How to Follow Your Heart in Five (Not So) Easy Lessons
We all have big dreams we want to accomplish. We often think of them at the beginning of the year and make resolutions to follow through, and often we forget about them by April. Here are some tips on how to accomplish your heart’s desires.
- Live with your excuses. Some people will tell you the key to following your heart is to eliminate your excuses, but that’s not true. Your excuses will always be there. Say you want to go rock climbing, but you have laundry to do. Your laundry becomes a big excuse to toss aside what you really desire, to put it off for another day. Don’t allow yourself to do that. Ditch the laundry and climb the rock. Your ability to climb Gibraltar is very limited. Laundry is forever.
2. Challenge Your Routine. Most of us have a routine. We get up in the morning, go to the bathroom, take a shower, eat breakfast, head to work. When we get to work, we have a whole new set of routines. Check e-mail, return phone calls, go to meetings, etc. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in our routines, we do not realize that we are set on auto-pilot. Ask yourself, are you truly engaging with your day? Do you really want bran flakes for breakfast for the 322nd time in a row? What is it you really want for breakfast? If it is waffles, eat waffles! I used to read and negotiate contracts for a living. At some point, I realized I was having the exact arguments over and over again. I decided that I needed more in my day and became part of the community involvement committee at work. I cannot tell you how much that committee brightened my work day. If you’re caught in a routine, do something you like to break it up. Perhaps take a walk, or go to a different department and ask if there’s someone who needs help with something, or bring a craft project to do during your break. You can come up with a small goal, and do it a little at a time during breaks in your day.
3. Prioritize your heart’s desire. I love school and for years I wanted to return, but I often found things that were more important than going to school. I had kids that needed my full-time attention. I had a job. I have lupus. I thought it would put a strain on my marriage. Then one day, I decided that going back to school was really important to me, and I made it happen. First, I started with community college at night. Then I did online courses. I then transferred to a four-year college at night. After that I decided to go full-time. Then the next thing I knew, I had a master’s degree. None of it would have happened if I hadn’t decided to prioritize what I wanted.
4. Decide that fear is nothing to be afraid of. I have been to around 20 countries, but the truth is I am afraid every time I walk out of my front door. I have a fear of people and a fear of leaving home, but at the same time, I want to see the world. I spent a lot of years hoping that the fear would go away, and then finally I decided the fear was just going to be a part of me, and I’m just going to have to live with it. There are many days before I leave my house that I feel like Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Sometimes, I stomp around mumbling to myself, but eventually I end up leaving my house and having a good time.
5. Find a support system. When you follow your heart, you will find that there will be quite a few people questioning your decisions. You need to find those special people who won’t. If you want to be a skydiver, go to skydiving school and make friends with your classmates. If you want to write a great American novel, find a writers’ group. For every subject in the world, there is a giant internet out there with people ready to support you. All you have to do is find them.
Following your heart isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it gets easier the more you do it. Quite honestly, I often find it challenging. I try to do what needs to be done instead of what I want to do. The desires of the heart are always works in progress.
Good luck with following your heart! I would love to hear how it goes.
Katerina Canyon is a writer currently living in Seattle, Washington. She served as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, California from 2000 to 2003. She has a MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a BA in English, Creative Writing, and International Studies from Saint Louis University. She has been published in the New York Times and Huffington Post. Her most recent poetry was published in From Whispers to Roars. Her latest collection Changing the Lines is currently available on Amazon. You can learn more about Katerina at PoeticKat.com.
