Photo by Muhammad Haikal Sjukri on Unsplash

by Linda Forrest

I run a startup and I don’t have any expendable income. I often barely have enough income to get by, but I’m living my dream. I’m happy. I’m healthy and I have this program that keeps me full of peace and joy through even the worst of times. 

With all the earthquakes we’re having in Utah this month and the outbreak of Covid-19, I’ve been asking myself how I can share the peace and joy I feel every day in a way that is affordable to those who might not have much. I wanted to give something significant, something worthwhile to anyone out there who might be suffering and today I landed on my answer.

When I quit my job to live full time as a muse four years ago, I had what I felt was a strong business plan with enough investors to have time to grow. Within the first week—after giving up my only source of income—every one of the people who promised to be their retracted their commitment and I was left with no income, to try and manage $2000 per month in expenses, expenses I needed to begin paying in just three more weeks. It was intimidating, but I began my business believing it was meant to be.

I had said it a thousand times, to more than a thousand people and I still say it today, “You can’t organize your life to live your purpose—or your dreams or your happiest, healthiest existence. You must live your purpose, live your dreams, live your happiest, healthiest existence and life will organize itself.” I believed in this saying. I believed in the truth of it, right to the very core of my being and now, here I was to face my own words. Here I was with the opportunity to step into my purpose confronted with conditions that seemed impossible.

I woke every morning in a state of panic. Mornings were the worst for me then. Though I didn’t have PTSD anymore, I still had significant anxiety and every morning I woke to feelings of impending doom. How was I going to make $2,000 in three weeks? My thoughts would race. “I need to go get a job. I can still do accounting. I don’t need to be a business manager. I could just find a bookkeeping job and do this part-time. It will be difficult, but eventually, I’ll be able to leave and for now, it will pay the bills.” 

My fear tried to convince me I just needed to organize my life. Then, I could live my purpose. 

My heart would race and my soul would feel crushed as I climbed from bed every morning, afraid today would be the day when I would need to abandon my inspirations again and conform to the conditions of my reality. That I would need to walk away from what I felt was my entire reason for existence and be responsible. I would step into the living room that now represented my office and I would say, “Okay. maybe today is the day. Maybe I could try a part-time job at first and still do this in the evening, but first, I’m going to stay loyal to my process. Above all else, I’m going to believe in what I am teaching and I’m going to do my practices.”

I began every day of the first several months of my business with a Phase Three Mythology Practice. I would write for twenty minutes or an hour or three and by the end of it, I would have an idea. “Schedule more Meetups,” or “Offer a discount on sessions.” Every day, one little idea would come and I would implement it right away. Some ideas, like “Create a Founders Discount,” felt genius. While others, like “Make the meetups free,” seemed insane. In the end, each walked me day by day through the last four years and I realized this morning, they can walk me through the next four as well.

I also realized I would like to share them with you. 

I have a lot of affordable and even free options in my online store, but what I want to give you today is my presence. My clients like to check-in with me every week to stay grounded and inspired, but we’re not in typical circumstances anymore. The pressures of the world are at an all-time high for many of us. 

I don’t wake in a panic state anymore. I wake in the morning immediately stirred by a world of possibility. Today, when I woke, I thought, what if I could be there every day? What if I could share this feeling with everyone, every day?

I want to share with you what it’s like to wake up every day inspired and I want to make it affordable, so we can all feel successful, not just today, but for the rest of our lives. 

Welcome to 365 Days to a Better Life. Even if your life is absolutely amazing, it can always get better and there has never been any time better than right now to make a big impact in the world.

365 Days to a Better Life is a daily subscription program. For $1/day, you’ll get a daily blog post, where I’ll share my inspiration for the day. The post will be followed by a suggestion to prompt some inspiration of your own.

If you like, you can set up the program to be a monthly recurring investment in yourself or if you can decide you don’t want to pay every day, you can purchase just one blog post at a time. You can also take advantage of the annual discounts if you don’t want a lot of daily charges or are ready to commit to doing something different over the next year.

Let’s walk together through this experience of social distancing, each coming out of it someone even more powerful than we are today. This article is day one. I wrote and article today. What do you want to do, not just for the day, but for your best experience of life? How are you going to take advantage of social distancing today? Think of one thing to create and create it. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow for new inspiration.

Thank you for being a part of what I do. I wish you tremendous success on your journey.