How Do You Figure Out What To Do With Your Life?
Do you know what you are supposed to be doing with your life? Or are you feeling clueless and lost?
If so, it may be time to get serious about figuring out what you are supposed to be doing with your life. But like many of us, you may need some inspiration and encouragement ... and an example to follow.
If so, try reading about one life .... but two ways of living it. One when you have figured out what you are supposed to be doing ... and one without .. and see if the difference helps you get motivated to find yours.
Let us take the before example of a life not knowing what she should be doing with her life. But now, instead of drifting through life, following her best friend and making guesses that result in a life story that misses the mark ... here is how her life could have gone if she had known what her calling and purpose were.
Spotting Clues & Investing Time
When she is growing up, she knows she likes to spend time taking care of her aging grandmother. The stories her grandmother tells and the laughter they share over them are special moments ... and create a strong and loving connection between them. She knows deep in her heart that this is somehow a part of her calling. And she writes in her journal and takes several workshops ... and that investment pays off by helping her discover what her life calling is: to work with terminally ill patients. She reads, journals and does a few more workshops to figure out her life purpose: to learn the lessons of the power of love, laughter and forgiveness in healing.
Discovering Where She Belongs
Knowing that, she spends the remaining time before her grandmother passes away learning more about how to care for and relate to her grandmother and her grandmother's friends as they face death -- some with more grace and humor than others.
When her grandmother moves into a care facility, she gets to know the caregivers and talks with them about the experiences and lessons they have had caring for aging and terminally ill patients. She shares her ideas about her life calling and a few of the caregivers recognize a kindred spirit and become her closest friends -- making her feel accepted and understood for wanting to hang out with people she loves ... people her grandmother's age instead of her own.
Using Schoolwork To Explore Her Passions
She researches the illnesses her grandmother and the other patients have and uses what she learns as the topics of her required term papers in school. Its obvious to her teachers that her passion is caring for her grandmother and the aging because she excels on any project that involves the topic of healing, nursing, her grandmother or humor. Her biography of Florence Nightingale, her poetry on the process of aging gracefully, and her artwork that combines journals, old photos and letters from the patients at the care facility all earn an A+ and stand out from her usual lackluster grades.
Becoming The Family Expert
It is no surprise to her family what her life calling is ... since she has become the one the family, relatives, friends and even neighbors turn to when someone is diagnosed with an illness to learn what it is and how bad it is. That, along with her collection of corny jokes about diseases, addiction to medical TV dramas and desire for a subscription to a jerry.'atrick trade magazine for her birthday -- gave it away.
She works a deal with her career guidance counselor to take a physical therapy class in place of the usual High School Physical Education class to help her grandmother with her mobility, flexibility and strength. After her grandmother passes away, she volunteers to work at the care facility which turns into a part time internship during the school year that earns her school credit and a well paying summer job.
Building Her Network & Experience
When the opportunity comes up to try out for the lead in the High School play, her caregiver friends advise her to pass it up and create a one-woman comedy show about aging and dying ... which gets rave reviews. As the word spreads, she performs her play at all the local hospitals, in the nurses' rooms and terminal patient wards, and retirement homes. Her play brings her in contact with more health care professionals, who become sources of more jokes as well as mentors who urge her to consider going to medical or nursing school. One thank you gift for her play -- a copy of the movie Patch Adams, inspires her to be serious about her upcoming career choices and gives her a way to express what she wants to do with her life.
Advice & The Right Path To Follow Her Passion
She talks to her career counselor and her mentors about medical school -- and signs up to take all the biology, chemistry and physiology classes she needs to apply. Her mentors invite her to go with them to a local nursing convention -- where she connects up with one of the convention planners who hires her to give a presentation next year on "humor and the terminally ill patient" that leads to writing a regular column in the association newsletter. In her senior year, her college and scholarship applications reveal her growing area of expertise, her commitment to her profession and glowing letters of recommendation by some of the top professionals in her field who attended her presentation and regularly read her column.
She has a tough job deciding which of the eight schools that accepted her will help her combine and develop her talent for writing, love of humor and passion about helping the terminally ill. Her best friend at school, who is studying to become a hairstylist, recommends the one that offers lots of classes in alternative healing methods taught by leading experts working in the field.
Getting A Degree That Reflects Her Passion
She ends up getting a degree with a minor based on her own independent study of the effects of humor on the life span and quality of life of the terminally ill. Her research, which is turned into an article in a medical trade journal {the same one her column appears in} earns her an invitation to become a research assistant in a lab studying the healing effects of laughter on the brain and body chemistry.
Meeting & Marrying A Kindred Spirit
She meets the love of her life at a medical convention and they stay up half the night talking about, of all things, Saint George and Mother Teresa, while discovering they both love trading corny disease jokes. Their two* combined salaries make it easy to afford the mortgage for a home they can raise kids in, and still be close to the urban center where they both work.
Being kindred spirits means they share a fundamental connection that goes beyond their own relationship to include helping each other in their work. When the kids arrive, she is able to work part time from home and revive her writing career as a columnist as well as become a highly paid consultant to health care companies looking to use laughter and humor to keep their patients healthy and ease the stress on both terminally ill patients and their caregivers.
Letting Her Passion Find New Outlets
When she is taking the kids for a walk in the local community park near her parent's home, she stops by and chats with the old guys playing checkers -- sharing jokes and picking up new material for her column, which is now being syndicated in a growing number of magazines aimed at the "Silver Set" ... living past 70 and loving it!
She knows what is coming as her parents age, and has an eye out for what inspires her kids so she can help them connect with and explore their passions -- and eventually find their own life calling and purpose. keeps flexible by attending a Yoga class, sometimes filling in and teaching the Seniors class. And on her nightstand is a book she co-wrote about how a character like her grandmother faced growing older and dying with Grace.
As her kids get old enough, she shares her life calling journal with them, and she encourages them to start exploring their life path and calling with a journal of their own. She wants to make sure that when they go off to college, they choose the one that will help them live a life filled with passion, as well as purpose.
If you wish you had a life story like this ... know that it is possible to learn your life calling and purpose ... and follow your passion and purpose.
Knowing your life calling and purpose colors every aspect of your life ... becoming a foundation and background for your life ...
Using Your Life Purpose To Change Your Life
