5 tips on creating a life you love every day

Creation never stops.

Whenever I start thinking 64 is old, I tell myself that my body is making new cells every day, so I’m brand new no matter what my birth certificate says.

For years, Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” hung above the desk where I wrote. Underneath it, I wrote the hardest book of all, the first one.

“God Never Blinks” made me reach down into my soul. It scared me to be so honest. To motivate me, I put sticky notes on the calendar, 1 through 50, and every day for 50 days wrote a chapter then ripped off the note and celebrated as I crumbled each one up and tossed it in the wastebasket.

I’ve heard it said that we are co-creators of our lives with God. That’s why I like the “Creation of Adam.” God’s finger touching Adam, but we have to reach our hand out too. Willingness.

Illustrator Karen Sandstrom talked about that willingness on Little Detours with Regina Brett. I learned so many lessons from her about creating art and creating the life your soul wants you to live:

• Create a discipline, a regular writing or drawing practice. For me, that advice applies to a spiritual practice every day that includes prayer, meditation and yoga.

• Get your butt in the chair first thing in the morning before anything else hijacks the day. For me, that means I sit on my meditation pillow, breathe and listen.

• Pay attention to what calls to you, what knocks on the door of your soul. What makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning? Go do that.

• Use the time you have on this Earth in an intentional way. Live mindfully and deeply. This is it folks. Make it count.

• Don’t die with your music or sketches or words still inside you. Spend it all now, every single day.

Your story, your drawings, your music, your mission in life, whatever it is you are called to be or to create, it was a gift the Creator gave you to open.

All you need to do is reach out your hand.

The Creator of All Beings will surely meet you half way.