Things don’t have to change the world to be important

Monday Musings

Here’s your mantra for the week! This week’s card is from my The Sovereign Success Oracle deck. You can get it here or here. (And it’s on sale until 30 June, just so you know…)

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I’ve always wanted to change the world, to turn it into a better place. I was always telling my friends and classmates to pick up their trash, explaining in detail how long it would take for their particular piece of trash to be broken down if they didn’t pick it up.

I also went to speak with our local supermarkets about adding paper bags to their produce section to reduce the use of plastic – to no avail – and semi-forced my best friends and some neighbourhood kids to start a club that would help save the planet.

At the time, I was already more than aware that most kids my age – I was most active when I was about ten years old – didn’t care the way I did. In fact, my conscientiousness pushed most of them away.  

I learned then and there that changing the world wasn’t as easy as I thought it to be. And not just when it comes to the environment. Most people, unless they’re truly suffering, will stick with what they know, whether what they know exploits our planet, women, indigenous peoples, the working-class, the Global South, and so on.

That didn’t stop me from wanting to change the world though. There’s a reason I switched from studying English literature to feminist and post-colonial theory during my BA, and that I did a two-year MA in the latter. It’s also why I have half a PhD. in feminist philosophy.

It’s also why I only have half a PhD. At one point, I realised that academia had changed so much since I started my BA, I no longer saw it as the place to make lasting change from.

When I started creating journals and writing non-fiction books for writers and other creatives, I brought that desire to change the world with me. With everything I published, I was hoping to start that wave of change I’d been craving since I was old enough to realise something is intrinsically wrong with how the world is organised.

At the time, I wasn’t quite aware of why I shifted my focus to those in the creative sphere – those were simply the people I was working with in my coaching practice at the time – but now I know that one of my most deep-seated beliefs is that the world will automatically become a better place if everyone were to bring into the world what they came here to create, whether that be a painting, a novel, a computer system, etc.

Because that’s another belief of mine: we all came here to bring something good into the world. It’s just that too many of us continue to be ruled by our ego selves, and it’s really hard to bring something good into the world – and to use things only for good – when you operate from a place of fear, especially if that place of fear is all you know.

One of the fears I had for the longest time was that my work wouldn’t reach enough people to create that lasting change I was looking for, that shift in mindset that would have everyone focus on their purpose, on that one thing, or oeuvre, their soul wanted them to bring forth.

This fear, obviously, sprung from the belief that I wouldn’t be enough, that I didn’t have what it takes to transform our world into something better. And to quell that fear, to shut that internal voice up, I was looking outwardly, waiting impatiently for the proof that my books had indeed started that revolution.

I can’t remember around which book it was, but at one point it hit me just how very little control I had over who bought my books. What is more, I had no control over them doing the work I asked of them in each of these books, and no control over them doing it in the exact way I had laid out for them.

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The only thing I did have control over was creating what I felt called to create. After that, all I could do was trust that it would end up in the hands of the right people, and that the way they would work with it was exactly how they needed to work with it to fulfil their personal purpose.

Letting this go, which included a lot of surrendering, was hard. I’ve always wanted to change the world, and now I had to shift to trusting that, if I kept doing the work I was called to do, it would create the exact amount of change I needed to set in motion in this lifetime.

To surrender to this, one of the things I had to adjust was my definition of success. For the longest time, my definition had been linked to transforming the world, something that isn’t exactly quantifiable. Even shifting it from ‘I’ll have achieved success when I’ve changed the world’ to ‘I’ll have achieved success when I’ve changed people’s lives’, which was my first attempt at tweaking my definition, would set me up for failure, because how do you measure that? And how many people?

In the end, I came up with the following: If only one person benefitted, in whichever way, from this book or other thing I’d created I had succeeded. I had done my job. I had made the difference I came here to make.

For the last couple of years, this definition helped quiet so many of my fears and opened up even more doorways. I’m still looking for that first positive response to anything I put out there, but once I’ve received that, I allow myself to be proud of what I created and let the project be so it can do what it needs to beyond my sphere of influence. I no longer look to control how many people buy it, nor how they relate to it, because that part is not up to me. It never was.

However, I was struck by a new realisation as I was writing this post. If my current definition of success is that at least one person needs to have benefitted from my creations, I don’t need to wait for that first positive review. There is one person who always benefits from my creative projects, even before they are put out into the world, and that’s me. I am changed with every single thing I create. In fact, I don’t even have to finish them to be utterly transformed by them.

Steve Job’s once said – and I’ve included this quote in 99 Writing Prompts and Journal Exercises for Writers to Cultivate Courage and Kick Imposter Syndrome to the Curb and the first volume of 52 Weeks of Writing – that ‘things don’t have to change the world to be important’.

But what if every little thing we do, that is, every little thing we do from the depths of our souls, does change the world? Bit by bit, even if all they change is the person doing the thing?

The things I create might not change the world in the way I used to imagine – viva la revolución! – but maybe them changing me is them changing the world. Because a changed me will bring about change, if only because transformation that happens within me cannot but have a ripple effect on the world around me.

Anyone else I can help change along the way, whether that’s a handful or hundreds of thousands of people, is really just a bonus.

I guess that means my next definition of success will sound something like: ‘I’ll have achieved success if I heed the call and do the work I came here to do.’

Guess what? I’m already doing that.  

How are your creations changing the world? And how are they changing you? If those are hard questions for you, I added a tweaked version of one of my journaling exercises below.

Happy creating, and happy changemaking, this week!

xx Mariëlle

The original version of this exercise can be found in 99 Writing Prompts and Journal Exercises for Writers to Cultivate Courage and Kick Imposter Syndrome to the Curb (exercise 10) and the first volume of 52 Weeks of Writing (week 11). Here, I tweaked the language somewhat so it includes all creatives, not just writers.

The quote that goes with the exercise is the one from Steve Jobs mentioned above:

Why is what you create important to you? Set your timer and take fifteen minutes to answer this question.

Can you imagine other people finding your creations important for exactly those reasons?

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How you can show up for me so I can keep showing up for you

Across the internet, I share lots of free content and many tools that help people on their creative journeys. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or money to create as much content as I would like.

Besides, bills need to be paid, so there are times I need to prioritise the day job (my editing and coaching work) over content creation and making your creative lives better.

But you can change this!

With your support, I can continue to:

• write my Monday Musings on living a creative life

• audiorecord said musings for Illuminate | Musings and Meditations for the Creative Soul to make them more accessible

• post weekly tarot spreads for creatives on Instagram

• podcast on how to create a sustainable writing career from your heart and soul on Diving into Writing

• interview fellow creatives every week so we can learn about their highs, lows, and how they keep creating

• create free tools, record meditations, and write books that help creatives on their path to reaching their fullest potential

What’s more, with your support I could develop and chase new ideas and make even more beneficial tools for you and other creatives. One day, if I receive enough support, I might even be able to create exclusive content just for you.

How to support me

Substack — Substack is a subscription-based platform, so you can support me right here by becoming a paid subscriber. As a paid subscriber, you’ll join my Reiki Healing Circle, which means I’ll send you a daily dose of distant Reiki until the day you cancel your paid subscription.

As a founding member, you’ll also get 15% off everything in my webshop.

Patreon — In May, I breathed new life into my Patreon page. Here, I offer four different membership tiers with the following benefits:

• €5 a month — become a member of my daily Reiki Healing Circle

• €10 a month — become a member of my daily Reiki Healing Circle and get 10% off everything in my webshop

• €15 a month — become a member of my daily Reiki Healing Circle and get 15% off everything in my webshop

• €20 a month — become a member of my daily Reiki Healing Circle and get 20% off everything in my webshop

All my future courses, classes, and workshops will be offered in my webshop, so you’ll get a discount on these too.

Just think about it. I’d love to bring you into my Reiki fold <3