Volume II-Avril-MMXX
SGN: Some Good News with John Krasinski (Facebook, 16min)
And though it may be super risky to do this… these are my favorite moments in his Good News reel → 2:35, 3:30, 4:35, 11:20
It’s simple, right? “They” have been telling me at least 40 years – “do what you love… the rest will follow.” And I have been chasing my passion for about the same amount of time… In hindsight, that’s okay. I think the great thing about where we are as a human race is that most of us have the gift of CHOICE… and by golly we change our minds a lot. And we need to get “okay” with that… The people receiving this note run the range from grad students to C-suite to retired… minimum wage to multi-millionaires… and happy beyond words to miserable. Hopefully for those in that last category it’s a very short season of life… [From some of the responses I received yesterday, a lot of us (at all stages of life) are pretty uncomfortable right now… Let me tell you what you’ve already heard: It’s justified. And you will be fine. We all will.]
In the meantime, the uncertainty we’re in now is a great forcing function to look at creating the future we want. And I believe that all begins with DEFINING a desired future based on doing the things that consistently bring us the most joy. I was doing some (uhhhhm…) personal research on this – nothing to hide here, peeps – and ran across an article from the Jack Canfield team about “10 Life Purpose Tips to Help You Find Your Passion.” I particularly liked the exercise outlined in #6 (pasted below) about conducting a “Passion Test”. It’s a simple way to prioritize the activities (note, the exercise is to identify “verbs”) that bring you joy. Once you give some thought to those and commit to them, then you really can build action plans about what you DO in life that creates opportunities to focus on those things that make you happiest. Voooooooilà! Of course – the obvious next step, is that we then need to create action plans to move it to something tangible and real… but I’m pretty stoked about having an authentic inventory of my passions that I have carefully and thoughtfully prioritized. And now, I’ve committed it to a ton of people who aren’t too shy to ask… Yep, I’m toast.
I’m the guiltiest of the “Falling Forward Sinners” – having built an awesome career on strengths and talents of mine that others enjoyed more than I did. It’s my own fault that I never “took inventory” to truly own and drive what was next. I have no regrets; it was a fantastic ride. But wow… I’m really looking forward to these next chapters being more “in control” of what makes my heart sing and focusing my time, energy, and skills there. And I’m grateful for this “Corona Chapter” of life to force me to slow down and take a little time for some introspection. I’m turning my home office into a war room (yes, I know I need a more inclusive term… suggestions?). Given that we’ve just extended the orders for sheltering in place, I should will have time to build out a reasonable action plan and statement of tangible goals I’d plan to deliver into the universe when this rocketship launches… How about you?
from 10 Life Purpose Tips to Help You Find Your Passion
6. Conduct a Passion Test
Developed by Chris and Janet Attwood, The Passion Test is a simple, yet elegant, process. You start by filling in the blank 15 times for the following statement: “When my life is ideal, I am ___.” The word(s) you choose to fill in the blank must be a verb.
When Janet took me through the process, my statements looked like this:
· My life is ideal when I’m being of service to massive numbers of people.
· My life is ideal when I’m helping people with their vision.
· My life is ideal when I’m speaking to large groups.
· My life is ideal when I’m being part of a spiritual leaders network.
· My life is ideal when I’m creating a core group of ongoing trainers who feel identified with my organization.
Once you’ve created 15 statements, you identify the top 5 choices. To do this, you compare statements #1 and #2 to identify which is most important. Take the winner of that comparison and decide whether it’s more or less important than statement #3.
Then take the winner of that comparison, and decide whether it’s more or less important than statement #4, and so on until you’ve identified the passion that is most meaningful to you.
Repeat the process with the remaining 14 statements to identify your second choice. Then repeat the process until you’ve pinpointed your top 5 passions in life.
Next, create markers for each of your top five passions, so that you can look at your life and easily tell whether you are living that passion.
For me, a life goal would be, “When I’m helping people live their vision I’m giving at least 20 workshops a year for at least 10,000 people total, and at each event, people are coming up afterward and saying, ‘You’ve really empowered me to live my vision.”
Once you know what your passions are and how your life will look when you are living it, you can create action plans to turn your dreams into reality.
Be well… Be happy. 💕
