Finding My Purpose: The First Week In

To start this post off, I want to point out that this will be my 100th post on this blog!

🎊🎉🎈WOOHOO!🎈🎉🎊

It’s been a journey, but I’ve been enjoying all the ups and downs, the creative highs and writers block, to figuring out what exactly I want to post about… it’s been a process and I’ve been learning a lot 😂

For this week’s update on my Journey of Purpose (oohh that sounds fancy, I like that!), I will post different sections covering the same topics I talked about before, and then update you on my progress in there.

If you want to know how this all began, here is the link to my original post and if you missed my very first post about this journey, you can check it out here.

Now that’s enough explaining, and here we go!

---

 

• Read

• • I finished reading The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, which I would give a three out of five stars. It was a book that was more character driven than plot driven, but even then, it didn’t seem like the story flowed very well. The flashbacks didn’t seem to always fit in with what was happening, or even help drive the story forward. It was interesting looking at all the reviews on Good Reads, because there were a lot of one star reviews and people trashing the book. Alice Sebold also wrote The Lovely Bones, which a lot of people loved, so they were disappointed in The Almost Moon. I haven’t read The Lovely Bones (I’ve only seen the movie), so I didn’t have the comparison in mind while reading, which is why I rated it higher.

• • Now, I’m currently reading The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea, and I’m about 50 pages in. It follows the family of Big Angel de la Cruz, during the funeral of Big Angel’s mother, and then Big Angel’s birthday the next day. This is another character driven, rather than plot driven story, and so far I’ve been enjoying it. I want to see where the story goes, as it mainly follows Big Angel, but it will change to the perspective of other members of his family.
  • For my Good Reads goal, I’m at 6 out of 45 books 👍👌
  • I might try doing Book Tags and such on this blog again, as I had fun doing them, and it gives me a chance to go through my books!

 

• Turn Hurt into Healing for Others
  • I’m thinking for this one, when I sit down and write about my setbacks, I can use them to brainstorm ideas for a book. I haven’t sat down to do it quite yet, but I’m hoping to do it within the next week.
  • Try and find a template or some sort of organization chart, and use it for plotting story ideas following these themes

 

• Cultivate Awe, Gratitude and Altruism
  • In all honesty, I’m not sure where to begin here, but I think I will focus on this a little more in the upcoming week, as I think it’s important.
  • I used to volunteer with an animal shelter, maybe I should start there and look into volunteering (even if it’s not with the same place).

 

• Listen to What Other People Appreciate About You
  • After listening to my friends and therapist the past week, I’ve been realizing my value, and that value is in how I treat others, as well as being willing to learn and become a better person. They didn’t say these things outright, a lot of this is from self reflection, but sometimes, it’s good to hear it come from within.
  • Having good self-esteem isn’t always easy, and even if you have it, it can be difficult to maintain. That’s why it’s good to give yourself space to reflect, and forgive yourself when you make mistakes, so you can continue growing as a person. Otherwise, how will you become the best version of yourself if you don’t acknowledge and work on the not so good parts?

 

• Find and Build Community
  • This week, I’m getting back into the swing of things on my writing social media pages, and while I will be posting more, I want to make sure that I also interact with the people I follow and those who follow me. There are some awesome people I’ve found through, well honestly mainly Instagram, and I want to take the time to talk to them more.

 

• Tell Your Story
  • I finished my poetry challenge for the month of February, and I’m hoping to go through these poems to select for my poetry collection that I want to publish next year.
  • This may not be about my story, but I’ve been more focused on my writing recently, and have been posting on Medium three times a week right now. Last week, I posted about lessons I learned from Love is Blind, and a wrap up/ final thoughts post after the finale.
  • I’ve posted other stuff on Medium as well, and if you want to check it out, here’s the link to my profile!

 

---

 

That’s about all I have for this weeks post, let me know how you’re doing in the comments! I hope to hear from ya, and I will see you next week with a new post!

-Erin 😊

 

Medium: https://medium.com/@erin.nord87

Instagram: @eclectic_erin87

Twitter: @ENordhof

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/99734662-erin-nordhof

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/eclecticerin87/

Prose: https://theprose.com/ennord