Maybe you have just been through something big. A loss, a major transition, caring for someone you love, the children grown and gone, or stepping away from a business or career that defined you for years. Or maybe nothing big has happened at all, and you simply know that the life that used to fit you doesn’t quite fit anymore.
It can feel as though the puzzle pieces of your life have been scattered on the floor, with no picture on the box to show you where they go. Some pieces you recognize and they still fit. Some you feel should fit, but don’t. And there is a whole pile of new pieces you don’t recognize at all. If you find yourself wondering what your life is supposed to look like now, I want you to know I have been there, and in some ways, I am there with you.
I talk about this, and the one piece I invite you to start with, in this video:
Before anything else, write down one thing
Grab a pen and paper, or open the notes app on your phone. Write down one thing you have always wanted to try. Just one. Not five, and not the whole plan. Don’t decide when you will do it. Just write it down and keep it with you.
If you aren’t sure what to write, these questions may help:
- What did you once love doing that somehow disappeared from your life?
- Where do you feel most alive?
- What have you caught yourself thinking, someday I’d love to?
If those are hard to answer right now, that is okay. My video on how to create your own joy map is a gentle way to explore what brings you joy, or to rediscover what you once loved.
When there is no picture on the box
This image of the puzzle has stayed with me for years. After my mom died, the only way I could describe it was that someone had taken all the puzzle pieces of my life, thrown them on the floor, and left me to put them back together without the picture on the box.
I spent almost an entire year feeling as though I were living in a fog. I kept moving through my days, but something within me had changed. I didn’t quite recognize my life anymore, and I didn’t fully recognize myself in it either. For a long time, I believed my job was to put every piece back where it had been, to recreate the picture I already knew. Now I know I was being invited to create an entirely new one.
Curiosity doesn’t need an answer
Here is one thing I know for sure. Curiosity is one of the most valuable things we can bring into a new chapter, because curiosity doesn’t need an answer. It simply asks us to explore. Take a class. Pick up a paintbrush. Join a walking group. Travel somewhere near. Volunteer, call someone, return to an old hobby, or say yes to something you might once have talked yourself out of.
Not because you know where it will lead, but because you are curious. Some answers we can only discover by living our way into them. One experience, one conversation, one decision, one puzzle piece at a time.
Right now, I feel as though I have put the edges of my puzzle back together. I can see the outline of this next chapter, but much of the middle is still waiting to be filled. Instead of looking at that empty space and thinking, I don’t know what belongs there, I am learning to look at it and wonder what could go there. There is possibility in that space.
Who am I now?
Perhaps you have retired, or your children have left home, or your health has changed, or a relationship is evolving. Perhaps you have simply realized that the person you are today isn’t exactly the person who created the life you are living. That realization doesn’t have to be frightening. It can be an invitation to ask: Who am I now? What matters to me now? What brings me joy now? What might still be possible for me?
Those are very different questions from, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? That question feels enormous, and it makes us think we need the whole picture before we take the first step. We don’t.
Your practice this week
Look at what you wrote down with curiosity, and give yourself permission to try it. See how it feels. It may fit. It may not. Either way, you will have learned something about yourself, about what brings you joy, and about the person you are becoming. If a piece doesn’t fit, you don’t have to force it. Put it back on the table. That doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. It simply means the picture has changed, because you have changed.
Reconnect with yourself and what is calling you. Rekindle it by giving yourself permission to try it. Then reimagine what might be possible from there. One piece, then the next.
Come back for the next piece
At the heart of it all, you matter, and you deserve a life that feels meaningful, joyful and true to who you are becoming. If you would like company along the way, I would love for you to subscribe to At the Heart of It All on YouTube, and tell me in the comments what one thing you are curious to try.
