A funny thing happened on the way to working for someone else.

I have been a creative entrepreneur for more than twenty years. Even when I “went back to work” it was as a freelancer or gig worker and that’s how I liked it. It is how I wanted it.

I didn’t want to have an employer. Thank you, no. 

When I got my regular, go to work for a set number of days and hours this year it was actually by accident. I wanted to be a substitute teacher but then was offered a five-hours-a-day, five days a week job which I accepted as an experiment.

I became much more organized as I began finishing long awaited projects and when school started this year and I was also babysitting my precious grandbaby 2 and a half days a week, I realized I would be most effective in all of my endeavors if I was more organized with my habits and practices. I needed to put what I learned from “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg into practice.

I do not have extensive, do-or-die practices and habits, it is more like I created habits and spiritual practices that help me feel more loved and nurtured by myself. I need to have extreme focus, especially when I write. Time is limited.

I now prepare my breakfasts one day for eight days and prepare two different protein sources which last me for the entire week of lunches and dinners. 

I put together my outfits so when I wake up I can slide into my clothes as soon as I am out of bed so I don’t have to even think about what I am wearing.

I have a set writing schedule and use focus mate to write with many people all over the world every single morning (at my desk at 5 am 5 days a week and sometimes on Sunday, too.)

I didn’t realize how much I love caring for myself in these ways. It feels so caring, so loving, so much like a caring parent or guardian who says “You are valued, I want you to feel calm and cared for and without a worry in the hectic hubbub of life.”

I am continuing to build my habits so that I may continue to hone these profound feelings of practical means and passageways for belonging to find her way back to me and me to her.

Never, ever did I expect to see this marvelous miracle approaching me.

There are now 73 more days of 2023. What small new habit (or renewed habit) would you like to try until the end of this year?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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