I got Write It Down, Make It Happen from the library after seeing it linked in Penelope Trunk’s totally on-fire blog. Author Henriette Anne Klauser references a ritual that simplicity maven Elaine St. James uses to define what she does and doesn’t want in her life. It involves arrows (actually, in St. James’ case, pencils) and going outside the house — so clearly I needed to modify it to work for me, web working homebody that I am.
I don’t have any extra pencils but I do own a wardrobe of sticky notes, so I started from those. I wrote three things I want OUT of my life on three sticky notes in the ugliest color I own (chartreuse) and three things I want IN my life on three violet sticky notes. I stuck the three violet sticky notes on my monitor bezel. Then I burned the three chartreuse sticky notes.
Interestingly, before I was willing to burn one of the three greenish sticky notes, I had to first rewrite what I had written on it, because I wasn’t willing to burn up what I had written on it. I read it and thought, “well, I don’t want that entirely out of my life.” I had to better define what part of that I wanted out of my life.
On another sticky note I had written something that’s currently a fairly large part of my life onto a sticky note and I had no hesitation whatsoever in burning it. I burned that one with pure giddiness. Does that mean anything? I don’t know. I hesitate to put too much onto a goofy ritual I just made up. At the same time, I’m desperate for guidance and direction, no matter where it comes from.
I’d be curious to hear what happens if you try the burn-sticky-burn ritual. Is it easy to think of three things you want out of your life? Easy to burn those sticky notes once you’ve written on them?
And what three things are so important to you that you’d put them on your monitor where you can see them every day? So important that they rank above all the other things you’d like in your life?
