How to Discover Your Purpose
With 2018 coming to a close and a new year to come, it never hurts to think about what you desire in the new and how to spread your unique gift out in the world. Yes, you have one, we all do. Don’t doubt it.
So, why are we here?
What’s the purpose? What’s your purpose?
What are you here to do?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I did appreciate the below statement that speaks to them.
“We are here to help people. We are here to learn how to grow in wisdom. We are here to heal ourselves and others. We are here to help birth peace in the world. We are here to love and be loved. We are here to radiate kindness…..or hope…or happiness.”
-Katherine Woodward Thomas
Each of us will deliver our gifts and experience this life differently. We each play a unique role and spread our purpose or “calling” to this world in our own individual way.
Sometimes the roles we play via the job title we hold is in alignment with the greater mission we have for this life, and sometimes it isn’t. This calling or purpose isn’t always reflected in what your work for monetary purposes is. For some of us our career path and soul calling merges and for others of us it shows up as two different things. Either works.
I will go a step further and say that if you can tap into your true authenticity and bring it to your current daily role, whatever it may be, you will find your way to your bigger purpose. I believe that consistently revealing your authenticity will carve the pathway to your bigger purpose. This bigger purpose or “soul calling” isn’t necessarily fancy. I think many of us get caught in thinking that it needs to be, which it does not. It just has to be rooted in truth and, most importantly, your truth.
For some of us this soul calling might bring us grand attention and for others of us this calling may not be so obvious to others. It actually doesn't matter. What matters is that you’re doing what feels true to you, regardless of what the image of your role reflects to the outer world. What matters is how you feel in the role you’re playing and being.
How can we tap into our calling?
“Discovering our soul’s purpose is rarely an event, although epiphanies do happen. More often than not, it’s a process that requires patience and perseverance. In order to discover it, you’ll want to pay attention to what stirs your passion, lights you up, and just comes naturally. When you are living inside your souls purpose, you are often in flow. You’re not that concerned about how much money you are, or are not, making. You feel alive, useful, of service and a part of all that is.”
-Katherine Woodward Thomas
What’s that thing that you do where time stops and you get lost in the moment of engagement? What’s that thing that you always think about doing, but seem to find a reason why you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” do it now?
Friends……that’s exactly where you should look.
Begin this journey of finding your souls calling by following and engaging in the things that make you feel uncomfortable. That thing that you can’t figure out or imagine, yet desire. I suppose I’m encouraging you to go toward The Dream, your dream.
What’s your dream? What do you want? What are you drawn toward?
Begin by looking deeper into these questions. Begin by seeking your own answers to these questions.
Take notice of what you talk about doing and evaluate if it matches what you’re actually doing.
When we’re operating in alignment with our truth and bigger calling, what we say we’re going to do and what we actually do are congruent, meaning it’s in alignment. We all know the talker that “some day” will do “all the things.” We might also know the person who talks and, soon enough, does what they say.
We trust the person whose words matches their actions.
When it all comes down to it, it’s just a clear decision that deciphers these two ways of living in the world. It’s a choice to live in a way where you do what you say.
We hear this all the time: Go toward what scares you. Go toward your fear. The true adventurer and seeker is the person that actually goes toward the fear. Limitless possibilities will appear for the person who is willing to tolerate the discomfort that it takes to go beyond fear. Even if you make it beyond the fear, there’s still timing at play. Good things can take time. Things don’t always look as we expect them too. ( Isn’t this the truth.) Yet, being brave enough to push fear aside and continue on will reward you; I just can’t tell you when or how.
“Each one of us enters this world called to fulfill a particular destiny. For many of us, this calling lies just beyond our conscious awareness, and often, beckons us with a sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction.”
-Katherine Woodward Thomas
Your true calling can only be ignored for so long. Eventually the resistance of acknowledging it’s presence will become too loud and uncomfortable to ignore. As much as this can be a frustrating experience, your emotions are present to push you toward the role you’re here to play and BE.
Allow the discomfort to push you and trust that life is happening in your favor, even though it might not look or feel like it at times.
Cheers to a new year coming…….
*Blog image by photographer, Amy Lynn Bjornson