Follow Your Bliss

For most of my life, I dreamed of being a teacher.

But I didn't realize that dream until now. 

In high school, I taught Sunday school (a little known fact about me). I'm not a particularly religious person; I did it because I loved to teach.

I also volunteered as a writing tutor during my junior and senior years at Punahou, my high school, serving as a "Helpful Advanced Writing Kid," or HAWK.

At Stanford, I enjoyed working as a Teacher's Assistant, or TA, in psychology courses for two years. As I prepared to graduate, I applied and was accepted to several Ph.D. programs, imagining that I'd become a professor.

But I pulled the plug at the last minute, deciding instead to venture into the business world with a job as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Then I became an author, journalist, and life coach.

It took 30 years for me to finally manifest that vision I had as a young woman.

Designing and teaching Your Bestselling Book is a dream come true.

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: Follow Your Bliss

Take 30 minutes or so to quietly reflect on a dream deferred. Now write.

1. What was the dream?
2. What made you put it off?
3. Envision yourself achieving the dream – whether it be teaching a class, learning to garden and do woodwork, or writing a book. What does it feel like in your body? Describe the physical sensations.
4. Reflect on this: Might now be the time to pursue it? If your initial answer is no, push yourself to reconsider. When else will it happen?
5. Consider the solid steps you might take to being to take action – even if these are only small steps at first.
6. Share your dream with a trusted friend or family member.

Aloha,

MeiMei

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one that you are living."

– Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth