I am doing Meredith Lewis (@dangerousmere) creative prompt challenge every day in December. So far these have been excellent to trigger some reflections but today’s one is something I’m unsure in expressing so openly for fear of what it may mean to my friends, work and networks.

As a creative person, what is in your rag and bone shop of the heart?

What can you find down there, after all of the shiny and flashy stuff has fallen away, that you can work with?

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After reading the brief this morning for today’s creative prompt, I gulped.

Oh Meredith, you are asking some tough questions exploring our creative identity. They are making me think and worst of all, making me confront some things that I have often thought about or admitted to myself in the wee early hours. However, these are what I tend to push away and then keep plodding along with because well, “what else am I to do?”

Meredith shared an excellent article I Moved to a Remote Cabin to Write and I Hated It where the author wrote about her experience where she felt bad she followed a dream only to realise it wasn’t what she wanted after all.

She had to own up to it.

She had to accept it.

What I particularly liked was when she said, “You have to stop all this self-editing, because you won’t know what’s part of the story until you know what the story is. And it’s then, and only then, that you can decide whether you want to tell it.”

I resonated with her story because many times in the past, I have followed what others have done believing that this is what I wanted too. Only after trying it out, I realised that it wasn’t for me.

For example starting my own business Activate Learning Solutions was a wake up call for me. I mistakenly thought that as I was sharing my work and was getting great feedback, that people would buy services off me – I was wrong. I have shared this story many times in the past on this blog and it was only when I had a moment of clarity (standing on a bridge over the Seine River in Paris) that I confirmed to myself that indeed, I did not want to have my own business – I just wanted to work part time and for someone else as an employee. I wanted a life that was less stressful.

I’ve now reached the same point in my life now and when I strip it all back, I realise that I’m at a point where I don’t want to do anything about ‘Learning and Development’ (when it comes to providing a service to organisations).

I’ve struggled to get this up and running and naturally, I’ve reached a point where I simply don’t care for it.

There, I said it out loud.

Over the last year, I have slowly been removing my L&D services off this Activate Learning Solutions page; I’ve been saying ‘no’ to people who have asked for my support and services in the area of social and collaborative learning and in fact, even last week, turned down a new role.

Yes, I said no to a new opportunity.

Why? Simply put, I’m tired of setting L&D strategy for organisations because in my experience, I’ve always struggled with organisations not providing it the importance and support it needed. If it’s not seen as a strategic priority, you’re battling against everything and everyone and frankly, I’ve lost heart. I’m not the right person when I feel this way. I’ve been doing it for too long.

I’m jaded.

Where I haven’t lost heart is helping people (one-on-one) to help themselves or encouraging the creation and building of communities. That’s where I see the difference.

If you can’t sway the leaders of organisations to see value in this, you can help people to do this for themselves.

So my creative identity is really wrapped up in people supporting, sharing and sponsoring my work. This tells me that what I do is valued and acknowledged.

However, I’ve had a big realisation in recent years that I’ve come to accept begrudgingly.

There’s a point in time where you get tired and you accept that your stuff may, in the grand scheme of things, simply not be important to others nor is it really important to you all things considered. That’s okay.

The trick is to recognise it and decide whether you stay in and keep fighting or move on to something else.

In my head, this is where I’m at. I’ve already moved to something and somewhere else but it’s undefined.

I have a short goal to achieve in my last years of work which is to build a community and put my all into it to make it into a reality but at the same time, I’m pretty relaxed about it.

Why? Because my headspace is already looking forward – to retirement. I have no long term goals at the moment because I’m hoping these creative prompts may also help me formulate what my retirement from work will look like for me.

I have no idea what it is I want to do for the next phase of my life but I know that it’s not about corporate Learning and Development. In fact, I can’t think of anything worse.

When it’s all said and done, if I was to strip it all back, the rag and bone shop of the heart will be the life I am living now – without the working 3 days a week. I’m enjoying the time to explore, read, create, experience and learn in the couple of days I have off every week and I look forward to doing this full-time.