Our resident life purpose expert Lillian is talking to Scott Dinsmore of Live Your Legend.
In this interview Scott tells his story of moving out of a meaningless job and into work that he loves. Plus he shares a technique that you can use for earning cash with what you already know. Its towards the end so watch the whole thing. You don’t want to miss this!
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Scott Dinsmore of Live Your Legend.
For the past few years I’ve dedicated a ridiculous amount of time to understanding the ever-elusive topic of passion.
Not only have I set out to understand what allows certain people to find their passions, but also what allows the seemingly rare few to convert that passion into a career or business. That’s the Holy Grail.
After hundreds of case studies, interviews and interactions with passionate people all over the world, I’ve come up with some pretty useful answers and tools to help get us there.
As it turns out, the results are not as complicated as you’d think.
Here is the foundation to get you started.
Four simple steps to finding and monetizing a passion:
1. Know yourself.
Knowing your passion (and having a chance at building a career around it) is directly proportional to how well you know yourself. Few people take the time to fully understand who they are and as a result most the world is lost.
What are your most important values? The emotions and experiences in life you are absolutely not willing to compromise on? What are you incredibly good at? What are your strengths (aka ‘superpowers’)? What natural talents do you possess and love using? What do people thank you for?
And finally, what is your definition of success? I’m not talking about what school, society or the corporate world has brainwashed you to think—that is not success. And it’s especially not success if you didn’t come up with it on your own. What really matters to you? If you were to look back on your life once it’s over, what do you want to be known for? Success is not about money and fame and status and prestige. Most people who believe it is, only do because they haven’t taken the time to understand their own true success. Identify and write down your own unique definition.
2. Get congruent.
Your values, talents and unique success are what I call your compass. With it you can guide yourself anywhere. Without it you’re lost. Once we have our compass calibrated, we can then begin to notice the things that come our way that turn us on – the things that make us come alive. We can not only notice them, but we can start to make them a part of our lives. When you begin to experience your values, talents and success on a daily basis, you are congruent. It’s this combination that creates and drives passion.
3. Apply it to the world.
Passion almost always comes back to helping others in a way that only you can by doing something you absolutely love. There are people everywhere who need help. All you have to do is start looking for them. For some reason we tend to put up these barriers that people will not be willing to pay us for the things we love doing. It kills our creativity before it even begins.
The truth is, people love nothing more than to pay a person for something they are incredible at.
Think of some of your favorite interactions with products and services. Did you like the salesman who tried to cram a car stereo down your throat or the one who could hardly breathe because he was so excited about the unbelievable technology and the way it allowed you to experience the art and sounds of the musicians?
We love working with people who are passionate about what they do. We tell our friends about those people. We buy again from those people. You can be one of those people. Think of the things people thank you for. The things you have helped people with in the past and the ones you know people need help with now. Go out and find a few people who need help. Coach or consult them one-on-one or use a service like Traindom to offer virtual courses and seminars. The ways to monetize a passion are endless, once you realize it’s possible. Find the people who need your help the most. Do that and getting paid won’t be a problem.
4. Realize you’re already an expert.
‘But there are so many people more talented that I am out there – I’m not qualified enough!’ you scream back. Experience and expertise are likely the biggest limiting beliefs keeping people from making money from what they love. The word expert is totally relative and based largely on perception. If people perceive you to be an expert and you can genuinely help them with something, that’s all the expertise you need.
Sure, there are people better than you at your given passion. There always will be. That’s life. But there are also plenty more people who are much worse off in your area of interest. I bet you could dramatically help them without even rolling out of bed. Start with those people. As it turns out, many of the top ‘experts’ in the world have very little formal education. Take Tony Robbins who’s considered one of the world’s top psychologists, yet he’s never gotten a formal degree in the subject. Instead, he took to experiential learning and as a result he is more effective in helping people achieve positive change than most anyone.
Thinking you need more qualifications and experience is usually just an excuse for in action. Recognize it and then start getting paid to help people. You’re already an expert, you just might not know it yet. Start acting like it.
Change your psychology, live off your passion
As with most things in life, the biggest barrier to living off your passion comes down to your psychology. Realize you have skills, tools and interests that people would pay you for right this second if you asked for it.
Understand who you are, notice how to help people in a way only you can and trading your passions for money will start to become a lot less difficult. Before long it will become a way of life.
Scott Dinsmore is the founder of Live Your Legend, where he writes and helps people discover passion & purpose and do work they love. He is also the author of Live Off Your Passion: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Passion and Getting Paid to Do Work You Love. Check out his latest articles or download his free Epic Work Toolkit.
Jane wakes up out of bed, hits snooze too many times, goes through the motions of getting ready for work, feels herself dragging as usual and says to herself-“Is this all there is in life?” She never intended to feel so unmotivated but has somehow found herself wanting something different, more meaningful.
If you have asked yourself this question and feel the way Jane does every day, you may need to consider a change. While change can be scary for many people, changing the way we do things each day is the only way to begin leading a purposeful life.
Many people believe that life purpose is a project. That it is a hard thing to find in the noise of the world. In a way it is. The distraction of technology is endless, and not living the rat race can leave you feeling abnormal or unaccomplished.
If you wake up everyday and realize you have a hollow feeling inside that is not getting fulfilled from a relationship, job, your health or business, you may feel lost. Let’s face it there is no big sign on the road that says “ Find your life purpose here,” otherwise I think there could be a longer line there than at Starbucks.
There is nothing more telling than that hollow or lost feeling inside, so welcome it in and allow it a voice. It is there to tell you to listen to who you really are and what you want. The good news is you are born with a purpose or a calling. No one can take it away from you and we all have the ability to connect with it. Consider it misplaced, not lost.
There are many positive ways to look at this. It allows you to go on an adventure, relearn what you really like. When you begin to look for your life purpose, lean into it rather than force yourself, because that will only lead you back into a hollow life.
What do I mean by lean?
Like my friend and mentor Martha Beck taught me, just start by noticing what makes you feel good; those heartfelt moments, what attracts you and where that comes from in that moment.
Sometimes we would like this process to move quickly because we don’t like the way we feel when we go through such shaky grounds. Look at it as recreating a new foundation for yourself; like a blank canvas that needs new paint. Be kind to yourself and give yourself gentle nudges, rather than paying attention to the sergeant like voice in your head that says you are moving too slow. You will eventually build momentum to map out some directions for yourself, but first you have to start.
Here are three steps to help you lean into life’s purpose.
1-Connect with simple joys
There is no cookie cutter recipe to help you describe what a simple joy is for you. You want to connect with what you consider pleasurable because it brings a sense of connection to your true self.
When searching for purpose, we don’t realize a lot of that has to do with remembering what brings you happiness. For me, it’s a great cup of coffee. For others it could be running. For some it’s a sunset or the beach, perhaps it’s free time for others, reading a book or never paying attention to the time. You get my drift.
This is part of leaning into your true likes and pleasures and cutting out things or activities that inundate your daily life and have no meaning.
So how do you know if it is real joy? You will know it because you will feel it; that physical and emotional peace. This is a key exercise to consider because it is important to build a foundation of truth from your basic pleasures of life.
2 – Use guided imagery to articulate your true purpose.
We all get hijacked by our left brain because that is the verbal section of our minds that wants to quickly label our next venture.
To prevent this from happening use guided imagery because it is a creative process that triggers right brain activity. When you can’t articulate what you want your soul speaks through images. Begin collecting images or words you are attracted to. You can use magazines, newspapers, and articles, and then cut out or stick on a board. Here is the key – no judging, censoring or editing yourself. This is a creative exercise, so allow yourself to free flow and have fun with it. The results will give you some guidance and clues when you can’t articulate what you want.
3 – Don’t chase it. It’s about meaning.
Like the coyote and the roadrunner – don’t waste your energy chasing it. Know what has meaning for you and only you. Don’t chase a meaningless life because that is what everyone else wants or because that is what you think you should want. Meaning is the substance to a purposeful life.
Lost? Try this. Set aside a shelf, table or other space that can be just for you. Now start collecting photos or objects from your life that have had meaning to you in the past. Perhaps that includes your college diploma, your grandmothers jade ring that has been around for generations, or even an award or trophy from a childhood moment.
While we can look for meaning outside ourselves, it can only be defined through your own definition or an experience.
Hopefully, Jane will follow your lead and walk through the above steps so that she can realize what gives her a peaceful connection, as well as identify clues from her vision board on what purpose and meaning is for her. Leaning into a purposeful life is less stressful, and these small steps matter because you are consciously present through the process. Once you know, it is easy to align your purpose with people, activities, jobs, and things that matter to you.
You will have paint on your canvas before you know it and it will be meaningful because you decided that for yourself when you were lost.
Ned Rios is a certified life coach that empowers professionals to connect with their strengths and passions in order to maximize their individual performance.
She was personally trained and certified with Dr. Martha Beck, best selling author, columnist for O magazine. Ned has co-authored a book called Changes of the Heart –Align your personal strengths to find your purpose at Amazon.com.
Download her audio “8 ways to revive your career or business” for free and get started www.nedrios.com
It takes something to rebuild your confidence. But that doesn’t mean you need to sit around waiting until you feel sure of yourself before you get anything done.
In this mini course I cover how the upcoming webinar is going to help you re-become a confident person…. and what you can do today to move towards your dreams, even if you have no confidence at all!
After you watch this video be sure to click the link below and register for the confidence seminar!
Think that some people naturally have confidence and others just don’t?
That is not true! Everyone is born with confidence. Throughout our lives some people lose the confidence while others continue to trust themselves and therefor have greater success.
This video course teaches about how you lost your confidence and how you can be confident again, immediately.
This course will give you 3 really simple techniques to change the way you feel about yourself.
Be sure to watch until the end because I have a special gift for you!
And last but not least this course teaches how confidence creates success.
There are times we have to make a choice in a stressful decision that on the outside, looks very wrong. Sometimes the best choice in a decision is the one we know will bring peace only for ourselves, in spite of outside pressure to conform. How do we know it’s the right decision, and why is it so *$#%! hard!?
There was a time I became severely stressed trying to keep the home I left behind in a divorce out of foreclosure. Because both my ex and I were on the mortgage, we had to agree on every decision, forcing me into the very same dynamics that led to our separation.
I became the fixer, the responsible one always doing things right, (a familiar, tiring role I had often confused as my life’s purpose) while he, bless his little heart, continued to muck it up in any way he could.
As each new problem came up with the house and I continued to struggle with the failed system, it felt like there was an internal black hole draining my joy, making me sick with fatigue and pain.
Then one day, I made the decision to stop doing the right thing. I realized my involvement with the house was making me sick, and when I thought about letting it go, I felt tremendous peace. I knew it was time not only to stop my involvement with the ex, but also to “break up” with the realtor and the mortgage company. I called them all that day, and told them all I was done.
I knew I had done the right thing that looked so wrong to everyone else when after my decision and my phone calls, I had a feeling of relief and peace so strong it made me lightheaded!
The Social Self and the Essential Self
We’ve been taught from birth to conform to behaviors that fit us in with our family, culture and society. Martha Beck, in her book Finding Your Own North Star, calls this our Social Self, which has it’s counterpart, the Essential Self.
Most of the time we run our Social Self programing without questioning, starting with simple rules such as table manners, then evolving to include complex belief systems we must follow to gain approval. Because we’ve learned early on our Social Self pleases our caretakers, our very means of survival, we become identified with our Social Self at a very primal level, and our deepest fears can arise if we try to challenge it.
Our Essential Self on the other hand is our true, core self, the self we are born with, which includes personality traits, deepest desires, likes, dislikes, and genetics. The Essential Self knows exactly how to be happy and our life’s purpose here.
Our Essential Self comes into this world as our pure joyful self, then learns to put on the Social Self that navigates our world, small and large.
This arrangement works fine when our Social Self and Essential Self agree on our life’s purpose, but if not, we can end up with stress, insomnia, and other complaints, or worse, a crisis we can’t ignore.
Notice some differences between the Social Self and Essential Self:
The Social Self
Seeks approval and fitting in
Conforms
Desires safety
Knows what makes everyone else happy
Navigates the outside world
The Essential Self
Seeks personal freedom
Creates new ways of doing things
Desires being true to itself
Knows how to find deep happiness and peace
Navigates the inner world
Conformity Vs. Peace, How to Decide
While our Social Self is busy figuring out how to conform, we may be ignoring signals pointing us in different direction, toward our very life’s purpose. In her book mentioned above, Martha Beck calls these signals the Body Compass; body signals that tell us the truth. Gut feelings and intuitions are very real examples of these signals, and tuning into them is one way to decide which way to go.
Finding and refining the Body Compass can be explored more deeply, but to start, try sitting for a few minutes with a decision, setting aside any confusing thoughts, and tune into sensations coming up in the body. Everyone has a unique set of signals, separate from fear or other strong emotions, that give a yes or a no answer. For some, a bad decision feels like a tightening in the gut combined with burning in the shoulders. For others it might be a tingling somewhere in the body, like Spiderman’s spidey sense. A good decision may feel like a warmness in the face, or a light feeling in the body.
Learning to trust those signals, in spite of outside pressure to conform, can lead us in the right direction. It may look foggy ahead, but consistently following those signals, like a compass on a dark night, can lead us home to our life’s purpose. Of course it takes some courage to challenge the Social Self, especially if the social selves of people around us are busy trying to prevent us from making a decision that would upset their own status quo!
I’ve never regretted trusting the clear internal signals that guided me to preserve my health and joy. There are times that trust in ourselves is the only available option to find peace, and the right choice is the one that brings peace only to ourselves. The choice that looks so wrong to the world may be, in fact, the one most necessary for our soul!
Mary Ellen Telesha is a Certified Martha Beck Life Coach and founder of Pure Light Coaching. She works with women who are tired of stress, fatigue and relationship pain and who just want to FEEL BETTER.
With increasing numbers of women burning out from juggling relationships, family and work stress, she helps women figure out their own personal stress dynamics, explores ideas that can help them get free from the struggle, and creates a personal plan to increase joy and rest in their lives. Find her at Purelightcoaching.com for a complimentary discovery session.
This has been my world…
My destiny has always been my own. Since I was a child I have pondered what I would do with my life. I have asked my self the one question over and over and over again feeling unsure and insecure at times but always knowing that no matter what I did I would be safe and it would be my choice.
I have had 16 years of formal education and extensive professional training. I have started my own business and because of all of this I am able to support my family and make a difference in the world.
This is not the world of the 600 million adolescent girls growing up in poverty. At age 12 they are frequently considered adults, ready to dedicate their lives to husbands and children. Uneducated, and without medical care many die in childbirth while many others are beaten, rapped or forced into prostitution.This creates a cycle of poverty, children raised by impoverished uneducated woman, are much more likely to grow up to be impoverished and uneducated adults.
But when this cycle is interrupted, the girl gets educated, creates a business, marries as an adult and bears children when she is able to support them. She is able to bring her family and future generations out of poverty. This is The Girl Effect mission.
Watch this video to learn more:
Life Purpose isn’t just about doing what you love and what you are good at. It is also about contributing something to others. The Girl Effect has created an amazing opportunity to not only contribute to these girls lives but to have an incredible impact on poverty worldwide.
I know that because I grew up in the world that I did. I have an amazing opportunity to contribute so for the next week 30% of all Simple Life Purpose sales will go to The Girl Effect.
If you would like to celebrate the freedom you have to create your own destiny while changing the destiny of adolescent girls …
There are also many other ways to contribute to The Girl Effect:
xoxo
Lillian
You meet someone. It’s love at first sight. You fall hard. You can see your whole future unraveling before you. Everything is perfect. Then after a while the magic of newness wears off. The spark fizzles. You are bored. You have complaints. It starts being work instead of love… Does this sound like you? Does this sound like you in your career?
One of our reader’s asked me:
How can I determine what I want to do with my life, if I cannot sustain my interest in anything?
This is a common problem because we have a silly romanticized vision of life purpose. The same way we have unrealistic, Hollywood expectations of love. Lets dispel these romantic myths once and for all…
Myth 1. Love at first sight:
Not saying it never happens in romance or in work but I think for most of us the love grows over time. Just because a career path doesn’t make your heart skip a beat doesn’t mean that it isn’t the right path for you.
Solution: Do some homework. Research and talk to people in the fields that you are interested in. Look before you leap!
Myth 2. True Love is perfect: 
When you find your purpose you will still have problems. There are parts of any job that are not super duper fun! If you turn away from a career path the first tedious moment you could be walking out on something wonderful.
Solution: Expect to have moments of drudgery. Dive into them with conviction, knowing that all your hard work will bear fruit.
3. There is only one true love: There are parts of yourself that need to be expressed. You will find a fulfilling career where your passions and your talents overlap and create something valuable to someone else. There might be many different fields that have all three components
Solution: At some point its better to just pick. Indecision, does terrible things to your mojo. Choose wisely and commit. Know that as long as you are sharing what you have got you are living your life purpose.
4. They MAKE you happy: Happiness comes from inside yourself it is not given to you by another person or by a job. If you are unhappy no job is going to fix it for you.
Solution: Cultivate happiness inside yourself through personal development, spiritual practice and by being good to others. The happiness from within you will infiltrate your work.
5. True Love is forever: You are going to grow and change and what was a perfect fit before might not always be a perfect fit.
Solution: Innovate! Create work and choose jobs that fit not only who you are today but who you want to be. Expect that you will need to adjust your career path. When it is clear that the career is no longer serving you dump it.
Thank you so much for your questions! I wish you all happily ever afters!
Lovingly
Lillian
You might think you are all grown up and mature but I am willing to bet that you, like most people, operate pretty much the same as you did when you were 7 years old.
Children under the age of 7 have have little or no Beta brain waves, i.e. they aren’t fully conscious. Children learn and grow in a dream like state of Alpha and Theta brain waves until they are 7, when they begin to have more logical thinking. During these first years so many of habits are formed, in fact most of your identity is put into place while you are in this semi conscious stage of life. You transition from being a little screaming, joyful ball of possibility into a person with his own way of doing things but all of these habits are formed before you are fully conscious.
That is why trying to change yourself through logic doesn’t work. You know that you have this deadline but still you procrastinate. You know you would be happier if you get off your butt and exercised but still you sit. That is because these habits are stored in a subconscious part of you. This is the part of yourself that needs to be motivated and this is the part of yourself that I refer to as the inner child.
One of our readers sent in a question asking: “Why can’t I get motivated? Do I accept myself too much?”
To be motivated you have to motivate your inner child. Your inner child is motivated by the same things that would motivate any other child. Positive attention is the number one motivator and acceptance is a form of positive attention. So there is no way to accept yourself too much.
Acceptance creates relaxation, this actually helps you to be more productive, think logically and creatively, multitask, and communicate. Feeling at peace with yourself is a very, very good thing. It is good for your health, for your finances, your relationships and for all the people around you. I think that if your purpose was just to accept yourself that right their would be a big accomplishment and a big contribution to the planet.
There are three very practical ways to give yourself positive attention to motivate your inner child… but first lets look at what you might be doing to unmotivate your inner child.
These are the 3 most common mistake people make when trying to motivate their inner child. These are all forms of negative attention. They take valuable energy away from doing what you really want and they lock the bad habit in place by creating internal resistance. When you have an internal conflict it is very difficult to change because your energy, focus, and intentions are pushing you in opposite directions.
1. Arguing
Trying to convince yourself to do something you don’t want to do doesn’t work. It is like arguing with a 5 year old. Its a waste of energy, resulting in you feeling stupid for not doing what you know you should do. If you feel really frustrated with yourself this is a sign that you have an internal argument happening.
2. Punishing
As adults the main way we punish ourselves is by talking smack about ourselves in our heads. Negative self talk is the
adult version of punishment and it only affirms negative beliefs about
ourselves. This will keep you from taking on challenges because you
can’t believe in your own success. If you find yourself afraid to take action you have probably been punishing yourself.
3. Guilt tripping
Most of us learn, during those formative years, that if you do something “bad” or you don’t do something “good” you are suppose to feel guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are replacements for taking responsibility. You feel really bad and that is good enough, there is no need to correct the situation. Guilt, like all lousy emotions drains your energy. Less energy = less motivation. If you are avoiding things it’s a good indicator that you have been guilt tripping yourself.
These are all forms of negative attention. They take valuable energy away from doing what you really want and they lock the bad habit in place by creating internal resistance. When you have an internal conflict it is very difficult to change because your energy, focus, and intentions are pushing you in opposite directions.
This is how you you can successfully motivate your inner child:
1. Acknowledge your accomplishments
So you didn’t do it all and you didn’t do it perfectly. What have you done? Write yourself a Resume’ just for you. What have you done that you are proud of? Write down everything from your 4th grade spelling B to that awesome dinner you cooked. From being on the deans list to the last big promotion. You can make it for a specific area of your life. Maybe you want to write down everything you have done well in your marriage, or for your house. Or make it general. Whatever is going to make you most proud of yourself.
BTW: This is a great way to get to self acceptance!
2. Make it Fun
Can you turn your task into a game? Play some music, or do some jumping jacks. Get yourself psyched up to finally clean out your inbox or send in an application. Notice what you do enjoy about this task. Or why you even have this task. Sometimes when I am Joy gives you energy. It will make the work you do more enjoyable for everyone else. Positivity breeds more positivity. By making your work fun you create a positive feedback loop.
I spent a semester of college in Hawaii and racked up a pretty little debt for myself. Every month when it is time to pay that off I give some gratitude for having that credit line that allowed me to have that awesome 5 months.
3. Reward Yourself
Break up whatever it is you are motivating yourself to do into a task that you absolutely know that you will accomplish. If you are starting to run every morning just run to the mailbox and back. Don’t even put on your shoes. Then reward yourself with praise, or a small treat. Each day build on that small task.
Do you have a different way of motivating your inner child? Share it below!
xoxo
Lillian
Image Credits stephaniemezcurra, redvelvettears
Dr. Brad Swift is one of the foremost experts on the subject of personal life purpose, having co-founded the Life On Purpose Institute in 1996 with his wife, Ann.
An avid student of the human development movement and New Thought, he specializes in life purpose coaching with individuals and groups.
For the past two decades Dr. Swift has been conducting an experiment. Is it possible to create a new context for life that is “divinely inspired” and true to his deepest values, his sense of what’s possible, and true to his soul and spirit? If it is possible, what will be the results? Will it enhance life? Will he experience a true sense of purpose and meaning? Will he know at the end of the experiment that his life has mattered? Says Dr. Swift, “So far, I’m positive and pleased with the experiment’s results.”
Here’s an interview we conducted with Dr. Swift.
Over the past 16+ years you have been a Life On Purpose Coach you’ve discovered that there are at least four major obstacles that keep many people from living on purpose. What is the first one?
The first obstacle that continues to prevent many people from living a life on purpose is that they’re not even asking the question, “What is my life purpose?” Now, the good news is that more and more people are starting to ask this question, and I think this is particularly true since the terrorist attack of 9/11, just over ten years ago. It appears to have awakened a lot of people to the fragility of life and the importance of knowing your true purpose in living. The other piece of good news is that if you’re reading this blog interview, you’ve almost certainly moved beyond this obstacle, so congratulation.
What is the second one?
Once people start asking the question, “What is my life purpose?” the next place they can get stopped, and a very common place to stay stuck for years, even decades is misidentifying what a life purpose actually is. You see, from the Life On Purpose Perspective, we’re now evolving a whole new way to relate to and think of life purpose. For many people, even today, if you ask them what do they consider a life purpose to be, the common thread of those answers would be this: “A life purpose is what I’m here to DO.”
And when you start with that definition as most people do, then when you get to the next question, “What is my life purpose?” they often misidentify their life purpose as their job, career or profession. In fact, that’s exactly what I did first time around. If anyone had asked me from about the age of seven to thirty-seven whether I knew my life purpose and if so, what was it, my reply would have been, “I sure do, and it’s to practice veterinary medicine.”
Another erroneous direction people can head down when they’re operating from this old “cultural perspective” that a life purpose is all about doing is to think that some primary role is their life purpose, like to be a good mother, parent, or provider. While all of these are important they simply aren’t a life purpose. After all, if you stop and think about it, shouldn’t your life purpose incorporate ALL of your life, not just some portions of it?
So, the Life On Purpose Perspective offers another, more holistic definition that goes like this:
A persons life purpose is the context, vessel or container into which you pour your life.
It’s more about who you are as a spiritual being and what you came to this life to be and to experience. When you “pour” your life into a clearly articulated life purpose, that life purpose has the power to shape and form ALL of your life. So, from this perspective, it’s possible to be living and experiencing your life purpose each and every moment of your life as you go about doing whatever your do. In fact, what you do becomes the various ways you’ve chosen to express your true purpose.
What’s the third obstacle?
The third obstacle is one of the most common as well as most pervasive and easiest to get stuck in. It’s fear and lack-based thinking. Again, the Life On Purpose Perspective suggests that we have not one, but two purposes, in the sense that we have two powerful forces in our life that can shape our lives and our experiences. One is your true, or as I like to call it, your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose, because that term helps me to remember that my true purpose is based in and arises from Universal Love, or my relationship with God or a Higher Power, or my spiritual life.
But we also have an Inherited Purpose that is based in fear, lack and a need to struggle to make it which often leads to a whole lot of unnecessary suffering. This is the lie that we’ve been telling ourselves since early childhood about ourselves and about life for so long that we’ve come to believe it to be true…and it’s not. But when the Inherited Purpose is “running the show” it sure feels true, and it can keep you stuck in survival as well as keeping you from knowing your true purpose. In fact, it’s also quite good at keeping you from living true to your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose unless you’ve done the work to uncover it.
You see, each of us has a unique Inherited Purpose of our own. While it’s somewhat valuable to know that part of being a human being is to have an Inherited Purpose, it’s far more valuable to know specifically what yours is. Then you can be much more effective at noticing when it begins to shape your life. You can then choose whether to have it continue to shape your life or choose to have your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose shape your life instead. I refer to this process as “Purposefully Pivoting” and it’s one of the most valuable of the sixteen Tools for Living On Purpose.
For example, my Inherited Purpose is “I must be smart and know all the answer, and I must work really hard so I won’t be poor and so people won’t leave me.” It was this Inherited Purpose that shaped much of my life to the point at around thirty-seven I was so turned off by life and so burned out as a vet that I seriously contemplated suicide. That’s how powerful the Inherited Purpose can be, especially when it’s allowed to operate in the background of our awareness.
Now today, I have the choice to have it shape my life or I can choose my Divinely Inspired Life Purpose which is: To live an inspired, inspiring and courageous life of purposeful, passionate, and playful service, a life of mindful abundance balanced with simplicity, and a life of spiritual serenity. It’s a whole lot more fun allowing my true purpose to shape my life, as well as being much fulfilling.
What’s the fourth obstacle that keeps people from knowing their purpose?
Well, let’s say someone has started to ask the question, “What is my life purpose?” And maybe they do really see that a life purpose is more about who they are as a spiritual being and what they came to life to be and to experience. And maybe they also realize to keep on the lookout for the fear, lack and struggle of the Inherited Purpose. What’s still left is the question, “But how do I go about clarifying my true purpose?”
Many people are missing a process for doing that, and are then left with the good ol’ “trial and error” approach. And truthfully, trial and error can work. The problem is that it can take thirty, forty, fifty, or more years. Recognizing this over fifteen years ago, I started asking some questions of my Divine Guidance. Questions like, “Does it really need to take us so long to finally get clear about our true purpose? Isn’t there some way to shorten the learning curve?” From those questions emerged the Life On Purpose Process that we’ve been so fortunate to be able to not only apply to our own lives here at Life On Purpose Institute but also to share with thousands of others through the years.
So, once someone finally does the work to become ‘crystal clear’ about their life purpose, is that it? Do we then live ‘happily ever after?’
Why of course. Seriously though, I have found that when people really embrace this Life On Purpose Perspective, when they take the time to clarify their true purpose, uncover their Inherited Purpose, and then use the Tools for Living On Purpose to design their life to be a true and authentic reflection of that purpose, the quality of their lives is greatly enhanced.
Does this mean you’ll never have an off day. No. Does it mean you won’t need to stay stuck in the fear, lack and struggle of the Inherited Purpose nearly as often or as long? Absolutely.
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