Ready to launch
Clean shoes, full heart, can’t lose / Issue 1,432
Oh, hi friends!
I was thinking about the literal ways we close chapters in our lives.
You can haul stuff to Goodwill.
Send thank yous to collaborators. Attend your own farewell party.
Tuck your old drafts into a desktop folder. Archive those emails.
A physical signal is important to train your brain that it’s time to move on to the next.
Case in point: after running a trail race last month, my shoes looked like this.
Impressive! But also not very inviting.
I didn’t clean them for weeks and only ran a few times since that race. Maybe the two things are related, maybe not.
But yesterday, I took a brush and two squirts of Dawn in a water bucket, and here we are.
So much better!
Fresh.
Instantly more inviting.
Ready for the future.
Look at your surroundings.
What are you holding onto that might be holding you back?
Will you feel better once you close that chapter (or clean it)?
Are you ready to open the next one?
Speaking of next chapters, the new season of my Launch the Plane sessions is open!
These hourlong one-on-one sessions are designed to help you get your project off the ground, whether it’s a long-gestating creative work, the beginnings of an idea, or other questions at the intersection of work and life.
During last season, I worked with people on:
Writing book proposals and publishing advice
Navigating a job search and career change
Finding work/life balance and quitting a job
Launching and building a newsletter
Freelance writing and pitching
Starting YouTube channels and podcasts
Collating a short story collection
Writing short and full-length musicals
Here is what one amazing Launcher said about our session together:
Kara ships. Kara shares. Kara shows that it is possible to do both of these things. I love process and a challenging, fun, joyful, daily artistic practice, but I need help with the shipping part, the sharing, and the launching. Not just logistical help (a not insignificant part of it) but help with the mindset, and the why. Grateful to Kara's Launch the Plane session for that. It sparked new questions and gave me new tools... for when I'm ready to pick them up. I love her newsletter, her friendship, her journals, her writing — but Launch the Plane was letting her see me, too; asking for help from a trusted, skilled mechanic who's been there, who cares, and who genuinely loves it when planes take off. It's often hard to ask for help with these things - Kara makes it easy. <3
You can book a session for May and June now!
(The next season likely won’t be until next year.)
These are meant to be fun, generative, encouraging.
Like little potent arrows for your heart and mind.
I have the same running shoes, and they currently look like your first photo!