Ultimately what you’re looking for in life is fulfilment. But how to get it? Doing something that causes you to fulfilled is what we call our purpose. Have you more than one purpose? Maybe? If you’re not sure where to start with then don’t worry, it’s all the same in the end…
Golden Calf
The great news is you don’t’ even need a clear purpose to begin with. All you need to be is ready to begin. You may have already began, which is why you’re reading this, you’re seeking. Your journey will unearth many clues, many people telling you which way to go. But that’s all that they are clues and signposts, they are not your purpose. If you’re hoping following the latest diet, fitness program or guru is your purpose, then be careful you’re probably treating those things like a crutch. They are great for keeping you heathy, fit and in a great mental state while you’re finding your purpose, but unless you’ve a desire to be in those industries, be careful they will be come a distraction. Objectively use them like a tool to get what you need.
Destination Unknown
A coach asked me once “Would you get on a bus that said ‘Anywhere‘?” He of course meant it as a thought exercise of setting a goal. In my twenties that seemed like a revelation, and goal setting is a good idea when you’re on a track with a purpose. But as life passed I found myself wondering if the bus to Anywhere had a certain attraction. Anywhere away from the banal. When you fulfil your purpose, raise your family, do your job on auto pilot, sell your company, what ever it is you’ve done, you will no doubt ponder the question ‘WTF do I do now?’.
It’s easy to get bogged down by thinking “what’s my goal?”, “what’s my destination?” It’s like being 12 again and everyone asking you what you’re going to be when you grow up, but now you are your own slave master beating yourself into submission. So you stare at a blank piece of paper waiting for divine inspiration and the frustration sets in once again. Finding your purpose feels like trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Except you don’t know that it’s a rabbit you’re looking for and you don’t know how you’re going to possibly find it in a hat.
A core understanding of seeking is that you don’t need to start with clarity and execute a plan. Do yourself a favour, give yourself a break from the anxiety and frustration of not knowing or not finding what you’re looking for. That feeling is perfectly normal. Of course you don’t know, how would you?
What you’re going to ‘be’ you can call that your destination or your purpose. There are so many unknowns when finding your purpose, that’s normal too. The mental model we have for a journey is usually Linear (A to Z). I prefer to visualise the journey as puzzle with pieces or clues to be found. Your journey will never be linear as it unfolds. Instead of trying to see the endpoint just see the next piece, place it and move a step forward. See the next piece and take action. that’s the method I call practice over time. Successful people (People who are fulfilling their purpose) leave a linear trail that looks like they intended it. But the path they leave is the result so it looks like they knew their path from the start but they didn’t. Ask one.
Practice over time
Practice over time is a simple method. Observe, take action, observe, take action… repeat. Nothing happens over night. This is where the practice over time method comes in. Have you ever wondered why some professions are called ‘a practice’? It’s because an art can only me mastered over time with practice. You can theorise all day and learn everything from a book but it’s only the action – the practice, that gets things done. In physics potential energy gets converted to kinetic energy (the energy of movement) by applying a force. That force is Action.
But randomly taking action is not good either. This is where the observe part comes in. Practice over time leads you towards the rabbit and when you stop and observe you begin to notice that there’s certain things that resonate with you. These things are pieces of the puzzle. It’s up to you to see these pieces and then take action with them. When you’re in a state of awareness, present and actively observing, things begin to happen. When you observe something that resonates with you then you ask the question. Is this what I’m looking for? If that answer is yes then you must take action. That action might be as small as acknowledging the event, it might mean you write it down, it might mean you book a ticket, you’ll know what to do. Everything you do will lead you towards your destination. Even if you take wrong steps you’ll learn, a benefit of taking small steps is that small wrong steps are ok. You just use that information to fine tune your observations. Knowing it’s ‘Not that’ is as important as finding a piece. As you repeat this low energy low effort POT you’ll begin to think, maybe I could make that thing happen after all… I see the pieces. Can I see how they go together. No not really, not yet, But could they? Yes possibly. So it’s the possibility that becomes more ‘real’.
How long will it take
I recently spoke with an old friend who mentioned the term ‘runway’. I had not heard it before but it’s a great term for understanding a key element. A runway is an amount of space that you have. Some people retire, they have a runway for the rest of their mortal lives. Some take sabbaticals, some get rich, some get organised, some just ignore everything else. No matter what your circumstance you must make space for POT if you want to find fulfilment, that should be obvious now. Notice I said you need to make space and not time. Time is finite, you cannot make more. But space is infinite you can make as much as you want.
So how long? Practice over time – time being the measurement of the day by day practice the week by week. Just a relative measurement to show you that the rabbit cannot appear instantaneously, maybe it can by pure chance! But the Practice Over Time ensures you get to the point of mastery. How long? There is no real time so we can’t say exactly how long. As long as you want it to be? As long as you make it? Who knows. Maybe you get this stuff really quickly and have a rabbit farm in no time. Say this “My journey is my own so my experiences happen to me at my pace.” If you start, if you practice, you’ll find your pace. There are no rewards for running fast at someone else’s pace, or kidding yourself about no pace.
So decide on your runway, the space you make for this journey. That’s fundamental. You need that space. Rearrange everything else if you need to but create a runway.
Then begin POT, observe, take action repeat.
Awareness
The state of your mind and body will affect your ability to observe and take action. the more you practice observing the better you will become at it. There are things you can do that are repeatable, certain states you can be in that make the path more intense not exactly clearer but brighter or certainly more tangible or real. Mediation is an example of a practice you can repeat to train your awareness, presence and ability to observe the world around you.
Action is a fundamental part of the movement of the universe. Without action there is stillness. So we can reasonably assume the same applies to us. “Us” being part of the universe.
So our challenge is to just be occasionally tuned in to what we are doing. Just being present at exactly that. When walking, just walk. So whatever you’re doing just do that. That’s a practice. Just the awareness of exactly what you are doing. Each step you take as you move about. Just letting happen what you are trying to do in a slow mindful way.
So why are we doing that? Because starting slow is just easier. Slow is steady and steady is fast. In your practice you can build up if you want.
Ultimately you must trust trust that you will know what to do in the moment.
For practices I use for keeping my mind and body in tune see the Essentials
For reading on awareness try Anthony De Mello Awareness
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