The five steps required to live your life on purpose

Finding your purpose, life dreams, what do you want to be when you grow up, what should you do with your life, how to live on purpose, what is your calling, what to do with your life next. 

We can phrase it many ways but it all comes down to owning what YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE and FEEL LIKE. 

 

But why is this so hard for us?

Why are we, as adult women, asking these questions? Shouldn’t we know by now?

I know it was hard for me because I didn’t see I had control over this. I wasn’t taking the driver’s seat to my own life. I had lived my life reacting to my days, doing what was culturally expected of me, not really asking any questions. 

Then I was hit with this realization that I could hit reset on it. I could live in a different way. I could set out my OWN path. 

Then….blank……

 

So, what would my own path be?

 

And once I dug into that….

 

how would I make this all happen??? 

 

I had to face this question and get messy with the process of changing my current default life into the one I WANTED. It was long and hard and SO SO WORTH IT.

Friends, knowing what you want and living it into action is a PROCESS. Your whole life may have been on autopilot and it takes practice and time and commitment to re-route your thoughts, your heart and your actions. 

This process has five steps:

  1. Figuring your own self out 

I started this by decluttering my home and coming face to face with the false identities I was building up. I see how I wasn’t sure about who I really was. Or I was covering up that part of me with other identities.

I thought I *should* own skiis because I lived somewhere with lots of snow (I don’t like skiing). I thought I *should* keep these books I never read but probably should so I can seem knowledgable. I thought I *should* have seven styles of white shirts so I could be a fashion chameleon who always fit in with whatever crowd I was with.

I had to give myself permission to be someone who does simply not enjoy certain hobbies or decor or activities. For instance, you can be someone who says “I have no interest in beach volleyball, or scrapbooking, or pickling asparagus.” You are allowed! 

Figuring yourself out means stripping away the layers you have built up. It is getting really honest with yourself and listening closer to yourself and your own preferences. It is letting people think you are weird or whatever. But it is you being the closest version to the woman you ARE instead of the woman you try to portray. 

 

  1. Listening closely to the desires and dreams you have. 

Over the years,  I see that we have a problem giving ourselves permission to have desires and dreams. 

We don’t generate it in ourselves. 

  • We don’t make room to dream and play.
  • We are putting judgements or labels on what we desire. For instance, we feel frivolous or selfish trying new hobbies or being creative in little ways.
  • We might have been burnt in the past and aren’t open to doing it again.
  • We don’t have enough experience listening close to ourselves so we don’t trust that voice within. 
  • We are afraid we will look stupid or ‘fail’.
  • We don’t feel qualified. We think others can chase dreams but for some reason, we aren’t qualified. 
  • We look to others to give us permission to do it. Maybe we spend a lot of our life waiting to be called up to the plate. 
  • We are just so overwhelmed with the season of life that we are in that we just don’t know how to even make it possible!

What reasons stop you from tapping into your own dreams?

I am preaching! LISTEN TO YOUR HEART FELLOW WOMEN! And I don’t just mean for those big giant dreamy ideas you have of trailing across the country with your family in an RV. I mean listening on the daily to WHAT YOU WANT. What do you want today? To get outside? A hug? A call with a friend?

A lesson I have learned the hard way: when I don’t listen to myself, nobody else really listens to me either.

 


 

​

Sign up to for the free worksheets that help you uncover the vision you have for the nine areas of your life

 

Subscribe

We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
Built with ConvertKit

  1. Declaring what you want out loud 

One of the scariest parts is saying out loud what you want.

It means claiming it for your own despite what others think (Is it silly? Selfish? Wrong?).

There is also the thought that now others will be watching your follow-through – you have been set up some accountability and you probably won’t like it. 

 

  1. Fighting for it 

Once we say out loud what we want our brain raises all the red flags about what could go wrong. Like an animal who is finally set free but they are frozen at the open gate. We scramble for a way out of this commitment.

So often, we anticipate those uncomfortable feelings that we face when we declare what we want. This alone can often be what stops us from declaring it all together and we slowly lose that passion and zeal for those things we want in life. 

When we are pursuing the life we want to have, we need to be paying attention to the fight that is happening within our own hearts and in our homes, and in our culture. 

We need to guard this precious thing our heart craves while being mindful of how we are acting in an effort to get it. We still need to show up for our life in the way that we want to SHOW UP (with our personal values!).  If we value peace, we need to still act with peace while pursuing what we want. If we value integrity, we still need to act with that. Our values keep us rooted in being the person we want to be regardless of what we are facing. 

 

  1. Start over and try again  

It is so easy to get frustrated with making any kind of life change or pursuing a dream when it doesn’t come easy. So often we see other people doing things that seem effortless. 

Nobody shows the trail and error. 

Because that is the only to learn what works in your home, your mind, your life, your family. Try it and shift it, then try again. 

If something is hard we aren’t doing it wrong. Things are SUPPOSED to be hard. And what works for others won’t be a cookie-cutter solution for our own lives. 

It doesn’t mean we should abandon ship on the long game. It doesn’t mean we weren’t ‘good enough’. It just means we are getting one step closer to finding our own path. 

If we aren’t willing to do the work of trying something new, paying attention to it, getting rooted back into our own values and vision, and trying again then we will never move forward. 

We don’t need to abandon our dream or tell ourselves we aren’t cut out for it – often we just need to practice GETTING GOOD at something new. 

Leave a comment