What do you want?
If you can’t immediately answer that question, then it’s time to reflect. It starts with you thinking about your values and defining who you are with a series of “I AM” statements. It continues with a series of “I WANT” statements and ends with a series of “I WILL” statements.
The risk of not defining what you want leaves you at the mercy of others who may or may not be thinking about your needs, wants or capabilities. They are certainly not thinking about your purpose and what makes you fulfilled. In the context of work, this absolutely won’t happen. I know that this is a very strong statement, but it’s true. Your place of employment is not responsible for answering your life questions for you. Your manager is not responsible for providing you with a template for your life. That’s your responsibility. Your work/family/community is counting on YOU to define your path. The bottom line is that if you haven’t defined your “I AM”, others will define who “YOU ARE”.
When you don’t take control of your life, you will not energetically engage with it to the fullest extent. At some point, you are likely to feel like a victim of your circumstances. You will have grown accustomed to thinking that you have to make tradeoffs, never quite getting anything that you want in the process. This will sap your energy to the core, leaving you feeling depleted and trapped.
If any of this is resonating within you, you must start to question why you think you couldn’t get what you want. What beliefs are holding you back? What has happened in the past (or is happening now) that informs those beliefs? What self-talk is preventing you from taking action? Until you answer those questions, you will not be able to take action towards getting what you want.
Here are a few things that I wanted, but thought that I couldn’t have. In some cases, I thought (limiting belief) that by having these things, I would damage my career..
Live anywhere
Stretch myself intellectually and professionally
Have the time to strongly engage and support my young adult children
Work in a way that allowed for authentic conversations built on ‘win-win’ expectations
Have the time to support the most vulnerable in our society
I could have disabused myself of my limiting beliefs if I had been more connected with a broader array of women outside of my workplace. Of course, I had come across the occasional woman who had left corporate life and was doing extremely well for herself and living life on her terms, but I refused to believe that this could happen for me. In fact, I encouraged women to take these steps when they sought out my advice! Unfortunately, this idea that other women could do this, but not me, was yet another limiting belief. I thought my situation was so unique that I shut myself off to other avenues that would have allowed me greater fulfillment.
As a started to develop an authentic template for who I wanted to be, it became easier to define what I wanted. This was an ongoing, multistage process. As I better understood and articulated “Who” I was it easier to define “What” I wanted.
It did not happen overnight or even during my weekend “thought retreats”. My journey to discover what I wanted began after I got divorced and returned to a house that I owned. I landed in this large house with just a little bit of furniture. The house sat on an acre of landscaped grounds that had to be well maintained because it was in a neighborhood of even bigger homes, on even bigger and grander properties. All around me, the smaller homes were being torn down to make way for these modern-day estates. Although a beautiful neighborhood, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable there. I then read the book Enough by Will Davis Jr. and watched a documentary on minimalism. Those external connections were critical to shaping my vision.
As I sat in my too big house, I had to take a hard look at whether I was authentically living my life. I turned to examine my values. I was getting more than my daily bread. I was using up planetary resources heating rooms that I didn’t use and my closet was filled with clothes that I didn’t wear. If I truly lived my values, something had to change because many aspects of my life did not add up. After defining who I was (“I AM”), I set out to define what I wanted.
I wanted to spend the majority of my remaining time on earth passionately doing the things that aligned with my purpose. I did not want it to be a part-time effort. I wanted to live a life that was not rooted in my advancement. I wanted to coach and give voice to women who didn’t have a voice. I wanted to live a life unencumbered with things. I wanted to leave the world a little better than when I entered it.
Lofty “wants” don’t define a life. Action defines life. With these things in mind, I designed my roadmap. It took 2 years to begin to create the life that I wanted. Since I view myself as a work in progress, I am comfortable with the fact that I am at the end of the beginning. I let go of my limiting belief that my life had to change “radically” or “all at once” to be authentic.
I started with the steps that I was capable of making at the time. I continue to take steps to move towards my ultimate vision. Every day, I show up for my life by being present, practicing gratitude for what I have, confident that I am getting closer to the life I want to live. You can too.
Summary:
Define your values and who you are (“I Am…”)
State explicitly what you want (“I Want…”)
Develop a roadmap to evolve your life towards your purpose (“I Will…”)
It’s “OK” if you choose an incremental approach— as long as you are taking action
You CAN have the purposeful life you want!
