Passion and Purpose:What are You Failing to Notice?

The first step in living a life of purpose is to get clear on those things which are of importance to you.  It is, however, one thing to clarify your passions and quite another to adopt a behavior that is in accordance with them on a daily basis. We all have an amazing capacity to deceive ourselves. 

Facing the truth about the disparity between who you want to be and who you really are can be difficult. We resort to all sorts of ways of burying any awareness of ourselves that is upsetting or hurtful.  But until you make a choice to “walk through the fog”, there is no beginning point for change.

Psychiatrist R.D. Laing put this into words in the following way –

The range of what we think and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds

What are you failing to notice in your life?

Entrepreneurship for Baby Boomers: Follow your Passion

Passion Leads to Success

A new study (The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom) by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation indicates that the US might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom because of the aging population. It seems that the greatest number of those getting into the entrepreneurial mode belongs to the 55-64 age group.  The days of finding security with an institution that’s “too big to fail” are over.

Have you been thinking of starting a business?  If so, are you following your passion?  There is nothing greater that you can do with your life and your work than follow your heart. The secret to success is getting clear on those things that are the most important to you, being committed to focusing on them on a daily basis and taking some small step in that direction.

Ask yourself three important questions – do I love it (whatever business it is I am thinking about), do I have the skills to be good at it and does the world need it? If the answer to all three is YES, then you have a winning combination.
 
To find your mission in life is to discover the intersection between your heart’s deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger – Frederick Beekner

If you don’t have a clue as to your passions, take The Passion Test™ and let it guide you in finding and clarifying those five things that you would love to be, do or have in your life. When you find your passion, your enthusiasm for your business will be unstoppable. Almost all of the individuals whom I have guided through The Passion Test™  have responded with something like “It’s been an eye-opening experience” or “I never would have guessed that these are the five things that are the MOST important to me.”

To take The Passion Test™ online, go to http://budurl.com/pton or contact me if you would like some hands-on personal coaching.

If you are in the Washington DC area and would like to attend a Passion Test class, I will be holding a 3-hour workshop on Saturday, June 27 from 10:00am – 1:00pm. You can get more information or register at http://www.takeaclass.org

The Antidote to Exhaustion…

“The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. There’s a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you’re doing.”
—Brother David Steindl-Rast quoted in I Will Not Die an Unlived Life by Dawna Markova

Another way of expressing “wholeheartedness” is passion.  When you are following your passions, you will have seemingly boundless energy. Time will “disappear”. Rather like “highway hypnosis” when you miss your exit off the highway because you are so deep in thought that you don’t realize how far you have driven.

When you approach your life wholeheartedly/passionately, you experience courage, confidence and optimism rather than anxiety, fear and uncertainty. Joy and fulfillment become a part of daily living and you spend more time in the “Zone.” You don’t have time for exhaustion! 

Never give up.  Never let fear stand between you and your dreams.  Never allow yourself to live a life of mediocrity. Not only does passion bring pleasure to you, it makes others want to be around you for the vicarious pleasure.

How Do You Want to be Remembered?

Mid-life is a time of reflection, changing goals and reorganizing priorities. It’s a time of letting go of habits, behaviors and thinking patterns that no longer serve you and figuring out what legacy you want to leave behind. It’s about going from a “me” to a “we” life.

Your accomplishments during the first half of your life were no doubt worthy goals but will they last? Are they what you want to be known for when you reach that last part of your life? A “no” answer is the first step in the process of clarifying what is truly important to you at this stage of the game.

One way of defining your legacy to the world is to imagine that you are at your 100th birthday celebration.  Your family, friends and neighbors have come to celebrate this momentous occasion with you.  The person who is closest to you is going read a speech to the audience.  This speech is about YOU, about all that you have accomplished; how you have made the world a better place for the next generation; all the ways you have been of service to others.  YOU are going to write that speech yourself.

Visualize how you have made a difference in the lives of those closest to you, acquaintances, friends, family, colleagues and the world in general.  What have you given, what have you created and how does it make you feel? Now take pen and paper and start writing.

This is just one of the steps in discovering your purpose, your passion, why you were put on this earth. If you would like to gain more insight into what’s missing in your life, why you’re not waking up to greet each day with enthusiasm and joy and why you are in a rut, please email me via my website – http://www.blueprints4change.com

Have you Hit Midlife without Having Lived Your Passions?

This evening my husband and I went out for “date night”, something we do periodically just to go off and chat, particularly when both of us have been busy doing our own thing. We decided to try out a restaurant we had not been to before – Busboys and Poets.  Not only does it have good food, it is also a bookstore, fair trade market and gathering place. Even the menu makes for interesting reading.
The following poem (part of the menu) caught my attention. Many of the clients I work with have no idea what their passions are when we begin. Others have put aside their passions (dreams) for a variety of reasons. If you’re in that category, then perhaps this poem “speaks” to you.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

— Langston Hughes, African-American Poet

 
If you would like to discover/rediscover your passions, please visit my website (http://www.blueprints4change.com) or email me, evelin@blueprints4change.com. The Passion Test™ has been of tremendous benefit in helping so many individuals clarify what is truly important to them, make major changes and live more fulfilled lives.

Are You Missing a Sense of Purpose in Life?

At midlife we are more apt to move from a focus on career, success and family to needing to find a sense of purpose, a chance to make a difference, a belief that what we do matters in the world.  We still want to feel challenged but not in the same areas that were important during our younger years. We yearn for the satisfaction that comes from making an impact, however insignificant it might seem to those around us.

Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions. Write down the answers.  Even if the answers don’t come to you right now, just asking yourself the questions can get you started on the path to self discovery and how you might make a difference.  

If you were able to create anything at all, what do you really want to accomplish in life?
When, where and with whom would you want to accomplish it?
How would you know when you had achieved it – what would it look like?
What is preventing you from doing it?
Do you currently have any resources to help you start achieving that goal?
What else might you need?
Do you know how to get the resources you need?
What first step could you commit to taking right now?
How do you feel about taking that step?

Just remember, you never know when “To the world you may be one person but to one person, you may be the world!” (Anonymous)

Is Your Life in a Rut?

Most of us come to a point in our lives when we know that life isn’t working the way we want it to. We become aware that we need to make some changes.  It could be anything from losing weight to changing a job to leaving a relationship.  Life is about change.  We give ourselves many reasons to change but when the “rubber meets the road” we find just as many reasons for not being able to make the changes. 

In order for us to make life changes easier, there are a few critical aspects to consider:

Do you have a deep and sincere desire to change?
If you are not motivated or excited enough from within, chances are that your success will be limited.  If the change is for some external reason and isn’t for yourself, you won’t have the motivation to make it stick.  For example, if you want to give up smoking because your spouse is constantly nagging you, but you happen to like smoking, you will undoubtedly fail.

Have you taken time for self reflection?
Understanding how you might self-sabotage will help you overcome the obstacles that might stand in your way. For example, I had a client some years back who adamantly stated she wanted to lose weight.  After losing about 30lbs she would hit a plateau that refused to budge. Long story short – her “back story” was that if she lost the weight, she would become attractive to men and may have to date again.  Scary thought since she had been molested as a child.  Until she was able to work through that issue, she would not be able to lose the weight she wanted.

Are you committed to doing whatever it takes to bring about the change?
I can’t tell you how many of my clients say they will do whatever it takes but then don’t have enough “time”, “money”, “resources” to get on with it.  Some change takes time and you may run into a few “potholes in the road”.  Are you going to “hang in there” when you hit one of these “holes”?

Can you visualize what success looks like?
Without clarity, it’s hard to reach your goals.  Just like having a roadmap to drive across the country, you need to know where you are going. An excellent tool to gain clarity about what is important to you, one that my clients love, is The Passion Test™. See http://blueprints4change.com/passiontest.htm for further information or go to http://budurl.com/thepassiontest

Do you have a support system?
It’s important to be surrounded by people (family, friends, pastor, coach) who know what you are trying to accomplish and support you every step of the way even though you may stumble from time to time.

Change can be exciting and fun; it doesn’t have to be frightening and distressing. With the right tools and support, change can be empowering, increasing your self esteem, sense of worth and fulfillment in life.  Isn’t it time to get out of the rut and give it a shot?

Blueprints For Boomers: Are you Heading in the Right Direction?

Here we are almost a quarter way into the new year.  Strange how it feels like January just began   How are you doing sticking to your New Year’s resolutions?  Even if you didn’t make any, you probably have some goals you are trying to achieve.  My goal for the year was to start this blog. Since you are reading these words, I’m obviously on track.  So far so good though I have to say it’s not been without considerable frustration!  Technology sometimes gets the better of me! 

Resolutions are wonderful, positive goals that we set for ourselves.  Sometimes they last several weeks but unless they are a part of something that we are passionate about, something that is truly important to us, they will usually disappear into that “black hole” that contains all those other goals we somehow never managed to get around to.

Isn’t it time then, at the midpoint in your life, to finally get serious about your dreams, the things that you’ve wanted but for one reason or another, never allowed yourself to go after. Isn’t it time to start consciously creating your life? In the words of Janet Attwood, co-author of The Passion Test™, when you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent you are clear. 
 
One way to get clear is to ask yourself what your ideal life would look like, a process that is described in detail in the book, The Passion Test™. If your life were perfect, exactly the way you wanted it to be, what would that look like?  How would you be? What would you be doing or having?  To stimulate thought in this area, some of the questions I ask my clients include:

• What motivates you/drives you/gives you satisfaction?
• What would you do if money were of no concern?
• What would make you jump out of bed with joy and enthusiasm in the morning?
• What do you dream about that you’ve never shared with anyone?
• What did you always want to be when you were a child?
• What would you regret NOT having done if your life were ending?
• What do you do that makes “time stand still”?
• What are you really good at doing, that you also truly enjoy?
• What do you love about yourself?
• What is the theme of the books you read or things you collect?
• At the end of your life, what do you want people to say was your greatest achievement?

You’ve probably spent the first half of your life catering more to the needs of others than yourself, so take the time now to put yourself first.  Reflect on the answers to these questions and you will be taking the first step towards redesigning your blueprints for living. The first step towards creating a more fulfilling life and to being more in alignment with those things that are TRULY important to you.  It’s about time, wouldn’t you say!