TTM #20 LIVING YOUR PURPOSE
You are listening to me talking to myself. Welcome to the podcast, where I share useful tools to create more space, more freedom, inner peace, connection, and life on purpose.
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How do I get passionate? How do I find out what my passion is? How do I find out what my purpose is? As if you will find something outside of you that will provide you with a feeling of passion? As if you will find some purpose outside of you that will provide you with that feeling. Believing that there is some right job or right person or right experience that will provide us with passion is a huge misunderstanding. Obviously, it is much easier to give this responsibility to someone or something outside of us and blame and complain about the job or the person for not making us feel happy, passionate, or not be our purpose.
How do you create a passion for yourself on purpose? Any emotion that you want to create in your life, you can create it. You don't have to wait for something outside of you. Your passion is not outside of you and this is your power. You need to generate it from within. And this is a very useful skill to have and practice and apply to anything else that you want in your life. Maybe you know people who are passionate about everything they do, they can have fun doing anything. It seems like they always have their ideal job, even if the same job is doing 100 other people. So maybe it has nothing to do with a job. Sometimes we want something to be our passion. For example, some people see all the pretty yoga poses and fun handstands on social media, graceful movements, healthy and strong bodies, sunny beaches, pretty outfits, smart quotes, and peaceful sunrises, and they think ‘That's what I want to do. If I become a yoga teacher, then I will feel passionate.’ Then maybe they become it and they have that expectation of the job to provide them with passion and success and purpose. And if all those expectations are not met, then they think this is not their purpose. It's not your job’s job to make you happy. That's your job. It's not your partner's job to make you happy. It's not your boss's job to make you happy. It's not your home's job to make you happy. That is your job. If you generate passion, then you will find a job that will align with that vibration. The work on yourself should come first.
What if I have no passion? I'm trying to find my passion. I don't feel it towards my job or my life. So where does passion come from? And what exactly is it? Think about that for a minute. What is passion and where does it come from? Passion, feeling passionate is a feeling. It is an emotion. Where do you feel it in your body? What does it feel like? Does it feel like enthusiasm, or excitement? Does it feel like a drive to do something, does it feel like motivation? How do you know that you are experiencing it?
The next question to ask yourself is where does it come from? If you've been listening to this podcast, and especially episodes 13, 14, and 19, you know that a feeling is generated by a thought. It comes from your thinking. When you think passionate thoughts, you feel passion. Maybe at some point, you have felt an effortless passion in your life. It felt effortless to feel passionate so you feel like it's involuntary. You feel like it's something that just happens inside of you. Passion isn't something that just happens inside of us. It's not something that the universe gives us. The Universe directs us with our desires but our desires and our passions come from what's already going on in our brain.
Hmm, but when I started this job, I didn't have to think about feeling passionate about it. I just did. But if you were to go and inspect your brain when you started the new job and what you were thinking about it then versus what you are thinking now, it will be very clear why you felt passion then and don't feel it now. If you're in a current job that you don't have any passion for, write down all of your thoughts about the job and it will become very clear as to why you don't feel passionate. That effortless passion comes from that automatic habitual thinking that we have programmed and learned in our brain. If we are consistently thinking a certain thought and consistently believing a certain thought, and we have that neural pathway and we have thought it enough that then we can delegate it to that lower brain, then the lower brain will just take it over and think it for us. But we'll have that experience of that emotion with very little effort on our part. And so we'll feel like passion is just alive inside of us. It is not. It's because we have made a deliberate choice at one point to think those thoughts and now they're on autopilot, but it will feel effortless. If you want to have effortless passion you need to get back to that space. If it isn't effortless, you might want to consciously create it and practice it until it is. The steps for doing that are to create it, practice it, and repeat it. If you repeat it enough times, it will become an effortless neural pathway in your brain. Then you will not have to put as much effort into feeling it.
Okay, so how do I create it? The first thing that you do if you're not feeling passionate in your life is to understand why. Creating that awareness. Write down all the current thoughts you have about the job, the object, your home, and your partner. And maybe you notice really negative thoughts. So it is not a surprise that you're not feeling passionate about going to work every day when your thoughts are so negative. Important is to not judge yourself and not edit yourself, so you can reveal all your thoughts to yourself without attachment to them. It will be very useful for you to see what is there and to see ‘Okay, when I'm thinking those thoughts, how am I feeling?’ - Dread, disconnect, lost, uninspired, useless.
So what is your passion and what is your purpose? ‘I don't know what my passion is. I do not know because I don't know if I could get it done. And I don't know if I could do it and I don't know if I would like it.’ Imagine that you will like whatever it is you decide to do, no matter what and that you will be able to do it and you will be successful. It frees you up to open those doors to dream.
How do we create thoughts about what it is we want to do? The first question is, what is it we want to feel? Is it a passion? How will we know when we are experiencing it? That's really important to know. What does it feel like? How do we create it with our mind? What are the thoughts and beliefs that generate it?
When you think about passion, a lot of you might not be able to imagine it, so here is some direction. Think about a job that you would get up for. You couldn't wait to see what you can create today. You couldn't wait to work with people you work with. You couldn't wait to do all of the things that you want to do. You're super excited to wake up, to show up as the best version of yourself, to contribute, to help people, to share your gifts, to do what you do best, to change people's lives with your contribution, and just with the way how you are. You're excited about your growth and challenges and possibilities. What would that feel like in your body? What would that experience be like? What would you be thinking about? What would your thoughts and beliefs be? For me, those are the thoughts I have every morning. I'm very passionate about what I do. I cannot wait to do all the things I get to do in my day. I cannot wait to teach, to practice, to train, to study, to cycle, to prepare podcasts, to learn, to explore, to research, to paint, to read or listen to books, to be with my people, to see what is possible to create today. And there is nothing I would love to do instead. Oftentimes I do not want to go on vacation or I don't want to go out with friends because I would really genuinely rather work.
When you start thinking about all the thoughts that generate passion and you start practicing those thoughts, and you start feeling passion because you're thinking and practicing and feeling, then you ask yourself, When you feel passionate, what do you do? For me, when I feel passionate, I show up. Whatever I do in my life, there is nothing I would do instead. I love teaching and training and coaching and recording podcasts and creating tools. There is nothing I would love to do more. Everything on my to-do for the day are things I genuinely love doing. When you think and feel and act from that place, you create a new pathway that is rewarding because you create something in the world that is rewarding. For example, I have a thought ‘I cannot wait to share this.’ I feel passionate and excited. Or ‘I cannot wait to teach this in my class.’ The result in a world is that I help people. I get a lot of amazing feedback, which of course makes me want to do it again and create more, so then that neural pathway becomes very effortless to me. One thing that you must remember is that in the beginning, it's not effortless. It's not going to come naturally. Why is that? Because you haven't practiced it and made it a habit. In fact, what sometimes happens is you make negativity a habit. You make the lack of passion a habit. So what comes naturally to you is being negative. You have a lot of negative thoughts about your job, your life that you don't even recognise as thoughts. You just think it's true about your life that you have no purpose and you have no passion. And those thoughts and beliefs are choices that became habits, so they feel true and automatic. They feel effortless. You think you're just experiencing life but what it is, is you have programmed your brain for negativity. That's why you're not feeling very motivated.
Programming your brain and learning something new is awkward. It's like learning a new language. You don't really know how to pronounce anything. You haven't practised it yet, but the more you practice it the more you can speak the language, the more fun it is to go to that country and speak that language. You have to decide if you want to speak the language of passion. You have to study it. You have to study what creates passion.
What are the thoughts in my brain that create passion? How can I practice that? How can I practice those beliefs? Thoughts like ‘I can't wait to help my people. What I do and say matters. I can't wait to make my contribution. I want to share my gifts. People need what I have to share. I am an inspiration. I have the tools. I am showing the way. I am an example.’ In the beginning, thinking that may feel awkward. It requires deliberate practice. You have to practice it 100 times before it will become effortless. Not three times. Give yourself 100 times of failing to feel passionate when you're practising those thoughts. And then after 100 you will be able to generate your own passion. Here's what will happen. Your lower brain is already efficient at not feeling passionate, and feeling dread and feeling frustrated. So it will feel very uncomfortable for the brain to change and think new thoughts. It will be like ‘Why do we need to learn the language of passion if we are already so good at frustration? This is hard. This takes too much effort.’ That's why most of us are not really motivated to learn a new language. You just need to remind your brain that its opinion is noted and we are actually going to evolve. Yes, it's going to take some effort and it's going to be awkward in the beginning, but once we practice enough, it will be easier, it will be efficient, and effortless. And I'm willing to go through the work to create enough passion in my life, so it becomes effortless. That is the process.
So how do I live my purpose? What if there is no defined purpose you have to find in your life? What if you are the one creating your purpose and contribution in the world? Not because you have to, but because you want to. You don't have to do anything to become more worthy, more valuable or more successful. Your purpose in your life is not the job you do. It's who you are. Your purpose is found where you are right now. In whatever life circumstance you find yourself and you decide what you want your purpose to be. No matter what your job or what your circumstances are, you get to be the person who fulfills your purpose. When you recognise that your purpose is who you are being not what you're doing as a job, then you can start taking action now. Your purpose is not attached to an object, to your job, or to a person. My purpose is to create life deliberately with the tools and the power we have within. This is something I can do anywhere and anytime. I can do that with any job.
Your job is just a tool to share your purpose. It is not supposed to provide you with a purpose. If your purpose is to inspire people to live a healthier lifestyle, wherever you go, and whatever you do, you prioritise taking care of yourself, your physical, mental and emotional health. If your purpose is to be an example of a great leader, you can be a leader wherever you are, you can be an example of leading yourself. If your purpose is to inspire people to be true to themselves, you show up with truth and authenticity.
Everyone has come to the planet with a very unique brain and a very unique set of desires and passions that are meant to be utilised, explored and realised. Most people don't truly know what they want. They haven't been able to truly think about what they want in their lives and what their options really are. And what you want, genuinely what you want is the map to your destiny. Go back to Episode 18 to find it out.
Understanding, finding out and knowing what you truly want, not what other people want from you, not what your parents want from you, not what your friends think you should have or do, not what society thinks is possible for you, but what you genuinely want, will determine the direction of your life and where you can go and how you can align yourself with the highest version of yourself.
When you learn the tools and skills when you overcome obstacles when you find solutions to your problems and you learn how much more powerful you are, how much more capable you are, how much more you can create, how much more of an impact you can have, what happens in most human beings is, we have this deep need to make a contribution, to be of service, to be useful to the world and to the people around us. And one of the things that increase life satisfaction is finding a purposeful way to contribute. Find a way to let your life and the way you live your life be a contribution to other people.
Part of your purpose is growth and development as a human being, becoming the best version of yourself. What does it mean? Think about something that you struggle with. Maybe it's physical exercise, sleep, addiction, making money, relationships, mental health, nutrition, leadership, losing weight, becoming stronger, healing from illness and injuries etc. This is your gift. Figure out the solutions to your problems and teach it to other people. All the things I talk about here on this podcast, I worked on them first I figured out solutions to my questions and now I can share the tools with you all. The work that I had done on myself would have been only for me if I hadn't shared it with the world. And that is one thing that yoga and life coaching has done for me in my life. It has made it so my process, my work, and my attempts to become the best version of myself is also my way of contributing. It is my way of being of service, of creating value and of helping other people. Look around, all books came from people finding solutions to their problems, how to be a great leader how to create a sustainable healthy diet, how to make money, creating habits, how to build a successful business, etc.
What if I don't know how to create for other people? What if I didn't know how to make a contribution with all the value that I have? What if there are 100 books already written on this topic? I want to give back more to the world instead of just constantly consuming but I do not know how. Try different things. Pick one, go all in, see how it feels, keep doing it or try something different.
Your purpose can and will change throughout your life. 10 years ago my purpose was creating beautiful designs. You are the one choosing what is your purpose today. And it can be different every day. Choose something you do best with the least amount of effort, something you would do anyway. Like I would be talking to myself anyway. I would be practising and training anyway, I would be reading and studying anyway. And yes, there are a lot of books on the same topic, but your people want to hear it from you because you speak their language.
What is it you would like to create more of in the world? What kind of influence would you like to have? What do you want your contribution to be? This is the question. Before you create something, what is the influence and the change you want to be? Not what people want more of. Because people, most people do not know what they want or they want something they actually genuinely do not want. Do you think people need more pills for how not to feel bloated after eating garbage? Or do you think people and the world needs more education on how not to eat garbage in the first place? Whatever you create in the world, do you think this is what the world needs more of?
It is my honour to show up and connect with people that are like-minded and want to take their life to a deeper level with more awareness and more consciousness.
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