Finding your right livelihood is not a matter of chance – it’s a matter of planning and good intention. Here are some useful guidelines.
Consider What You Would Do To Help The World And The People In It – Right Now
Over the years I’ve worked with clients, I’ve discovered that the majority of people find their life purpose is fundamentally to do with connection.
That may be connecting with other people and supporting them in some way, or connecting with Mother Earth and supporting her.
Although I’m still wondering whether everybody’s mission is ultimately about greater connection, I rather suspect that it might be.
So ask yourself what social, environmental, community or family problem you care about, and start doing something which contributes to a solution.
Video – finding and integrating your shadow
Obviously you can’t solve all the world’s problems, but you can make a difference. Feeling powerless and disempowered helps nobody; believing that you can do something which will impact people and make a difference changes everything. And what stops you from doing these things is your shadow. You can read about that here.
Shadow work – integrating your shadow – changes everything because you reclaim your own power. You become more powerful. You become more emotionally and physically whole. You inspire other people by your example. And by inspiring other people, you are at the foundation of a greater movement which eventually becomes the norm – for you and those who emulate you as their Leader. (Hopefully a Heart Centred Leader.)
Not only that, but following your mission and purpose gives you a feeling of power, satisfaction and joy because you are indeed contributing to positive change in the world.
And people who believe they are making a difference seemed a lot happier than people who spend their time moaning about how bad things are.
What Do You Fantasise About? A Clue to Your Soul Purpose!
I am absolutely sure there’s something you want to do, something you believe you could do, something you imagine yourself doing… but somehow, for some reason, you don’t do it.
I’m sure you can come up with plenty of “reasons” why you don’t do it. Maybe you’re scared of what other people might think. But, to be blunt, there’s always a deeper reason for not doing something than “what other people might think”.
Generally it comes down to fear. And one thing I can tell you about fear is that a great way to destroy it, and all the illusions which lie behind it, is simply to take action.
The fear which is in your shadow, put there by other people, is the fear which will prevent you from moving forwards in your life and getting what you want. It will also prevent you form being the King or Queen you can be.
But when you engage with shadow work (provided, that is, that you have done enough work to bring the finer qualities of these archetypes out of shadow), little can stop you from getting what you want. Being what you want. having the impact you want. Read about the nature of shadow here. And explore the reasons for doing your personal work here.
When you do what you’re frightened of, whether that’s lifting the phone to speak to somebody, asking for an interview, trying out a new idea, exposing your vulnerability to the world, or taking any kind of risk, you defeat your fear and give yourself an insight into how courageous you truly are – even if you don’t succeed.
The women and men who allow themselves to be constrained by fear are the ones who don’t get anywhere.
So when you fantasise about doing something, and you feel you really want to do it, summon up your courage, find a way to do it and learn from what happens. You never know, you might be successful!
What Absorbs You So Completely You Forget About Everything Else?
A great clue to hunt down your passion is to look at what makes you lose track of time – you know, the one which can even make you forget to eat dinner.
We’ve all had that experience, and there’s an important message in there.
If you can become so absorbed in what you’re doing that you forget to eat, and don’t notice the passage of time, then it’s likely you’ve found one of your passions.
And somewhere in your passion there’s a clue to your purpose.
Even if your passion is playing video games at all hours of the day and night, maybe there’s a reason why that’s your passion, a reason that could help you find your purpose in life. Maybe you want to spread a message through this medium! It would certainly be a great way to connect with people!
How to find your purpose
Another way to look at this is to consider where your tolerance for failure is high.
In other words, where in your life do you put most effort towards succeeding? Where can you tolerate your mistakes, and carry on with enthusiasm and passion?
For me, the first item of wooden furniture I built gave me a clue that this was one of my passions – to create beautiful and useful objects made of wood.
And even though I made some blunders in measuring and sawing the timber for the bed I was building, my determination to create a functional and aesthetically beautiful piece of furniture drove me on until I succeeded.
Is that my life purpose? No, but there’s something about persistence, trail and error, creativity and creation in the mix here, something which can help me to understand my skillset. And that includes skills which I can bring to my life purpose of healing people’s emotional wounds.
Interview Your Younger Self and Your Older Self
If your five-year-old, your ten-year-old, and your fifteen-year-old selves could come back to life and speak to you now, what would they tell you about the way you’re spending your life? The answer, of course, is that they would tell you – whether they knew it or not – about the shadows that formed in your early life. They would reveal. simply by speaking their truth, what qualities and attributes they had hidden away to stay safe, to continue to be accepted. And that would give you a clear view of what you could have achieved if only you had examined the unspoken and hidden shadows in you unconscious using shadow work earlier in life. And perhaps still can, if you do the work.
Finding Hidden Shadow Beliefs With Shadow Work
Well, the good news is that your younger parts are available to you, and they can do exactly that.
All you have to do is imagine your 15-year-old, 10-year-old or 5-year-old standing opposite you, close your eyes, and ask them a question – “What did you most want to do in the world?”
You can then switch yourself physically into the position of your younger self, and answer that question from the knowledge and wisdom of the younger part of yourself which still lives inside you.
Crazy though this may sound, all the parts of you that ever lived are still present in a very real way inside your mind. They can tell you better than anyone about your childhood dreams and aspirations.
Perhaps the answers to the questions you have about your life purpose lies somewhere in a conversation with those parts of yourself. This is one of the fundamental techniques of shadow work.
Try it with an open mind. You’re almost certainly going to be surprised by the answers.
And if you wish, you can have the same conversation with the beautiful and older parts of yourself, the seeds of which currently lie inside you.
Choose an age – perhaps the age at which you consider you will have reached wise elderhood – and imagine that part of you to be standing opposite you.
Ask that part of you, with your eyes closed, “What are you most proud of having achieved in your life?” Or perhaps “What would you most like to have achieved in your life?”
Again, physically switch into that place and answer the question from the imagined elder that you will become.
After all, that part of you already knows what you will most regret not having done when you come to your final moments on earth. And of course, that part of you also knows what you could have been most proud about doing in your life on earth.