“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.” 
- William Stafford

We were having Arabic food for dinner when my friend Peter mentioned a Facebook memory. It was me tagging him in a blog post I’d just written. That memory was 5 years ago. 

“It’s nice to see someone still doing what they started 5 years ago,” Peter said, mixing his rice with chicken gravy. 

I looked up from my bowl of fattoush and said:

“Actually, I’ve just finished this week’s article before coming here for dinner.” Peter and I laughed. 

The truth is I started blogging more than 6 years ago, in August 2014. After a 2-month sabbatical break in a tiny German city called Bonn, I had just come back to Vietnam. I was 24 years old, achieved a lot, and profoundly lost. 

Before that, I had spent years feeling like I was running a marathon with my head down. And when I crossed the finish line with the big SUCCESS word printed on it, I looked up and wondered,

“How did I get here? Is this all there is? What is the point?” 

Intuitively, I knew I needed some quiet time to listen to myself. Halfway through the sabbath, I heard my heart say, “write.”

So I went back to Vietnam, back to my childhood home. 

The first thing I did was doing what author Austin Kleon called “building your bliss station.”

I divided my bedroom into a rest space and a workspace by pushing my wardrobe right in the middle. At the back of the wardrobe, I hung pictures of writers whose work I admired and a large print of Martha Graham’s “keep the channel open” quote. I needed faith, so that was my writing “shrine”.  

My writing desk - the same desk I had done high school homework on - was positioned right next to the shrine. Whenever my eyes wandered, I would see my heroes’ photos and Martha’s quote, and they would keep me going. 

To the right from my desk was the room’s only window facing the neighbor’s concrete wall. But I didn’t need a view. 

I was busy peering into the landscape of my mind, looking for writing ideas, putting down on the page the stories it wanted to tell. 

The first 6 months after I started blogging, I committed to a schedule of 5 articles per week. Each piece was 500 to 2000 words. My ex-husband joked that I’d written so many words that it wasn’t a blog but the Bible during that time.

In all honesty, what I wrote was not very good, but I’m proud of them. I let myself be an absolute amateur. I kept on writing even though many articles fell flat.

I was a budding writer trying to find my voice the only way it could be found: by using it. 

“The only way to find your voice is to use it.” - Austin Kleon 

That’s how I started blogging, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. 

Everything good that has ever come to me has come because of my blog: freelance gigs, speaking invitations, book deals, workshop students, coaching clients. 

But that’s not the reason why I’ve stuck with blogging.

I’ve stuck with it because, in the word of poet Willian Stafford, writing is “the thread I follow.” 

Writing is part of my purpose here on earth. 

When I look back to my childhood, it makes perfect sense. 

Even before I knew how to spell, I read aloud children’s books to my mom and pretended to know the words.

I made my first poem when I was 5. My favorite game was to make up jungle stories by using animal toys as characters. 

In junior high, whenever I found an article that I loved from the student magazine, I copied word-by-word in a notebook. 

For years, whenever people asked about my dream, I would say to publish my own book. But I disregarded my dream as that: just a dream. Even during my high-stress job, I would randomly read books about blogging.  

My journey of finding purpose was less about “finding” and more about remembering what I already knew but forgotten. 

“Remember who you are, who you really are...”
- Moana

Your “thread” is something you can’t not follow. No matter how far you stray away from it, you keep coming back. 

It spills out of you, the way feathers grow out from a bird or leaves from a free, one way or the other. You can’t help it. Because it’s part of who you are. 

Nowadays, in my coaching work, I often meet clients who feel lost the way I was. 

They want to live a purposeful life. They want to do work that they absolutely love that can also make a difference. But they don’t know what that is. 

My job is to help them discover their purpose. 

Discovering your purpose isn’t about conjuring up an ideal image based on what your mind considers cool and important. 

It is a process of digging for the precious clues in your past. Clues, by definition, need to be decoded. These clues hold important insights into who you’re born to become. 

This process is what Steve Jobs meant when he said “You can only connect the dots looking backward.” 

It also echoes the teaching of author Parker Palmer in his soul-moving book “Let Your Life Speak”: 

“Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting that treasure of true self I already possess.” 

If you’re looking for your purpose, here are 3 ways to remember: 

1. Ask your parents: What did I love doing when I was small? How was I when I was little? 

2. Look to your past: What did you spend hours immersed in? What things did you instinctively gravitate to, without being forced or directed to by adults? 

3. Who did you want to become when you grew up? 

When I was small, I told everyone that I wanted to become Britney Spears when I grew up. For years, I thought it was just a child’s fantasy. 

However, this dream turns out to be a valuable clue. I wanted to become Britney Spears because I wanted to shine and share my gift with many others. Now I know this is also part of my purpose.

What about you? 

What more have you understood about your purpose by answering the 3 questions above? 

Share with me in the comment below! 

Remember: you are born with a purpose, and you can truly shine your light. 

With love, 

P.S: share your gift to the world

Your story is what defines you, and the world needs to hear it!

Want to create impactful stories that touch lives, inspire others and grow an audience of loyal readers? I’ve created a step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and not give up on it.

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SHARING = LOVING