Choose Your Life Purposes

Eric Maisel, a retired family therapist and active creativity coach, is the author of 50+ books and developer of the philosophy of life known as kirism. In 2020 Unleashing the Artist Within, The Creativity Workbook for Coaches and Creatives, Lighting the Way, and The Power of Daily Practice appeared. In 2021, Transformational Journaling for Coaches, Therapists and Clients, The Great Book of Journaling, and Redesign Your Mind appeared. Dr. Maisel, widely regarded as America’s foremost creativity coach, has writing extensively on the challenges of the creative life. His books in this area include Fearless Creating, Coaching the Artist Within, Creative Recovery, The Van Gogh Blues, and Mastering Creative Anxiety. His books specifically for writers include Deep Writing, Write Mind, Living the Writer’s Life, A Writer’s Space, A Writer’s Paris, and A Writer’s San Francisco. Dr. Maisel also writes extensively in the areas known as critical psychology and critical psychiatry, where he is a thought-leader and advocate for significant shifts in mental health paradigms and practices. His books in this area include Rethinking Depression (New World Library), The Future of Mental Health (Routledge), and Humane Helping (Routledge). Among his other books for mental health professionals are Helping Parents of Diagnosed, Distressed and Different Children, 60 Innovative Cognitive Strategies for the Bright, the Sensitive and the Creative, and Helping Survivors of Authoritarian Parents, Siblings and Partners, all from Routledge. Dr. Maisel leads workshops for writers online and around the world in locations like London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Dublin, Rome and Prague. He writes the “Rethinking Mental Health” blog for Psychology Today (with 3 million views) and three weekly blogs for The Good Men Project, including “Redesign Your Mind” and “Kirism Today.” Dr. Maisel trains creativity coaches, runs support groups for creativity coaches, and provides keynotes for organizations like the American Mental Health Counselors Association and the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry. He divides his time between Walnut Creek, California, where he and his wife live, and Belmont, California, where his grandkid babysitting skills are required. You can visit Dr. Maisel at www.ericmaisel.com, contact him at ericmaisel@hotmail.com, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://ericmaisel.com/newsletter/, and be automatically notified about his new blog posts at https://authory.com/ericmaisel

Contents
A Few Words at the Beginning



1. Not a Puppet, Not a Robot

2. Boom!

3. Even More of Nothing

4. Boys Sword-fighting

5. One Thumb Up

6. You Leap. Boom!

7. Formed Personality

8. Kittens, Puppies, and You

9. Thank Goodness!

10. Can A Bostonian Ever Leave Boston?

11. Energy Wisdom

12. Crouching Tiger

13. The Flip Side

14. Individuality

15. A Row of Tanks

16. Suppression

17. A Bright Light, A Step to the Side

18. The Study of Knots

19. Attaching/Detaching

20. Ethics and The Selfish Gene

21. The Humanistic Tangle

22. Values!

23. And the World

24. The World and Sorrow

25. One Teenager

26. Mystery

27. Interlude

28. As If It Were Step-by-Step

29. On Broadway

30. Always Troubled

31. Three Lists

32. Huddled in a Bunker

33. Brick Walls and Rollercoasters

34. First Choosing

35. Classic Life Purpose Choices

36. Classic Choices: Achievement and Excellence

37. Classic Choices: Experimentation

38. Classic Choices: Self-Actualization

39. Classic Choices: Relaxation and Pleasure

40. Classic Choices: Service and Stewardship

41. Classic Choices: Activism and Rebellion

42. Classic Choices: Appreciation and Gratitude

43. Classic Choices: Ways of Being

44. Classic Choices: Ethical Action

45. Classic Choices: Marrying Choices

46. Second Choosing

47. Challenge 1: The Elephant in the Room

48. Challenge 2: Many Too-Small Purposes

49. Challenge 3: No Purposes at All

50. The Wrong Question

51. When Meaning Vanishes

52. The Double Whammy

53. Challenge 4: Strangely Important

54. Challenge 5: Formerly Important

55. Challenges 6 to Infinity

56. Value-Based Choosing

57. Opening to New Choices

58. Third Choosing

59. How Exactly?

60. A Curated Week

61. Interlude II

62. Support 1: Your Life Purposes Statement

63. Support 2: Your Life Purposes Icon

64. Support 3: Your Life Purposes Mantra

65. Support 4: Your Life Purposes Journal

66. 8 Practices

67. Punctuations of Joy

68. Negotiating Each Day

69. Navigating Each Day

70. Changed Circumstances

71. The Long Haul 1: The Anxiety of Choosing

72. The Long Haul 2: Age and Stage

73. The Long Haul 3: A Succession of Successes

74. The Poignancy and Beauty of Choosing

75. Life, Chosen


Acknowledgments

About the Author