Are you willing to turn your vocation into your vacation?
Avoid the tendency of over-romanticizing the notion of discovering and living your true life purpose. Discovering your purpose is seldom, if ever, accompanied by a drum roll and fanfare, it is just a deep knowing, a feeling of understanding and contentment. Your life purpose is something you have always known, it may have remained hidden from your awareness or conscious mind, because you have allowed all the pressures brought to bear by society, to conform to their norms, to distract you. This is further compounded by your efforts to satisfy the expectations of others to have, do and be something you are not. Invest time and effort into discovering what you really love doing. Once you have discovered your true calling or your purpose in life, you have discovered the secret to living a fulfilled life of meaning, always doing what you love.
When you are living on Purpose, everything will fall into place, you will be doing what you love to do, doing what you are good at and accomplishing what is really important to you. You will have a basis for making all your major decisions, for setting and achieving all your life goals, and for having the insight to choose between all the opportunities that may come your way. Once you have a clear picture of what your true life purpose is, you have a tool to help you to only pursue opportunities that will help you live your purpose.
Finding and clearly stating your True Life Purpose will not only get you to where you want to be, but will make the journey you will travel far more fulfilling and enjoyable. Your greatest challenge right now is to discover how to best use your natural talents, resources and abilities so that they serve your highest cause for you, your family and the world as a whole.
When you are living Your True Life Purpose, everything needed, gravitates toward you and living your dreams becomes as natural as breathing in and out.
You spend a lot of time each week engaged in “WORK” related activities. If you are like the majority of people out there, you have not yet discovered your true life purpose, you feel discontentment about what you do and you wake up every day wishing your life away, wondering how you are going to get through your day. You feel like you are living a wasted life filled with pain and misery.
You can easily change this, if you make the choice to uncover your purpose and gradually commit to make the changes necessary to transform your life, so that, over time you are able to align your vocation with your true life purpose. After making this shift, there is no longer any distinction between work and life. You no longer live a dual existence, where your work life and non-work life are totally separate. This shift will allow you to spend most of your time doing what you love. This is how you turn your vocation into a lifelong vacation.
When you are living on Purpose, everything will fall into place, you will be doing what you love to do, doing what you are good at and accomplishing what is really important to you. You will have a basis for making all your major decisions, for setting and achieving all your life goals, and for having the insight to choose between opportunities and only pursuing the opportunities that will help you live your purpose.
Finding and clearly stating your True Life Purpose will not only get you to where you want to be, but will make the journey getting there really enjoyable. Your greatest challenge right now is to discover how to best use your natural talents, resources and abilities so that they serve your highest cause for you, your family and the world as a whole. Invest the time into exploring what you really want and value – discover your true life purpose.
Action Idea: Sit or lie quietly and turn down the volume on all the noise that is going on in your head. Relax and breathe deeply, shift your concentration onto your breathing, put all your concentration onto your breathe as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Feel the cold breathe as it enters your nostrils, hold the air in your lungs for a second and then exhale, now place all your concentration onto your warm breathe as it leaves your nostrils. Just lie and relax and repeat this for about five minutes.
In this relaxed state, ask yourself this question: “If I were provided with everything I wanted and needed to release my full potential and achieve my highest vision, what would my purpose be”? Remain relaxed, concentrating on your breathing and remember all the answers that come into your mind. After completing the exercise record all your answers. Explore all the answers and discover the one that resonates with you and just feels right. It will be the one answer that is aligned with only positive emotions and makes you feel content.
Now all that is left to do is to convert this answer into a statement that clearly defines your true life purpose. When you explore your True Life Purpose statement, does it feel like a perfect fit? Does it feel like you have listened to your inner voice, does it feel and sound perfect, does it resonate with your very essence, have you discovered your True Life Purpose?
Making the shift
After discovering and describing your true life purpose you must now begin the process to map out a plan, describing how you will begin making the transition from where you are to where you want your life to go. What skills and knowledge do you need to acquire and what changes do you need to make, which will allow you to move your life from where it is right now, to a place where you love what you do.
After discovering your purpose and building a plan to move your life in that direction, you then have something to aim for. Now you can shift your thinking away from the idea of “how can I get through my day” and start looking at everything that is going on in your life as an integral part of the journey, everything is now “on the way” to living your vision. Everything that crosses your path from that moment on, is no longer in your way, it is on your way and is making you better or stronger, moving you one step closer to the vocation you desire.
Always remember that every business, job, or productive project, even though it is aligned with your purpose, may still have difficulties and challenges. The secret to becoming a super achiever and making this work for you is to persevere, expect challenge and to believe that you can overcome everything that crosses your path.
When you accept that challenges are all part of the process and that they are just another aspect of the journey, you are able to readily overcome anything that may come your way and you readily feel exhilarated and fulfilled by everything in your life.
Once you have discovered your unique advantage in life and are living the life you were designed to live, you’ll wake up every day filled with energy and passion for your day and you’ll end every day full of drive and joy. Now is the time to go out and live the life you deserve. What are you waiting for?
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za
Andrew is an expert and master teacher that speaks and teaches self-leadership, expanded awareness, effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. He guides individuals and business professionals, to identify, prioritise and carry out the right activities, consistently, so that they can maximise their personal effectiveness and deliver their best; on time, every time. All the tools and techniques Andrew teaches; have been tested in the laboratory of his own life and the many successful businesses he has owned and led, over the past 20 years. These strategies have seen Andrew achieve financial independence and reach a point of harmonious balance in all areas of his life. His purpose is to help as many people as possible, achieve similar or better results and to show them how they can realise their full potential, both personal and professionally and to help them live a meaningful life, where they are fulfilled in all areas. http://www.andrewhorton.co.za