when you have every reason not to, that's exactly why you should.
<the first substack>
It’s Saturday afternoon here in New Zealand, but my body still thinks its 5:30am.
My hands are still tinged with the fading outlines of henna, from the Indian wedding that we just returned from two days ago.
I’m jet-lagged, it’s the end of the year, and my brain is making up all sorts of reasons as to why today shouldn’t be the day that I publish my first Substack - an intention that has been written in my journal for months and months, yet I’ve always found excuses to not actually execute.
And you see, this is the problem.
“Execute.”
Writing has become a ‘to do’ - something to plan and execute, instead of a joyful expression of what perspective I want to share with the world.
As a child, I wanted to be a writer. That’s over 30 years that I’ve had this dream. The longest dream I have ever had.
I used to visit the town library on Friday nights and pick out a stack of ‘novels’ - The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High, Jaqueline Wilson, Roald Dahl. I would sit in an armchair in our sunroom all weekend, with the ‘to read’ pile on the floor to my left quickly diminishing, while the ‘read’ pile mounted up to my right. Exploring new worlds created by strangers was my favourite thing to do.
When I was 8 years old, I wrote a fiction story and entered it in a competition - a competition part of the 150 year celebration of the town I was born and grew up in (Dunedin, New Zealand). I won that competition, and my story is buried in a time capsule, waiting to be unearthed at the 300 year celebrations. Being a writer, was my dream.
(Also - side note: As that precocious 8 year old, I wrote and typed up a letter to Colgate, suggesting an improvement to their toothpaste tubes. In hindsight, my pathway to entrepreneurship was always in the stars; my ambition was seemingly hard wired.)
But, because I put authors on pedestals (a pipe-dream), and grew to dread high school English class, where we were asked to deconstruct our favourite texts and analyse them to boredom,
I never pursued that dream of being an author.
It’s only now, as an adult, that I have somehow ended up becoming a different sort of writer. Not a novel and fiction type author, but a writer of non-fiction - stories and posts that weave together my love for psychology (my professional training), travel, and the art of living a life in pursuit of fulfillment.
Until now, my writing has been in emails, in Instagram captions, and if I’m honest - too much of this writing has been formulated with the goal of growing my business. It’s become a task to ‘execute’ riddled with persuasion and marketing, rather than passion and magic.
But now, as I’m entering a new era of my career, where I’m about to start a PhD, and forge a new body of research and work, I want to find a new way of expressing my thoughts, observations and experiences as a therapist turned semi-nomadic coach, turning Psychology PhD candidate.
The truth is…
That little girl’s ambition hasn’t died. It’s stayed very much alive.
And because it has always meant so much to me, it brings up so many fears, doubts and worries.
In my 15 years as both a therapist and a coach, I have come to realise this:
What matters to us most, is often what we find the most excuses to avoid doing.
Because, what if we fail?
What if we give this dream a true shot, and we fall short?
What if this dream is better left a dream, which lives inside our heads until one day, it becomes a regret?
The irony is, for the most part, I live my life head on, taking charge and agency over big choices, often going against the grain. Leaving my job, starting a business, crafting a ‘semi-nomadic’ lifestyle… all of these dreams have come to life.
But this one dream, living the identity of “Author,” is one I haven’t yet fully given myself permission to play in.
Yet.
And so now, I find myself at an impasse.
Either I take my place as a writer, and find my voice, my identity as an author, or… I don’t.
The latter is not an option.
The former is the only pathway forward.
So, Carly, if this is really that important to you -
When will you finally give yourself permission to become an author?
To try it on, to find your way, to shape your voice?
There’s always tomorrow, but that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Tomorrow turns into next week, which becomes next year.
The fears we have about living as our truest selves, baring our innermost dreams to the world and taking a stand to live a life with no stones left unturned -
These fears don’t ever leave.
And so we must instead, find our reason for pushing past this fear, and doing it regardless.
So then the question remains -
What good reason do I have, for pushing past this fear?
For me, it’s two fold.
The first reason is everything I have already shared. Writing has always been where I find myself my most creative, my most transformed. It’s through writing that I process my ideas, come to new perspectives, and end up sharing experiences in ways that allow my readers to learn, vicariously.
That segues to my second reason.
I want to form a body of work that truly shapes the minds of those who care to read it.
I want to take complex psychological concepts and research, and share stories to help you translate it to your life.
I want to give you permission to dream your biggest dream, and for you to give yourself permission to actually live it.
And most of all, my reason is this:
I want this Substack, and everything that I do from here on out, to be totally and completely dedicated to you living the most fulfilled life possible.
I know that sounds trite.
But after years of personally pursuing, and watching others pursue money, virality and fame, egoic pedestals, and check-box versions of ‘success,’ often burning out in the process,
There is nothing I’m more passionate about than showing you what it really takes to create a life well lived.
Of all the paths that I have chosen, they have all led me here - to use our understanding of human behaviour and psychology to the advantage of living deeply, living well.
Because it’s in the act of living well that we find and live in ways that benefits the world.
Living well requires us to stop fighting ourselves and start accepting and celebrating our own nature.
Living well requires us to discover our truest values (not the ones we were taught), and live these, voraciously.
Living well means leading ourselves well - becoming the most grounded, self aware versions of ourselves.
Living well means undoing generations of collective conditioning about how life should be lived - saying a final goodbye to hustle culture, figuring out how to live in a capitalist world and patriarchal society, and crafting lives and identities that don’t revolve purely around ‘what you do for a living.’
I hope you’ll join me in this path.
I hope it will be a long one, a life-changing one - for you, for me, for us.
I can promise you’ll read stories about travel and transformation, you’ll see pictures of my dog Georgie and our life in New Zealand, and you’ll get a front row seat to my journey to earning a psychology PhD.
If you’d like to join me, please go ahead and subscribe. Knowing that there’s someone out there reading and growing from consuming these words, means everything to me.
All my love,
Carly xx