Are you struggling with a painful issue in your life? Feeling overwhelmed by numerous questions? Or just feeling stuck in your current career?

I know this could seem crazy, but… what if your answers lie in pen and paper?

Difficult to believe, right? Well, this is my story…

4 years ago, stuck in my engineering career, I decided to take a break and enrolled in an MBA degree. I finished first place in my class and that reminded me my early age victories, when I was collecting successive ‘first class’ certifications, school awards and parents’ pride…

However, this time, success had not the same taste. Nor did it entail the same relief. It was only the first step of a seemingly long and uncertain career transition. I was aware of it.

I knew the road I have taken will not be straightforward, and I knew that I still had sooo many things to do before I could claim any success.

« But WHAT? » : That was the obsessing and depressing question…

Obviously, I was willing to experiment new things but not to fail…

I was repeatedly asking myself what to do next, as if the answer was hidden somewhere in me. Or, as if both my mind and my heart — that made me take the crazy decision to escape my steady dead-end job — had all answers, and that I just needed to urge them to get a hint of light!

Pain and Dreams: the invisible link…

The truth is: I was actually blocking myself, obsessing about an immediate solution — the myth that our next career move would be just there, around the corner, waiting for us to catch it! — in stead of concretely looking for sustainable answers.

At that time, I had in mind no more ambitious output than reintegrating the big corporations world, hoping for a more dynamic and prestigious position. So I jumped at the first seemingly promising opportunity, and quickly, figured out that it was another failure…

« There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. » — Paulo Coelho

When we evoke the word ‘failure’, we commonly evoke pain. No-one wants to be in pain!

But if we look at how scientists define pain, we will read: ‘Pain is an unpleasant feeling, a warning signal that something is damaged and needs to be protected and recovered.’ (More reading here)

More than an unpleasant feeling, pain is a guiding signal toward recovery.

It points its noise in our life whenever something is wrong, and promises to stay there unless we do something about it.

Viewed this way, pain could serve us: it could be a trigger for taking action. However, the right amount of it is the key to taking the right action; that is the one that connects us with our truest dreams.

Your truest dream lies in pen and paper

Few of us really know and use the power of pen and paper.

They are politicians, artists, influencers, and successful entrepreneurs.

Yet, all of us know how difficult it could be when it comes to writing down our true feelings, fears, struggles, desires and failures.

There is a profound sense of self-connection and commitment in the act of writing on paper.

We tend to feel obliged to put something true and accurate.

It is no strange that in our daily life we require contracts and evidence to be written, and even signed, to look reliable.

3 years ago, if someone had asked me to write down anything that crosses my mind in order to figure out my true calling, I would have politely pretended having something urgent to do and would have left the conversation illico presto!

Of course it is hard to believe in such advice, especially when we are urged by that sticky ‘what to do next?’ question, and eager to close the painful career move case.

It took me almost 2 years — some travels, some losses, few encounters and few books — to consider the unexpected possibilities that a daily writing could reveal.

I started doubtful, dedicating no more than 20 minutes of daily morning writing. Useless to say how much it was difficult to commit or to put anything of interest. And for a long time, I had resisted bringing back painful memories or examining my early conditioning.

« Courage isn’t having the strength to go on — it is going on when you don’t have strength. » — Napoleon

I missed many days of writing. But the more I forced myself to go back to it, the more I raised uncomfortable questions, released negative feelings and revealed buried dreams.

It was not a linear process. Nevertheless, a progressive clarity started to emerge: A long time ago, I have dreamed of being a writer… How could I have been so blind?

Since that self-awareness moment, I committed to the daily pen and paper writing and decided to share a part of it loudly on my blog created early this year.

It is known that buried dreams lead to deep pain… But through writing, I discovered that deep pain could also lead us to unbury our greatest dreams…

Are you convinced to give it a try?

— Originally published at LiberateYourPen.com on July 12, 2017.

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