Your Honest and Authentic Self, Part 2
Finding Your Purpose
Being authentic also means that you are really living your passion, purpose, or mission in life. Are you in alignment with your purpose or mission?
There are times in your life when your purpose may change. You may be a parent to young children, and caring for them daily to make sure they have all their needs met is your purpose now. After they’ve grown, your reason for being will change.
If, however, you know deep inside, during the time you are solely caring for young children, that you have another purpose, you need to be acting upon it—even if it is at a very slow pace. For example, if you dream of being an architect, you can take one class each semester to work toward that degree, you can volunteer at a local firm to help out in some way, or you can work part time as a receptionist simply to learn the business from the inside out.
How do you find your purpose or mission in life? I believe you find it by paying attention to your passions—those things you would do whether or not you’re paid, because there is so much pleasure in doing those activities.
Please note, also, that you can have a job that simply is there to pay the bills and still live on purpose. A client of mine has a job as a manager of a health food store. Her passion and mission, she recently found out, was to counsel bereaved parents of children who had committed suicide through a local hospice. She is living her life’s purpose even though it is not her nine-to-five job. If your job is keeping you overworked, stressed-out, and unhappy, then you may need to find a job that you can do easily, and enjoy in an unstressed manner, so that you can live on purpose with your volunteer time.
What do you love to do? List those things on a separate piece of paper. Also, remember back to childhood… What did you love to pretend to do then? I was always the teacher when my siblings, neighborhood kids, and I played school. Looking back, it’s no surprise that I became a teacher and loved it for many years.
I also realized, when I was burnt-out, that it was time to leave that profession and find my next mission in life. That was a long challenging road to follow. It took me six years to figure it out, and I’m finding that my mission is evolving and being “tweaked” into something slightly different even now.
There are no rules here, except that when you are being your authentic self, you will know it—deep inside. You will feel calmness and have peace-of-mind. You will do things with honesty, integrity, and commitment. You will aim to not hurt anyone, yet, at the same time speak your truth, and not give away yourself just to please or placate someone else. You will also not bully or manipulate your way to getting what you want. Taking the “high road” is always the best way. You’ll sleep better at night when you do.
Living authentically is simple but not always easy to do. However, when you do, your life will flow with greater ease. Of course, there will be challenges in life; those are the lessons you need to learn to improve and keep your aim straight. It can be done, and the reward is worth the time and effort it takes to figure it all out. Happiness is the bonus, and we all deserve that!
