Become the Hero of Your Own Story

Have you ever been stuck? Metaphorically speaking. Maybe literally too.

Like right now. Pretend it’s Sunday night. How do you feel? Have you spent all day dreading tomorrow, so anxious about the coming week that you wish it was Friday already?

A quick Google search reveals that anywhere from 1 in 7 to 80% of people experience the so called “Sunday Scaries.” If you ask your friends, family, or co-workers, I bet at least half know what you’re taking about. Maybe 75%. The pandemic’s made it worse, but I think a lot of folks dreaded Mondays even in 2019.

I know I’ve felt that way most of my life.

But for the past seven months I can honestly say I haven’t.

Beating the Sunday Scaries

Seven months ago I quit my job to follow my lifelong dream of becoming a published novelist.

I had no literary agent. No publishing contract. Just a draft of a novel I’ve been haphazardly working on for 17 years and a determination not to waste the next 17 working myself to the bone instead of doing what I love.

So many people have told me how brave I am for taking this leap. I’ve never considered myself a courageous person. I am not a risk taker. I have the DISC profile to prove it. My steadiness score is so off the charts it embarrasses me. Change and uncertainty make me super uncomfortable. But I could no longer stand the fear that I would never do what I was meant to do. I didn’t want to waste my life wishing it away. Not when life is so fragile. Any day I could get in an accident. Or, you know, be struck down by a global pandemic.

For the past seven months I’ve been rewriting my novel. Adding new scenes. Cutting others. Diving deep into my character’s needs, wounds, motivations. Amping up the tension. Fine tuning relationships.

Making sure my main character is the one driving the plot forward.

I’ve been doing the same thing with my own life. Establishing routines and habits to help me succeed. Meeting new people. Deleting what is toxic.

Taking control of my life, instead of letting life control me.

Are You Bored by Your Own Story?

I’m convinced I’m not the only one who can do this.  Every day I get to wake up and live my best life. I hope by telling my story you’ll be inspired to live yours too.

I’m not saying everyone needs to quit their job. (Though if you’ve already thought, “Oh, I wish I could quit my job, but I can’t because…” then you probably should find a way to quit your job. Life’s too short to be miserable.)

Your unfulfillment may have nothing to do with your career at all. Maybe you need to make changes in your habits, how you spend your time or money, who you hang out with. Maybe you’re desperate for a purpose, and you just don’t know what it is. If you’re like me, maybe it’s just easier to work really hard at whatever’s in front of you so you don’t have time to think about what comes next. You drift through life, too busy or distracted to worry how it’s going, but if you did ever stop you’re pretty sure your answer would be “not great.”

Just like the hero in a novel, we can’t control a lot of the circumstances that are thrown our way. But we can always control how we react to them.

Unlike most heroes, far too often we do nothing.

Think about it. When was the last time you read a book where the main character wanted something, but instead of going after it they stayed exactly where they were, doing exactly what they were doing since page 1? Then when nothing changed they went out with their buddies to drink and vent and then watched Netflix all weekend while eating a pint of ice cream and repeated that cycle again and again for three hundred pages.

No one wants to read that story. We shouldn’t accept living it either.

All the best characters grow and change and here’s the thing—we can too. It’s difficult, but it’s possible.

Just like rewriting a novel. It’s hard, guys. Sometimes it’s tedious. It takes so long.

But it’s worth it. There’s something magical about taking something that you thought was good but was actually mediocre and pouring so much time and love and creativity into it until it absolutely sparkles.

Lessons From the Dawn of the Internet

Eighteen years ago, I quoted Mark Twain in my graduation speech. I had two evenings to write a salutatorian address, and I spent the first one at the movies with friends watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Distracted by the most amusingly pathetic werewolf I’ve still ever seen, I had about 18 hours to come up with something inspiring to tell my peers.

In a move quite ahead of my time, I logged onto AOL, the awful crackling bleeps of the modem grating on my raw nerves. (To properly understand my mindset, take a minute to experience the auditory assault we once found the pinnacle of technology.) I then typed “Inspirational Quotes” into my favorite search engine—Dogpile. Because it was 2004 and google was not yet a verb. Anyone born after 1990 probably has no idea what I’m talking about. The internet used to be hard.

Thankfully, it still had the answers. I read a lot of quotes, which I probably printed out like that guy on the Progressive commercial. But one in particular struck hard, and it’s stuck with me ever since.

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I gave a pretty fine speech, according to my raving family—guess I’m good with words or something—but all I remember is that quote. Sometime after I started my first job, I looked it up on Etsy and ordered a print to set on my desk. I read it every day for twelve years before I was brave enough to follow my own advice. It’s never too late to make a change.

Maybe We Should Have Listened at Graduation

Seventeen years later I was living in that disappointment, terrified of never achieving my potential, of drowning in the mediocrity of the safe harbor. Also inexplicably in love with the ocean for a gal who grew up on a farm a hundred miles from the coast. Thanks Mr. Twain.

Then something in me just snapped. The bowlines, I guess. I left the harbor without looking back, and now all I can see are the signs that have been pointing me in this direction for years. I’ve been angsting over quotes and song lyrics and poems for two decades that all say pretty much the same thing—if you want something you have to go and get it.

This blog is the story of how I did just that. I’m not a psychologist, and I’m not a bestselling author (yet), but I’ve learned some things about agency and courage and revision. If Mark Twain’s quote stirs anything inside of you, if you’re tired of being afraid of Mondays, I hope my journey inspires you to make the changes that will give you the life you want. That turns you into the hero of a story that’s worth reading.

I’m mixing metaphors here—don’t tell my future agent. But will you sail away from the safe harbor with me?

It’s time to rewrite your life.