Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together ~ Anais Nin, French author
Follow Your Passions
Taking a short mental vacation during the day can transport you to another place. Here you can relive wonderful experiences, precious moments with loved ones, or memories of faraway places. You can be yourself and follow your star. Perhaps you’ve already lived some dreams but deep down inside you know there are more waiting to be discovered.
Let your mind wander to what the future may hold. To dreams of goals yet not achieved, people not yet encountered, passions not yet found. Re-discover and awaken your inner creativity. Don’t reason, analyze or think. Just go! Bask in the feelings of living a fulfilled life. What are you going to create?
As you let your mind wander, imagine that you are at the end of the coming year:
- What positive change will you have made?
- What will have been your biggest accomplishment?
- What is the most important thing you will have learned about yourself?
- What will you have done to experience the most joy?
- How will you have had fun?
- Who or what will you have been most committed to?
- What was the biggest risk you will have taken?
- Who will you have made smile often?
Weave together your dreams, those sparks of aliveness. Allow them to inspire you and create your purpose. Fueled by purpose you will experience a powerful and enduring source of energy. Focus on what moves you and is meaningful and PDD (“Passion Deficit Disorder”) will be a thing of the past!
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put foundations under them ~ Henry David Thoreau
True Joy of Life 
This is the true joy of life.
The being used for a purpose
Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
The being a force of nature
Instead of a feverish, selfish
True Joy of Life
This is the true joy of life.
The being used for a purpose
Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
The being a force of nature
Instead of a feverish, selfish
Little clod of ailments and grievances
Complaining that the world will not
Devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life
Belongs to the whole community
And as long as I live,
It is my privilege to do for it
Whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly
Used up when I die,
For the harder I work the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
Which I’ve got hold of
For the moment
And I want to make it burn
As brightly as possible before
Handing it on to future generations
— George Bernard Shaw
Is your life a tiny flicker, barely giving out a glimmer of light? Do you feel used up without any sort of spark left to keep you going? When was the last time you felt the burning heat of a “splendid torch?” If your answers are “Yes”, “Yes” and “I can’t remember”, then you probably aren’t living a life focused on those things that are important to you.
When you are living a life fueled by your own passions, you feel alive, motivated and filled with enthusiasm. You are driven to experience that “splendid torch” again and again. Living someone else’s life (for example, “I’m a lawyer because it’s what my parents wanted”) or living a mediocre existence because you are afraid to live the one you secretly desire will never light the torch, at least not for any length of time.
If you don’t know what sets your torch alight, what your purpose is, I can help you find the spark that will ultimately turn into a roaring blaze. Isn’t it time?
House of 1000 Mirrors (Japanese folktale)
Long ago in a small, far away village, there was a place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the house, he thought to himself, “This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often.”
In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly-looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, “That is a horrible place and I will never go back there again.”
What kinds of reflections do you see? Do they change depending on how joyful and engaged in life YOU are? If you don’t like what you see, perhaps you need to take the first step of looking within.
Make it HAPPY!
It’s January 4th so you’ve probably heard “Happy New Year” numerous times over the last few days. We tend to say those words without giving them a lot of thought. But do you know what you need to do in 2010 for it to be a happy year for you?
When coming up with new year’s resolutions, it’s important to consider why they are meaningful to you. What’s the motivation for starting a program of going to the gym three times a week, losing 10 pounds over the next two months, finally beginning that book, or signing up for the art class? The bigger the motivation (i.e. a passion versus a weak desire or a “should”), the more likely you will be to achieve your goal.
Ultimately, it’s about being happy, finding life satisfaction. I know, for example, that doing yoga brings me happiness. I don’t always feel like spending the time in my practice but since one of my passions is being extremely healthy well into old age, I am spurred on to make the effort. Were that not the case, I would probably be rather ho-hum about the frequency and amount of time I spent doing yoga.
So what is it that’s going to make you happy this year? Come up with a list, pick two or three and decide on one action that you can take within the next few days to move you closer to that “Happy New Year.”
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Over the holidays we’ve had some interesting weather here in the Washington DC region. Cold winter weather with a snowstorm followed by unseasonably warmer weather which caused late-night and early-morning fogs. As I drove through these foggy conditions, I started thinking about the fog we can sometimes feel like we’re in at certain times of our lives.
Feeling unfocused and befuddled we may feel like we can’t see what direction we are headed in. All of a sudden we are stuck because we’re afraid we might run headlong into “something hidden in the fog.” Sometimes it takes a fog to slow us down so that we can become still and go within. Perhaps there is an important lesson here that we need to learn. Is there an emotional issue that we need to deal with? Are we bored and unmotivated in a job? Have we lost our way in life and need to find the light in the mist to get us back on track?
It’s uncomfortable being in a fog, but when the sun comes out, the fog lifts. You can find that sun inside by determining what is important to you in your life right now. What would get you excited and motivated to jump out of bed in the morning? What are you really passionate about? What do you do that seems to make time stand still?
Harness that excitement, start to take some steps in the direction of your passions and you will feel the warmth of the sun dispersing the fog around you. Those foggy times in our lives come and go. When one surrounds you, don’t let impatience take over. Stop, redirect your attention onto your inner light and let it guide you out into the sun.
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” — H. Jackson Brown, author
Ask Yourself…
- Is this really a passion or just something that might be fun or nice to do?
- Will you be extremely upset if you NEVER get to do “this passion”? If the answer is yes, what’s stopping you from finding the time to at least take the next step?
- What is the benefit of choosing in favor of your passions?
- How will you feel when you are doing something that you’re really passionate about?
Take Action …
- Understand that it’s YOUR choice as to how you spend your time.
- Be more conscious of how you are choosing to spend your time today.
- Spend less time on those things that you aren’t passionate about.
It’s not always easy to choose between mundane tasks and those things that “light your fire” but with practice, it can become a habit. When you’re fully engaged in doing a task that is truly important to you, time will appear to stand still and you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish. As an added benefit, you’ll reduce your stress level!
If you still don’t know what you’re passionate about, contact me, evelin(at)blueprints4change.com, so that I can take you through The Passion Test.
Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out into the ocean —
Christopher Reeve, Actor
This quote brought back memories of when I learned to scuba dive many years ago. All the initial lessons I took were in a swimming pool where it was easy to feel safe and secure. You couldn’t get into too much trouble in 6 feet of water! By the same token, the environment quickly became boring and confining.
Then it came time for my first open-water dive. The location for this momentous occasion was a couple of miles off the coast of St. Martin in the Caribbean. Was it a little scary – you bet! Not to mention the fact that during my first few minutes in the water, my regulator blew off the end of the hose! But not to be deterred, by fear or equipment malfunction, I borrowed another “rig” and down I went.
It was spectacular! I lost all sense of time (good thing the Dive Master didn’t!) and became totally captivated by the vivid colors of the many varieties of fish, the ghostly wreck around which we were diving and above all, the absolute serenity of floating around almost without a sound save the quiet bubbling of my breathing. A time in my life I will never forget.
It’s only when you stretch, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs and fears that a whole new world can open up for you. And it could be even better than you might have imagined! But you won’t know if you don’t try. Are you playing around in the shallow end of the pool or are you ready to take a leap and dive to great depths in the ocean?
If I miss one day’s practice, I notice it.
If I miss two day’s, the critics notice it.
If I miss three days, the audience notices it.
— Ignacy Paderewski, Concert Pianist
Practice Makes Perfect!
It takes practice to follow your passions. We often get so caught up in getting the next thing done that we don’t stop and ask ourselves if what we’re doing is in line with our passions. Yes, you may have to miss a day’s practice but do you then remember to get back on track! Do you continue to ask yourself “is what I’m doing going to take me closer to, or further away from, my passions … those things that I say are truly important to me?”
Missing a day, or even two, of practice is not about beating yourself up and feeling guilty. It’s just information. It’s a message that you’ve taken a fork in the road you didn’t intend to. We all get lost from time to time. Don’t waste your energy on feeling guilty … use that energy to pick up where you left off and take the next step towards finding meaning and fulfillment.
Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
-Samuel Ullman (from “Youth”), businessman and poet (1840 – 1924)
Are you becoming disillusioned with your life? Not sure what your purpose is? Think you’ve found your purpose but it isn’t “moving you to tears”? These are some of the questions that participants in my classes grapple with.
Discovering what is truly important to you is an “inside job.” You can’t think your way there using your mind. Go within by focusing on your heart (it may even help to put your hand over your heart) and let the feelings bubble up. If you start to get excited about a particular path, follow it and see what else comes up. Some people find it difficult to connect to the heart so it may take some time. Don’t let impatience and the need to find the answer get in the way of allowing the journey to happen.
Ask Yourself…
What ideals have you deserted?
In what area have you become less than enthusiastic about your life?
Action Steps …
Look at your ideals – to see why they have changed.
Become your own architect – create something that will make you jump for joy every time you think about it.
What one small step can you take TODAY to stop your soul from wrinkling?
From … To …
Life with Passion
Life without Passion
A 2005 Harris Interactive Study showed that only 20% of Americans are passionate about what they do. That leaves 80% who are leading lives somewhere from “quiet desperation” to “dull and boring.” Life without color!
This theme came through loud and clear in a movie I saw this past week – “An Education.” It’s the coming-of-age story about a young teenage girl in the early sixties in suburban London. Her parents, especially her mother, appear to be living lives relatively close to the “quiet desperation” end of the continuum.
Jenny wants something more out of life and finds it when she meets a playboy twice her age. Her “grey” life all of a sudden becomes filled with color. Her passion for the exciting new lifestyle leads her to experiences she could only have imagined in her dreams, at least for a while. I’ll leave the story there so as not to spoil the ending in case you see the movie.
The point here: passion for living, for doing those things that are truly important to you, will add so much color to each day. You will wake up with a new zest for life … joyful and excited, ready to take on each new challenge. Passion is the motivator that will help you achieve success.
If you don’t know what you’re passionate about, take The Passion Test™. The participants in my workshop this past weekend found it to be a real eye-opener! Contact me – evelin@blueprints4change.com
Passion & Purpose | admin | 
January 25, 2010 4:47 pm | 
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