What’s something you really want to do, but keep putting off?
Not something you should do, like eating more vegetables, exercising, or finally clearing out the garage.
I’m talking about something you genuinely want to do. Something that makes you feel alive, that you find yourself dreaming about, but somehow never quite get around to.
Maybe it’s writing a book, learning to paint, spending more time at the beach, starting a business, or travelling somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit.
What’s on your someday list?
You know, the list of things you’ll do when all your ducks are in a row, your schedule magically frees up, your bank account is full, everyone is taken care of, and the world is sane.
That day.
I wonder how many of us are waiting for permission to do things we already know matter to us.
Why is it so hard to do what we love?
My someday list is usually full of creative projects, mostly writing.
And I can come up with a thousand reasons why I can’t work on them right now.
I need to fix my website, sort out my business plan, answer emails, tidy my office. Perhaps even move house to live closer to my favourite yoga studio.
You get the idea.
What’s interesting is that my inner critic is perfectly happy for me to do creative work if I can justify it.
If I’m creating something for someone else, that’s fine. If I plan to sell it, even better. Then it’s productive. Responsible. A legitimate use of my time.
But spending an afternoon writing something simply because I want to?
That’s much harder to justify.
And I’ve come to realise that this isn’t really a time-management problem.
We don’t always struggle with knowing what matters to us. We struggle with giving ourselves permission to honour it.
Our unconscious personality patterns have all sorts of rules about what’s acceptable, responsible, worthwhile, or safe.
And those rules can keep us busy doing everything except the things we most want to do.
Sometimes we need someone else to help us see it
A while ago, I was talking with my business pod about two projects I was trying to prioritise.
Both seemed important, but I couldn’t decide which one to focus on.
Then someone asked me a question.
If money weren’t a barrier, what would you choose?
Now, as a Self-Preservation Seven, that kind of question can send me into a glorious spiral of possibilities. World travel, buying a library, working my way through every Broadway and West End show.
But this time, something different happened.
An image appeared of someone sitting at a desk, writing, while looking out over a remote beach.
And I knew exactly what I wanted.
I wanted to spend two weeks somewhere beautiful, doing nothing but editing my book.
The interesting thing was that this wasn’t even one of the options I’d brought to the group.
I’d been waiting to work on my book until everything else was sorted out. And because everything else was never sorted out, it kept falling to the bottom of my list.
With their encouragement, I cleared my schedule and gave myself permission to focus on it.
I didn’t get my two weeks at the beach. But I did spend a week working almost exclusively on my book.
And it was wonderful.
Not just because I made progress, but because I gave the project room to breathe. I wasn’t trying to squeeze it into the cracks of my life.
I was allowing myself to do something that mattered to me.
What if the thing you want to do is part of your healing?
I think we sometimes have a rather narrow view of what personal development is supposed to look like.
We imagine therapy, meditation, journalling, coaching, or deliberately working with our Enneagram patterns.
And all of those can be valuable.
But creative projects, hobbies, and experiences we’re naturally drawn towards can also become opportunities for growth.
When we create something, we encounter ourselves.
We notice our impatience, perfectionism, self-doubt, fear of criticism, desire for approval, or difficulty finishing things.
We discover what happens when things don’t turn out as expected. How we respond when we’re uncertain, when we make mistakes, or when nobody else is there to tell us we’re doing a good job.
And because it’s something we actually want to do, we have a reason to keep showing up and working with those uncomfortable experiences.
A creative project can become a wonderful opportunity to practise self-observation, self-inquiry, and experimenting with different responses.
But it doesn’t have to be creative work.
For years, I’ve wanted to spend more mornings at the beach.
I love the ocean. The salt water on my skin, the fresh breeze, the early sunlight on the water. It’s one of the places I feel most alive.
And yet, despite living relatively close to the beach, I rarely went.
Every year I’d make plans to go more often, and every year I’d find reasons not to.
Too cold. Too dark. Too early. Too much work.
Some of those were perfectly reasonable practical considerations. But others were familiar ways of talking myself out of something I wanted.
And that’s worth getting curious about.
Not because going to the beach is something I should force myself to do, but because it matters to me.
Acceptance creates permission
One of the things I’ve learned through my own inner work is that we can’t always think or plan our way out of these patterns.
Sometimes we need to stop trying to overcome our resistance and get curious about it instead.
What am I afraid will happen if I do this?
What rule am I trying to follow?
What would it mean to allow myself to want what I want?
We might discover that we feel guilty doing something just for ourselves. That we’re frightened of failing, or even succeeding. Or that we’ve learned to value ourselves primarily through what we achieve for other people.
Sometimes those fears are surprisingly strong.
And sometimes we need someone else to help us explore them, particularly when they’ve been with us for a long time.
But there’s something powerful about acknowledging what’s actually happening, rather than criticising ourselves for not being able to push through it.
Acceptance doesn’t mean agreeing to stay stuck. It means acknowledging our reality so we can begin working with it.
When I can accept that part of me wants to write and another part is frightened of what that might involve, I have more choices.
I can give myself permission to start small, change the rules, ask for support, or simply make room for something I love without needing to justify it.
And sometimes, permission is what allows us to begin.
You don’t need to turn everything you love into a growth project
There’s one important distinction I want to make.
I’m not suggesting that every enjoyable activity needs to become an opportunity for self-improvement.
Quite the opposite.
You don’t need to monetise your creativity, turn your hobbies into achievements, or make every pleasurable experience serve some bigger purpose.
You can paint because you love colour. Write because you enjoy playing with words. Swim because being in the ocean feels wonderful.
That is reason enough.
And perhaps part of the healing is discovering that you’re allowed to do things simply because you enjoy them.
That your needs, desires, curiosity and pleasure don’t always have to come second to your responsibilities.
Because when we stop trying to become someone better, and start accepting more of who we already are, we create room for parts of ourselves that haven’t had much attention.
What’s on your someday list?
So here’s something I’d invite you to explore.
What’s the thing you’ve been wanting to do but keep putting off?
And what would happen if you gave it some room in your life now, rather than waiting for everything else to be taken care of?
You might not have the money, time, energy or circumstances to do it exactly as you imagine.
But perhaps there’s a smaller version you could begin with.
An afternoon of writing. A morning at the beach. A class you’ve been curious about. A conversation about a change you’ve been wanting to make.
And as you explore that possibility, notice what happens inside you.
The excitement, the hesitation, the objections, the desire to make it productive or worthwhile.
Meet those reactions with curiosity rather than criticism.
You might discover something about the unconscious patterns that have been keeping you stuck.
Or you might simply have a lovely afternoon doing something you enjoy.
Both are worthwhile.
You don’t have to earn the right to do what you love. And you don’t have to turn it into something useful to make it worth doing.