clarity dream life dream life podcast dreaming journaling Kristina Karlsson Mary Oliver Monday motivation permission personal growth podcast what do you want

#495 - Monday Motivation: Tell Me, What Is It You Plan to Do with Your One Wild and Precious Life?

Welcome to another short but empowering episode of Monday Motivation, giving you a dose of inspiration as you head into your week.

Today, I begin with Mary Oliver’s unforgettable question: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Three key takeaways:

  • Why being asked what you truly want can be more powerful than having every answer
  • The two things to remove before you dream - the pressure to know how, and the need for permission
  • A small reflection exercise that helps one honest answer begin to surface

You don’t need to map your whole life today.

Just name one thing you want that isn’t shaped by somebody else’s needs, then notice what changes when you say it aloud or write it down.

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.

Have a wonderful week ...and remember, it all starts with a dream.

Enjoy!

PS: If you would like support planning and following through alongside a group of inspiring women, explore Dream Life Coaching: https://www.yourdreamlifestartshere.com/course

SHOW NOTES:

RESOURCES:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there, and welcome back to another Monday Morning Motivation episode. Happy Monday to you.

I’m Kristina Karlsson, and I am so excited and grateful that you are here with me this Monday morning. I want to start by asking you a question. I did not write it. A poet did, and I think it might be one of the best questions anybody has ever asked out loud. Here it is:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

That is Mary Oliver, the last line of a poem called The Summer Day. What I love about it is where it comes from. The poem is not grand. She spends much of it watching a grasshopper that has landed in her hand, eating sugar, moving its jaw and washing its face.

She watches this small, ordinary creature, and then right at the end she turns and asks you that question. I think about it often, partly because of what it asks and partly because of what it assumes. It assumes your life is wild. It assumes your life is precious. And it assumes you might have a plan for it.

Most of us flinch at all three. So let me ask you something smaller and perhaps a little more practical. When was the last time someone asked you what you actually want? Not what you are up to, how work is going, what the kids are doing or whether you had a lovely break. What do you actually want for yourself and your life?

For many people I speak to, the answer is that they cannot remember. When I ask directly, there is often a long silence, then a small laugh, followed by something like, ‘Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in years.’

I find this fascinating because when we are small, it is the question everybody asks. What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want for your birthday? What do you want to be when you are big? We answer without hesitation. Our answers are enormous, and nobody minds.

Somewhere around eighteen, the question changes. From then on, people mostly ask what you do, where you work or what your plans are, meaning your plans for the weekend. The big question, the Mary Oliver question, simply stops being asked.

Nobody decides this. It just happens, and many of us go decades without anyone sitting across from us and asking what we want from the whole thing.

I know what that silence feels like because I sat in it. Years ago, before my first business, kikki.K, before any of it, I had no idea what to do with my life. I was in my early twenties. I had come to Australia from Sweden. I was working in a job I did not love, and English was my second language.

I remember not sleeping much one night. At three in the morning, I woke up my partner, Paul, perhaps for the fifth time, saying, ‘I have no idea what to do with my life.’

I have spoken about the list that followed many times on this podcast. What I want you to hear this morning is the part I think matters most. It was not the answers that changed my life. It was being asked. Paul asked me to write down what was important to me at the time and what my dreams were.

Once somebody puts the question in front of you, you cannot fully unhear it. It sits there and follows you around. Eventually, at three in the morning, in the car or standing at the sink waiting for the kettle to boil, something in you starts answering, whether you meant to or not.

So this morning I am asking you. Before you answer, I want you to take two things away, because they are what stop most of us.

The first is how. You do not need to know how. Not this week, and perhaps not even this year. How is a completely separate problem, and it arrives much later than people think. If you focus on how too soon, you are unlikely to dream big enough. When you dream big, you will not yet know how to do it.

The second is permission. You do not need anyone’s permission. Not your family’s, your partner’s, your parents’, or a version of yourself from ten years ago who decided what was realistic for you. You are allowed to want things, even at this stage, in this season and with everything you are already carrying.

Here is what I would love you to do this week. It is small, and I mean it to be small. Answer the question once. Not the whole thing. Give one answer. Name one thing you want that has nothing to do with anybody else’s needs.

Perhaps say it aloud in the car. Write it on the back of an envelope or in your journal. Tell another person casually, in the way you might mention the weather. Then notice what happens in your body when you do.

There is often a little jolt, a sense of heat or perhaps discomfort. That feeling is information, and it is worth paying attention to.

I also want to tell you about something. At the time of recording, I am planning a free one-hour online workshop called Start Before You Are Ready for Tuesday 29 September 2026 at 7.00 pm. The whole hour is built around this question and gives it the time and space it deserves.

I will ask you a few questions, and you will write. There will be long silences, perhaps longer than feels comfortable, because that is where your answers can begin to surface.

By the end of the workshop, the intention is that you will have three dreams written in your own handwriting and one small thing you will do within the next twenty-four hours. You do not need a plan or an answer to how. Bring a pen and the workbook if it is provided, or simply use a piece of paper or a journal. You need one hour that belongs to nobody else but you.

If you are listening later, I run workshops regularly, so join the mailing list to hear about future sessions.

So, for your Monday, tell me: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? You do not have to answer all of it. Just answer some of it out loud this week.

Have a beautiful week. As always, I will be back on Friday with another episode.

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