Welcome to the Next Draft of Your Life

Me in third grade holding up my Young Author's Conference certificate!

Those. Bangs. Becca . . .

Maybe it’s my forties. Maybe it’s a millennial thing (technically I missed the millennial cutoff by a year, but I feel far less connected to someone born in 1965 than to someone born in 1989), but I know I’m not alone in this feeling (at least I hope I'm not): you look around at the life you built, its beauty, its stability, its privileges, and still wonder why your heart pinches a little.

That’s the confusing part.

Isn’t it selfish to question a good life? If nothing is “wrong,” why does something feel unfinished?

The other day a colleague said to me, kindly, “If you changed the life of even one person through your work, wasn’t it worth it?” And outwardly, I nodded. Inwardly, a quieter, sharper voice answered: Not if I didn’t help the other 999, including myself.

That’s the trap I keep noticing in myself: all-or-nothing thinking. If it’s not enough, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe good enough is good enough. I know better. And yet . . .

When I was seventeen, I was certain what my life's mission was. I even had the slogan ready for my imaginary business card: My dream is to help you achieve yours. Earnest? Absolutely. Also . . . true.

Then came the four horsemen (borrowed from Suzy Welch) practicality, expectations, fear, and responsibility. Not in a dramatic way. Just a one-degree shift. A sensible decision here, a closed door there. I chose a safe, respected, financially secure profession that helped people and slowly found myself inside smaller and smaller boxes. Until the voice I recognized from my teenage years started knocking. Politely at first. Then louder. This isn’t how you thought you’d help people, is it?

And honestly, the knowing goes back even further.

In fifth grade, I filled out prompts in a Precious Moments journal. (If you know Precious Moments, we probably would’ve been friends.) Under “Goals I’d Like to Achieve,” I wrote:

1. Be a writer

2. Be a good person

3. Help the earth

   
   

I really love that girl. She knew who she wanted to be.

Apparently I also didn't want to "Get In Trouble With Boys." lol

Suzy Welch writes in Becoming You (see above) about meeting a psychiatrist who observed that most people eventually realize that their twelve-year-old self accurately predicted what they wanted in life. I believe that. We know ourselves remarkably well before the world teaches us to doubt it.

So what happens?

Life happens. And then, if we’re paying attention, the remembering begins.

Your Next Draft is my way of reclaiming what my eleven-year-old and seventeen-year-old selves knew. And maybe it can help you do the same. Not by burning everything down. Not by starting over from scratch. But by asking, gently and honestly: What wants to be written next?

Because I believe when you write your next draft, each version becomes more coherent, bolder, sharper and brighter. And that brightness? It changes you. And you change the world.

I’m so glad you’re here.

---

I'd love to connect more! Contact me or join my Newsletter :)