Write Things: On Following Your Inner Compass

Hello writer,

Where are you headed?
Check in with your inner compass. Where does your True North point? Is it toward writing a specific story? Many stories? Publication? A full-time career as a writer?

What is it that you, in your heart of hearts, want to be doing with your time here?
Let’s talk about the direction we’re headed.

Life is full of distractions—False Norths that distort our inner compasses and send us off course from the life we’d prefer to be living.
Our outer world bombards us with information, opinions, judgments, and stories. It tells us what we should care about, how we should act, think, and perform. If we’re not conscious of what we want—where our True North lies on our inner compass—we can quickly be sent off course, holding what others deem important over what we feel called to do.

Our inner world has a similar obstacle: our Inner Critic. It’s constantly trying to get you to prioritize anything but your True North. It wants you to worry about criticism, pleasing others, doing things “right,” learning more, studying more, getting approval, avoiding failure, and so on. And if we choose to orient ourselves by its voice, we’ll head in the opposite direction from where we truly want to be.

It’s as though there is a natural resistance to our dreams and desires in this life—something that wants to convince us that anything else is more important. As a result, we all get knocked off course.
Sometimes for an afternoon.
Sometimes for a week.
Sometimes for a decade or longer. (I’m in this category.)

Here’s the magic: the sooner you realize you’re putting your time, energy, worries, and concerns into something other than what you truly want, the sooner you can make a new choice.
Maybe you know what your dream looks like. Maybe you “one-day’d” it, buried it, or diminished it. Maybe you repressed it because it felt impossible to achieve, and the pain of that belief was too much to bear.

But what would you prefer—the pain of the mistakes, bumps, and bruises we experience when we follow our dreams, or the pain of living a life other than the one you most want to live?

There’s no right or wrong answer. Nor are you “good” or “bad” for whatever direction you decide to follow in your life—your family’s, faith’s, culture’s, the media’s, your school’s, or your own inner compass.
The choice is yours. I just want you to be the one choosing—not the world around you, not your Inner Critic.

Your Next Four Minutes
Prompt: “What I would prefer”
Use this prompt to meet a new character, learn more about one you’re working with, or learn more about yourself.
Let the pen move. No editing. No expectations.
Just listen and write.
Because that’s what writers do.

Until next time, I wish you and your stories all the best,
Trevor Martens
Founder, I Help You Write Things

P.S.
If you missed the first episode of the Write Things Podcast or wanted to share it, you can use this link here: https://www.ihelpyouwritethings.com/podcasts/write-things-podcast
Or
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6vADrMqDJLZj2zKRiXHhq1
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/write-things-podcast/id1831303190
Amazon/Audible: https://a.co/d/igHP959