How To Keep Showing Up for Your Dreams

The underrated power of inspiration

So you love to write. You have found what it is you are most passionate about and you want to turn it into your life’s vocation.

Excellent!

You deserve to celebrate this discovery. It’s a huge accomplishment.

There are loads of unhappy people walking the planet who have never created the time or space to come to this point. Some only do when it’s too late to do anything about the revelation. Life has taken over and their livelihoods are too entwined with whatever they do for work. A meaningful change is no longer possible.

So if you have found what some call a life purpose which is very much tied to a vocation — in the archaic definition — you are miles ahead of the majority of people in living a life that is genuinely fulfilling.

What to do next is the easy part.

Write. Write. Write.

Hone your craft.

When you are first starting out, write about everything you can possibly think to write about. Write poetry, write fiction, write long sprawling rants, write essays, write thoughtful exposés, write technically-dense and research-heavy material. Simply write.

This is the only way to improve your skills. More importantly, this is how you wade through the forest of possibilities to find your most natural and authentic voice — the importance of which for a writer cannot be downplayed.

Even more importantly, the only way to be a writer is to write. Seems obvious enough but you will be surprised by how difficult it is to follow this. To show up every day and stare down a blank screen and not relent until you have wrestled onto it some of what it means to be alive.

Showing up can become a struggle. It’s a challenge to stay the course when you first find yourself facing a dwindling bank account balance. When your work is rejected time after time. When the accolades and acknowledgement you believe you deserve are not forthcoming.

Expect that your mettle will be constantly tested as a writer. Regardless it’s your job to keep bringing all of yourself back to the table.

It’s not a cakewalk.

How do you keep showing up every day to follow your calling as a writer?

Be Inspired

Engage in things that light your soul on fire. Keep your passion burning and love alive.

— Alex Elle

All the articles I have written in moments of inspiration on medium have been curated within an hour or two on Medium.

I have been writing on this for exactly twenty-nine days — just shy of a month. In that time I have written about thirty-four articles, both in and out of publications. That is an average of an article a day.

In that time, five of my articles have been curated — three have occurred in the last three days, back-to-back.

Here are my five curated articles so far…

Is this all simple by chance? Maybe. But I think not.

I don’t presume to know what Medium’s algorithms are scanning for in candidates for curation. That part of the equation remains a black box to us as writers on the platform.

I can however make some deductions from this side of the aisle. Without a doubt, the common denominator in all my curated articles has been that I wrote from the heart.

I wasn’t overthinking. The subject matter inspired me and the words poured themselves out.

To avoid ambiguity, this is not to say that there aren’t other qualities in writing that can trigger curation on Medium but rather that inspired writing is one of them.

If you write about what inspires you and makes you come alive, it will show through in your writing. In fact, it will be very hard to prevent it from oozing through your sentences.

More importantly, your audience will sense the difference and connect with it.

How To Be Inspired

In ancient Greece, inspiration was embodied in Gods known as Muses.

These Gods were tasked with the duty to inspire creation.

According to mythology, Zeus brought the Muses to life to celebrate the victory of the Olympian gods over the Titans, and to forget the evils of the world.

Inspiration is so important that its source had to be depicted as the embodiment of God-like beings. That says a lot about the need for great artistes of any kind to be inspired if they are to produce their best works.

So how did they do it? How did the muses breathe inspiration into creation?

Like any God past or present the Ancient Greek muses bestowed their gifts on ardent and sincere followers and worshippers.

Worship (noun):

the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

This is an exaggerated metaphor – it’s a long-winded way of saying a simple thing. The more of yourself – your attention, effort and time – that you put into any activity is directly related to what you get out of it.

If you are a writer. Write. Read about writing and other writers. Study writing. Immerse yourself in a universe where you align all your faculties towards your goal to be a writer. The gifts come in the form of an expanding of your talent, knowledge, capacity, commitment.

This is where inspiration lives.

It’s not found in ancient deities or collected in an unknowable change of wind that strikes when you least expect it. These are just romanticised notions of the truth which is that you are what you repeatedly do.

If then you are a writer, write.

I keep repeating this because it’s the clearest form of imparting this lesson.

I’ll end this article with a gift to you, fellow writer and kindred spirit.

It’s a kind of cheat sheet type item I use whenever I need it.

Primo Levi was a Jewish, Italian chemist and Holocaust survivor. He was imprisoned in Auschwitz through much of the second world war. Levi wrote several books after his release when the war ended.

This is a quote from one of his books that never ceases to flood me with a feeling of hope, strength and inspiration.

“…the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head…”

― Primo Levi

Inspiration is as inspiration does. Get out there and make your dreams happen – no one else will.