A precious reader I have come to know through our Facebook group shared something with us this week that sparked some deep thoughts.
One of the biggest questions we can answer is what do we really want? If we’re driving somewhere, we put an address in GPS. Rarely do we get in the car and just decide to see where the car wants to take us. How often do we get in the car of life, buckle up and just see what happens?
I’m guilty of it too. I’ve set and achieved many goals in life, but I’m in a season right now where personally I have clear goals, but professionally, my goals aren’t spelled out. I tell myself it would be nice if this happened, or if that happened, but I am not crystal clear what’s the most important to me.
As a result, I don’t have little goals set to make sure I am on pace with hitting any big goals. And guess what, targets aren’t hit that way. Dreams rarely come true that way. The very first requirement for a dream to come true is to name the dream! What are your dreams? I’m asking myself the question too.
Several authors and teachers send me content on a regular basis. Yesterday, one of them challenged her followers to name the things they want to do with their time left on earth, because it is limited time. She offered her very long bucket list to share what she hopes to do, to be, and to see. She has big things and small things and everything in between on her list.
Do you have a bucket list? I confess, I do not have a current list handy. I have made them in the past, but the last one is stuck in a folder somewhere. It’s not helping me there!
We must immerse ourselves with consistency regarding our goals and dreams, such as using detail-specific verbal and written affirmations, talking about them with people who care about us, visualizing them, cutting out pictures to see them daily, or perhaps making a vision board.
Without regularly doing things to keep our goals on the forefronts of our minds, we might as well just get in the car, turn the key and see if the gears manage to start shifting. And pray that the car takes us somewhere that we halfway like.
“But I don’t know what I like? I don’t know what I want?” I get that too. When my professional career as a W-2 employee was ending, I was still in my thirties. I had no clue what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had to do a lot of soul-searching.
I journaled. I wrote down what I liked, what I loved, what I thought I was good at, what other people told me I was good at. I wrote down what I would do for free, if money were no object. I thought about what charity organizations I might serve and donate unlimited funds to, if I could. I read books about purpose and listened to interviews about how other people realized their dreams. Unlimited supporting information is out there, and internal knowing is in here (heart space).
All the head knowledge and research in the world aren’t enough. We have to get in touch with our spirit to let it guide our lives. The intellectual pursuit provides useful data for sure. But the spiritual pursuit reveals the answers, the very blueprint stored inside each one of us. Our purpose, our talents, our paths to fulfillment… They are already inside us!
It takes both an intellectual and spiritual pursuit to cultivate a fulfilling life.
Sometimes I hear people say they just can’t figure it out, even though they’ve taken personality tests, read lots of books, listened to podcasts, etc. That’s all good stuff, but usually those people aren’t saying much about what they are doing spiritually to find the answers.
If life purpose searches are solely done as an intellectual exercise, we still may not know what we really want. We are spiritual beings. The answers are inside us and that is where we must look.
Life is a spiritual pursuit, supported by our intellect, not the other way around.
We will fall short of the mark if we are only following our intellect. If we are only looking for answers externally, we will never find the treasure map within. We have to go inward, to more successfully go anywhere else.
How do we get to this internal knowing? Journaling, walking, praying, meditating, silence—indulging in some of these things and then noticing if peace is the body‘s response, if pleasure surfaces. If strong resistance or negative feelings come up during spiritual exploring, that may be a clue it’s not what we really want. Or, it could simply be fear, rather than caution. Perhaps we are meant to find the courage and do it anyway. We have to keep searching for clarity to be more sure.
Knowing what we want is a verb. It isn’t a pie in the sky idea where droplets of dreams fall out of the clouds and land on us—where suddenly our eyes are opened and we know what we were born to do.
Knowing is a pursuit. Knowing is listening. Knowing is noticing. Knowing is collecting clues and seeing how they fit together. Perhaps there’s more overlap between dreams that seem at first to be quite different. If they aren’t investigated, they may just sit there as separate thoughts, without realizing how they are interconnected and how one dream may fuel the other.
I confess I have really struggled with journaling lately, which in the past was a gateway to many of my dreams and solving my own puzzles. My spirit (and God) always showed up on the pages to tell me things I never would’ve arrived at, had everything just continued to swirl around in my head. New insight happened more often than not when I journaled regularly, so why have I resisted doing that these last few years?
Many of us resist uncovering our dreams because then we would have to deal with a specific longing that’s no longer secret. We may feel compelled to take action, which can be frightful. Many of us, me included, would sometimes rather remain comfortable with status quo than get uncomfortable to find out what we really want, and then take a step toward bringing it to be.
Back to my initial question: what do you really want?
Are you happy with status quo? If so, great. This message isn’t for you. This is for those of us who wonder what more would look like, or what different would feel like. This is for those of us with an unnamed desire festering under the surface. This is for those of us who sense we have an unrealized purpose. We’re hungry for it and restless without it.
Often people who know me think my life looks full and productive. I do manage a few things, but much of my time is spent overwhelmed by the choices, the possibilities and the as yet, un-clarified priorities for how I really want to spend my time. I wish I could tell you I had it all together. We are all figuring it out as we go.
Learning how to live our best lives is one thing. Application of this knowledge is quite another. (This is why we talk a lot more about journeys rather than arrivals.)
Nevertheless, today I declare my desire and intention to spend some time in the next week journaling about what I really want. One approach I like is to journal this question: What do I wish were true a year from now? What do I wish were true three and ten years from now? What do I want to be true in my final days?
Those are big questions. The big questions help us get to the little answers, the steps that can be taken today.
If we’re not spending regular, quality time internally on a consistent basis, life outside of us may often feel uncertain, confusing and overwhelming. When we cultivate our spirituality, more doors will open, passions will be found, and nurturing relationships will develop as the fruit.
My coaching program is called, A Life Worth Having. So many of us desire a greater sense of fulfillment, but we aren’t sure what the more might look like. Or, we may have an inkling about what we want, but we need the support, encouragement, and accountability to make real steps on our journey.
I have used many coaches and mentors over the course of my life. I hired a coach in January, 2015 and
Finding the Gift was finalized and published nine months later. The content had been finished and ready for over two years. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that working with a coach inched me toward completion of this monumental goal. Could a coach help you?
Click here for an additional message from me. (To play it without having to download, click on the smaller thumbnail. FYI This was recorded for a group I had just spoken to so please ignore the ending!)
If you’re in our Facebook group and missed the post from Kelly, check out the victory she shared about naming and receiving what she really wanted last week, which helped inspire this message. (Thanks Kelly!) Then spend some time with your spiritual self to explore and name what you really want. Let me know if I can help.
