How to Discover Your Calling and Live a Happy Life
Have you ever wonder what is your life purpose, what is your calling and how to live a happy life? When I retired, I decided to put my Soul at Work, and I went on to discover my calling and get clarity on my life purpose.
With every story, it became evident to me that nothing happens by chance. My passion is to broadcast your passion. It took me a lot of commitment to help thousands of pople to find the courage to transform their life, from being the best kept secret to becoming visible. While trying to understand what drives me to sharing stories around the world, I realised that it is your moral duty to master the gift that was given to you at birth. The good news is that after decades of working on my passion, I have a three step formula that you can borrow from me right now:
Be seen! Be Heard! Be You!
I recentelly interview an American Author, who had no choice but to return to his god given gift – writing, when he was wrongfully impresioned. He published his first four books from his prison cell. When he was released, he stopped writing, and tragedy stoke again. To heal he went back to writing and published another book. And the history repeated itself, forcing Cornell Bunting to start writing again. What brought him closer to his purpose? He is now following his calling, about to go on book tours around the world. Sharing his story changed his story.
Discovering Your Calling Impacts Your Wellbeing
Do you wake up each morning feeling guilty that when you leave this world, and that can happen anytime, you will take your experience, your unique gift, your wisdom with you ?
Do you go to bed wondering how you would feel like spending the next day doing work that is meaningful to you and utilized your own gifts and passions?
If the answer is yes, you’re not alone—less than 20% of respondents of a Gallup Poll strongly agreed that they enjoyed what they did each day.
To investigate the impact of this phenomenon, Gallup researchers Tom Rath and Jim Harter studied the health and wellbeing of a group of people through the course of a normal workday.
There is no surprise that those who are engaging with their work have higher levels of happiness and less stress than those who reported feeling disengaged.
Why are there only 52,000 coaches who can teach for a living?
Why is your passion not attracting the profits you need to carry on giving your knowledge to others, teaching them your unique solution for their specific challenge?
What is Your Calling?
For some of us it was a parent, a teacher, a friend or a book inspiring to choose a certain industry, find a workplace that will pay for your skillset, so you have a source of income, you leave home every day to meet your colleagues, your team, and deliver a service.
Most people think of work as a solution to making a living, paying bills, meeting commitments, unrelated to a personal purpose. Sometimes a job could be found at the intersection of your passion with the needs of the world around you.
You could be,for instance, a nurse, in which case, the work involved is not about the monthly wage but more about your calling to help others.
But you could also have a calling that is delivered in your free time, engaging in great causes, as a volunteer.
To integrate your career with your life purpose, requires soul searching and introspection, clarity and determination to put your Soul at work.
How to Live a Life of Purpose
Pursuing meaningful work takes a lot of courage and consistency.
- Become aware of your natural gifts.
- Identify your unique talent, find out what gets you out of bed in the morning, not what keeps you awake at night.
- Find your true self. Your calling can be thought of as the urge to share your gifts with the world. When you express your gifts for the sake of others, you often experience the joy of being fully alive.
- Listen to your urge to share your gifts with total strangers and serve them. There is no greater joy of being fully alive than helping others, giving them the chance to live a better life.
- Ask yourself better questions, for example instead of ‘why?’ you could ask yourself ‘why not?’ This attitude creates a positive “flow” and makes you understand that your gift is yours but belongs to the world. It doesn’t serve anyone if you don’t develop it, and you need to work at it every day.
- Think of your calling as your licence to fly an airplane. Remember you can’t use the licence without the flying hours.
- Find an outlet for your calling: write about what you know, share with others your unique gifts. Social media is a good place to start but an algorithm can only take you so far. Now is the time to join our publication and become a guest contributor, an editor or host one of our Rich podcasts.
- Don’t just be a go giver, nobody can keep giving from an empty cup. Become a ‘go getter’. Put your name on your calling.
- Create your own presence in “the cloud”. Have a good website that connects with one of our publications, so when readers want more of what you are giving them, they can find you and engage with you directly.
- Speak on online and off line stages. We host Eight Summits every year where you are welcome to grace the stage.
Afterall, your life could only go as far as you allow your imagination to take you.