’ll exhaust yourself trying. It might be time to take a step back, focus inward and make some much-needed adjustments.

That’s what I did. I had to let go of all the lanes I wanted to run in, afraid I would miss the next opportunity, and I had to choose one lane. Just one. And then follow it down to wherever it would lead me.

I think it is really easy in 2019 to doubt what you’re meant to be doing. There are so many paths and so many options. I was tired of trying to take hold of every option just to keep up and I decided to scale back and go down one, singular path.

…

I made a decision in January to focus in and change some things to make room for the ONE thing that mattered most to me in my career. The one thing, for me, is writing. It’s what I love the most. It’s what makes me feel closest to God. It’s what fuels me as a creative person. It’s the craft I want to commit my whole life to.

I’m seeing the fruit of this decision as I hit a milestone of 100,000 words written in 2019. I’ve never felt so free and centered in my career as when I made this decision to push all the “race to keep up” options off the table and just get better in one area I actually cared about.

The fruit didn’t show up instantly. Just because I did it once or twice didn’t mean the discipline was rooted deep in me. I had to keep showing up.

Showing up when I wasn’t feeling it.

Showing up when I wasn’t inspired.

Showing up when I would rather be running errands or do something less taxing on the brain.

Showing up when I would rather be scrolling.

Showing up when I was certain it was making no difference.

…

The only way to improve in a specific area is to train and train hard. To practice. To put in the best hours. I am very aware that this is my career so I do have hours in the day to dedicate to the practice that others with different kinds of jobs might not get to. But I will say this: no matter where you are or what kind of job you are in, we all have the great capacity to say we just don’t have the time. That’s our excuse. I won’t discount the busyness or the multiple things we are juggling on a daily basis but I know I have spaces in my day that could help me evolve and grow forward but I am resistant to make the space.

At some point, we must be willing to clear out the excuses and get dedicated. Even if we only have 15 minutes or an hour a week— we must grab onto it and use it wisely.

…

You have 15 minutes. We all have 15 minutes.

What do you want to do with it?

You might be quick to say that “15 minutes” cannot make a difference but what if you did something you loved, something you wanted to explore, for 15 minutes each day? That would be more than an hour each week. That would add up to something. That would count and you’d see fruit from it.

The only sure way to figure out what path you want to go down is to start trekking. To start moving towards that first mile.

I always want to hear from you::

What’s one thing you could spend 15 minutes doing each day that would ABSOLUTELY make you feel more alive?