Editor’s Note: This post is part of a 28 day blogging challenge from Imperfectblogging.com. The goal is to develop your blogging voice. To learn more, click here. But I’m so behind I can’t even catch up now so I’m kinda doing my own thing. 

Success. Love. Happy. Free.

These four words are something that nearly every human being I know wants in their lives.  How to get there is another thing entirely.

But this isn’t that type of site and I’m not that type of writer. I’m not here to tell you how to find these words in your life, however, I can help you find this in your writing.  Seven word advice. Ready?

It all comes back to the words.

Yes, that’s it. Very simple. The words. The writing. The act of writing. The preparation for it. The reading. All of it and the road to those 4 words comes back to that.

I re-learned that lesson today. My life currently is in the process of turning upside down in so many good ways — a new business to launch, clients to finish work for, an audience to build, a new job and therefore a move and a new city. So many things are happening at the same time and I am being pulled in so many different directions. It was no wonder that this morning I woke up in a less than chipper mood.

Okay, I was insufferable. I’ll admit to that.

And I know that when that happens, I have to think about the last time I wrote…anything. After some quick math, it had been a while, a very long while. Reading? Forget it. The book still had the bookmark in it from MONTHS ago.

I have all these amazing things going for me and I am beyond thrilled (though thinking about how I’m going to move my furniture is causing some gray hairs) but for me, the writer, it comes down to the micro level of things. It comes down to the words. That is when I am my most successful, I feel the most self-love, I am the happiest, and I am the most free.

LESSON: On the road to becoming a storyteller, one must figure out their own story if they hope to tell others. (Click to tweet this.)

So, I’m back to craving out time — getting up early or sleeping late. I know for those four words to happen, I need to go back to the practice and that starts with doing this.