SerenDestiny® #53: What If I Don’t Know What My Calling – My Purpose – Is?

“Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up … because they’re looking for ideas.” – comedian Paula Poundstone

Are you one of the lucky ones who knew, at an early age, exactly what you wanted to do when you grew up? Or, are you still trying to figure it out?

If you’re confused about what you want to do with you “one, wild and precious life” (thanks Mary Oliver); my upcoming SerenDestiny® book offers “10 Questions to Kick-Start Your Calling.”

Asking yourself these questions can move you closer to finding the sublime clarity that results from knowing what you’re put here to do.

When this “Oohh, that’s why I’m here” piece falls into place in the puzzle of your life, a light-bulb in your head and heart goes on and you feel a catalyzing sense of direction and purpose.

Here are a couple sample questions from Chapter 2 from my upcoming SerenDestiny® book.

Take a few minutes to mull them over. Better yet, discuss these questions with a friend over lunch. Who knows, they may crystallize your calling and catalyze a mission that gives your life meaning.

2 SerenDestiny® Questions to Kick-Start Your Calling

Ask yourself,

Kick-Start my Calling #1. When am I “in the groove?” What comes easily and naturally to me?

What do you do well, almost without thinking about it?

That’s your groove – and your groove is your gift.

Your happiness in life is in direct proportion to the degree with which you wrap your life around your gifts. Because they were given to you – so you could gift them back to the world.

Yet many people take their groove for granted.

Musician Jay-Z says, “Don’t get in the way of the groove.” Yet many people do just that.

They assume that anything that comes easily to them must come easily to others.

As a result, they devalue their groove and dismiss it as a career option. They conclude, “I couldn’t make a living from that. It’s too much fun.”

The opposite is true. Almost by definition, what comes easily to you does NOT come easily to others. Your calling could be to TEACH that to others or to DO that for others.

Furthermore, having fun is not a reason to dismiss something as a career option … it is a reason to look more closely at how you can turn that into a profession where you get paid to do what you love most and do best.

Kick-Start My Calling #2. What do I care about and enjoy doing – even if it’s not noble?

Dan Pink, author of Drive, says, “If you ask people, ‘What is your passion?’ they often freeze. They feel as if they have to give an amazing answer, like ‘feed the orphans of the world’ or ‘write a novel that changes the landscape of literature.’”

Agreed. Many people apologize for their passion. Like Dan says, they think it has to be legitimate and “respectable” in the eyes of others.

They worry, “What will people think if they found out my passion is fixing cars or fixing hair?”

Passions are personal. They are what you feel called to do – even if they don’t make sense to the people around you.

So, how did you answer those questions?

I’d love to hear what insights they triggered for you.

Would you like more of these “How can I kick-start my calling?” questions?

Subscribe to this blog (and share it with colleagues.) I’ll be featuring other thought-provoking questions that might help the light-bulb go off in your head and heart, including:

* “What used to fill you with joy, but you abandoned it because you got busy; moved on to other interests; or someone told you, “You’ll never be able to earn a living doing that?”

* What is a problem you see in your neighborhood, community or industry – something that’s not the way it could or should be – and you think, ‘Somebody should do something about that?”

SerenDestiny #43: Hunches are Your Calling . . . Calling

“Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” – Dr. Joyce Brothers

Have you ever had an inkling to walk down this street, register for that event, reach out to this person; and it resulted in connecting you with someone or something that moved your life forward – for good?

Think about it. What are hunches? Where do they come from?

Some people call hunches “intuition.” Others call them a “gut instinct or gut feelings.” Creative people may call them their “muse.” Religious people sometimes call them divine intervention or “God Winks.” Some call them “premonition” or a “sixth sense.”

I’ve learned many things about hunches while interviewing people for my upcoming SerenDestiny book including:

a. Whatever you call hunches, they’re almost always right.
b. Hunches happen for a reason. A good reason.
c. Acting on hunches often results in a “stroke of luck,” good fortune, a blessing, a fortuitous twist of fate, what some people call “kismet.”

People from around the world have told me dramatic stories of how honoring a hunch set their SerenDestiny in motion.

The problem is, many of us don’t value hunches. We get an internal nudge to do this, go there, but we dismiss it with “I don’t feel like it. I don’t have time. That’s crazy. I’ll do it later.” And later is too late.

I remember a fascinating TV interview of Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of Fear and a high-profile security consultant.

He said, “I ask people who have been assaulted if there were any warning signs beforehand. Many tell me they couldn’t put their finger on it, but they knew something was . . . wrong. The hairs on the backs of their arms stood up; their heart started pounding; something.

‘When I ask them, ‘Why didn’t you run or call for help?’ they often say they looked around and couldn’t see anything suspicious. Since they couldn’t see any evidence to justify their alarm, they dismissed it. They shrugged off their fears instead of realizing their body went on alert for a reason and they should take steps to protect themselves.”

What’s the point?

Our body gives us signs when it senses dissonance. Our instincts sense when something’s about to go wrong.

I’ve come to believe our body also give us signs when it senses resonance Our instincts sense when something’s about to go right.

I call those warning signs “hostile hunches.”

I call those resonant signs “harmonic hunches.”

Just as our instincts alert us to a coalescing of hostile circumstances, they also alert us to a coalescing of harmonic circumstances.

Survival hunches alerting us to dangerous circumstances prepare us for fight or flight.

Serendestiny hunches alerting us to desirable circumstances prepare us for a favorable future.

Acting on “hostile” hunches can keep us safe.

Acting on “harmonic” hunches can jump-start our fate.

One of the goals of this SerenDestiny blog and my upcoming book are to convince you of the miracles that await you if you honor your hostile and harmonic hunches.

Hostile hunches can alert you to toxic people and situations that will pull you off path.

Harmonic hunches alert you to compatible individuals and situations that can become stepping stones to a life where the light’s on in your eyes.

What’s non-negotiable is that you don’t dismiss hunches as “silly” or “trivial.”

I’ll say it again. Whatever hunches are; they’re rarely wrong.

If your gut is screaming at you to get away from a certain person or situation – even if there’s no “evidence” for your distrust or distaste – accept that it’s in your best interests to head the other direction. Toxic individuals and situations block your SerenDestiny because conflict consumes energy.

If a certain person or situation strikes a chord with you, if they’ve got a good “vibe,” seek them out. Even if you can’t put your finger on it, but an opportunity “feels right,” pursue that compatible connection in the moment.

One of the most important things I’ve learned in my years of researching SerenDestiny is the importance of capitalizing on a confluence of fortuitous factors. This “conFLOWence” is dynamic, it’s fleeting. For whatever reason, a providential combination of events has crystallized and come together NOW.

If you don’t capitalize on it immediately, that particular set of circumstances shifts and that window of opportunity . . . closes, perhaps forever.

Who knows if those agianst-all-odds fortuitous factors will re-align again?

I’m not trying to be melodramatic. It’s just that, as Graham Greene said, “There is a moment in every child’s life when the door opens and lets the future in.”

There are moments in everyone’s life when a door opens and lets their future in.

It’s up to us to be alert to those moments and take advantage of them. By definition, they only exist for a brief time.

From now on, understand that hunches are SerenDestiny Stepping Stones appearing before you are gifts from the universe. They are pointing out a harmonic path that will align you with like-minded individuals and opportunities. All you have to do is step forward in faith.

This isn’t woo-woo. Thousands of individuals have vouched for the “you wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t true” benefits they’ve reaped as a result of honoring their intuitive nudges.

Next time you get a hunch, even if you’re tired or busy; even if you don’t know where it’s going; follow its lead. Something or someone delightful awaits you.

SerenDestiny® #40: How Glee Star Jane Lynch is Living Her SerenDestiny®

“I said yes to everything, even when I thought I should be over there or over here, and I ended up getting a better life than I ever imagined for myself.” – Jane Lynch Jane Lynch is on a roll. … Continue reading →