Creating new stuff is fun. It doesn’t matter whether it is a homemade cake, an article or a performance in the local theatre: allowing your creativity to come out is one of the most healthy, nourishing and fulfilling things you can do for yourself.

In April 2018, when I sat down to do my daily writing, I got the inspiration to write a book. Here’s what I received (text has been copied from my journal):

It’s time to write on my book. It is what wants to get through me right now. Through my fingers, through my heart, through my typing. I’ll just keep going.

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Over the last couple of years, I’ve had many conversations that went along these lines: ‘I do have a job that I kind of like and that pays the bills. But it doesn’t make my heart sing. I want to LOVE what I do. I want to make a contribution and know that I do. Where do I start?’

I now have an easy answer to this question, as I have condensed everything I have discovered about doing your life’s work into a comprehensible book. The Dutch title is: Als een luchtballon op een reuzenrad botst. Gids voor een betekenisvol leven. (in English: When Air Balloons Hit Ferris Wheels. Guide To A Meaningful Life).

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It can be quite a challenge to initiate a new project, especially when that project is part of your life’s work. Starting Transition Headquarters – definitely part of my life’s work – hasn’t been any different. Before we know it, everything in us says the very thing we want to create is the most stupid idea we’ve ever come up with. As a result, we don’t start at all.

Here are some tips that will make it easier for you to begin doing your life’s work.

In what way can it be easy?
The first step doesn’t need to be fancy or grandiose. The first meeting of Transition Headquarters took place in my living room. My husband cooked lunch.

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I can’t believe I just congratulated the woman next to me with her pregnancy. She’s not pregnant at all! She’s just wearing a dress that shows her curves and her belly.

There it was: the epic ‘Wonderful, you’re pregnant!’ ‘No, not that I’m aware of’- mistake. Weren’t only men supposed to make such faux pas?

Instantaneously, shame hijacked my entire system. Red face, sweaty palms, a weird frog in my throat. I stammering offered her my apologies. The woman, mother of three teenagers, accepted them graciously.

Shame is a fear state. Whenever it takes over our systems, we automatically lose touch with our hearts. We are no longer in connection with our bodies and thus with ourselves. We lose our presence.

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Transform what doesn’t serve you anymore. It’s the title of chapter eight of the book that I’m currently working on with illustrator MietzeB (see the image above). Chapter eight has been something. I wrote a first draft that wasn’t merely more than an idea.

After I decided to start all over again, rough draft number two saw the light. For sure, it was much more comprehensive than the previous one. But this second version got me into real trouble. No flow, no inspiration. Only fearful thoughts surfacing: ‘What will people think of me when they read that? I don’t want to be held as a victim.’ And this one: ‘I don’t want to hurt people in my direct surroundings who I love.’ The superfluous worry literally stopped me in my tracks.

I tried to deal with it by following my ‘favourite’ strategy: ‘Alright, here we go. Seven chapters down already, only three more to be done. Foot fully on the gas and go! Let’s get this thing over with.’

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I am a maker. Just like you, the neighbour, my mum and dad and everybody else. Creating is what we do. It’s human nature. The only thing is that we don’t always give ourselves permission to go ahead and make something.

Thoughts like: ‘This isn’t very useful, playing the piano in the afternoon. Am I not supposed to be working at this hour of the day?’ Or: ‘Creating? Is it safe or smart to be just creating, making a couple of sketches and drawings? Shouldn’t I be working my ass off instead, making a good living so that I can move into that huge villa close to the seaside where I’ve envisioned myself and my family living?’

Thank God I’ve learned to navigate these waves of doubt by consciously choosing joy over fearful thoughts occupying my mind. Permission granted. Let’s rock the piano.

But here’s the thing: giving myself permission to be creative within the safe walls of my home is one thing. Stepping into the world and sharing my first self-created attempts with others, is something else.

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What wants to be created through me right now? When I asked myself that very question this morning, I could sense how much I wanted to write. I was ready to write an article for you, for myself and for anyone who likes to read what I have to say.

Most and for all, because I wanted to. That’s way more than enough reason to start writing right away. No one else I’m looking at to get permission from.

So here I am, sitting at my desk. Jeroen’s computer handy as mine decided to crash earlier this week. Thank God for Jeroen, who is technically savvy and has decided to take care of getting everything on a separate hard disc and to start to collaborate with the people from Cool Blue to take care of the rest.

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‘Celebrate? What do you mean by celebrate? I can’t think of a single thing that I would want to celebrate today.’ And quietly she added to herself: ‘You go celebrate yourself.’

The question ‘What can we celebrate today?’ makes some of my clients highly uncomfortable. They don’t feel like celebrating anything, as this is not what their attention is focused on.

Like most of us, they are used to see the bad sides to stuff: the things that they haven’t accomplished, the phone calls that have not been made, the copy that wasn’t written, project x that has not been finished. It is easier to think of what is not here, than of what is here.

But this habit is disastrous to our results.

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‘As if nothing has changed over the last twenty years! I have grown older but am I not supposed to also be wiser by now?’ I was having a phone conversation with Elsa, a smart woman who had recently picked up some of her old journals from when she was in her early thirties. Only to find out that the issues that bothered her then, were the very same things that she is facing now she’s in her fifties.

I felt how painful this discovery was for her. And I sympathized with her. But I wasn’t surprised.

One thing I know for sure: it’s not about the job we’re in or the lover we are involved with. It is us that is the red thread in all of our stories. If we choose not to heal the parts in us that require our attention –yes this is a deliberate choice- we’ll run into painful situations over and over again.

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“Hi, I’m Carolien and I used to be a perfectionist. I haven’t given into perfectionist behavior over the last month.” If there was a group Perfectionists Anonymous, this is how I would have introduced myself.

As research professor Brene Brown has pointed out distinctly in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, perfectionism is an addiction. It’s a drug that people use in order not to have to feel shame or rejection. As a recovering perfectionist, I can totally relate.

I’m giving you the inside scope here. Of course, there are parts in me that would rather not to: “Are you insane? What will people think?!?.” But I also know that these parts aren’t my best advisors.

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