Should VS Desire

You wake up. It’s hump day. You have a dilemma on your hands. 

Will you do what you ‘should’ to finish the week strong? Or will you do what brings you bliss? 

Whether you’re a writer, a healer, a CEO or a mother, this is the choice you face every day. What do you choose?

To write the stories that tug at your soul… or to write that client copy that brings in the cash?

To create that world-changing project that you KNOW will be amazing… or to meet your promise to finish the last project that just isn’t able to deliver what you imagined?

To give all of your energy to others and collapse into bed each night without nurturing you… or to find some space for deeply nourishing self-care?

To take care of the screeching cute puppy… or to clean up the poop that puppy has scattered to the extremities of your house, in a pint-sized, power-crazed takeover bid that seems disproportionately shitty?

These are important questions. And most people would assert they all come back to this: Where is the *balance* between what you should do… and what you can do? Most people... except me. Let’s go wild and deep.

If you’ve read either of my first two books you’ll know I detest the idea of balance with more passion than Stormy pounding Trump. 

Balance is the miserable compromise between freedom and suffocating structures. It’s the unhinged obsession that you have to follow the prescriptions and eat your medicine before you can have your bliss. Yes, dear readers, balance is the unabated refusal to have your cake and eat it too! 

What’s the opposite of balance? The dictionary gave me 217 antonyms. Here are a few of my favourites: allow, disequilibrium, anticipate, arrange, change-ability, awake, take the plunge, lightness, relieve, reflect, liberate, distinguish, imagine… can you see why balance “shouldn’t" be on your aspirations list?

Here’s what balance can’t do:

Fix structural problems (hello healthcare industry!)

Remove the guilt that ‘should’ always creates (thank you boring judgey people).

Make you happy (who said you have to *deserve* happiness?)

Make everyone happy. (You know who always loses out right? Not ’the others’!!)

Create harmony between conflicting priorities (there’s no win-win in conflict).

Here’s what your choice CAN do:

ALLOW you to find an unexpected way through.

LIBERATE your capacity to finish your most important project in creative ways.

ANTICIPATE conflicts and diminish their impact.

AWAKEN your innate sense of your true priorities.

IMAGINE how the magic of disequilibrium can create new possibilities.

You have a big dream. Something you’re going to create ‘one day’. What if hump day wasn’t a screaming hot mess of contradictions, conclusions and concessions? What if it could be the candle that lights the way towards the best week-end you’ve yet experienced? What if your big dreams and desires can be the choice-points that stop disaster, panic and overwhelm in their well-worn tracks?

Everything you desire comes from the supportive scaffold of CHOICE… What is most valuable to you? Freedom, writing, creative space, time to eat lunch, getting more done than you imagine, going to the beach instead of eating lunch? Whatever it is, it is possible when you make the choice to put that first. 

How do you start? Ready. Set. Choose!

Turn your energy towards your dreams and desires... it will change *everything*

Loving your big dreamy visions!
xo
Lisa

P.S. Are you wondering how my day played out? I wrote this blog post sitting in the sun, with a very clean damp puppy using my body heat to get dry, knowing that the client writing would be so much easier if I wasn’t distracted by my desire to write to you. Then I cleaned up the puppy mess, nourished my body with a visit to the osteopath, scheduled in the client writing after that session and made space for healing work with a client seeking an emergency reset. #choicecreates

If it’s writing you’re not doing, join my weekly co-writing retreat here. 

If it’s your ideas or business stuff you’re compromising, book a session with me here and we’ll discover a different way forward. 

Oh yeah, and you can find my books here ::  Stop Waiting, Start Creating  |  Living Beyond Burnout

Saying good-bye to ’should’ and hello to the bliss of fulfilling your desires is this simple! Tell me what you're choosing to change in the comments below.