Finding Your Purpose – Core Values
Finding Your Purpose – Core Values
When we are trying to find our purpose in life, it is usually because we feel a bit stuck, as if we have lost our way a bit. Things just don’t feel quite right and we’ve lost our “mojo” and life doesn’t feel as joyful as we feel it should. We may be feeling that we should be doing better than we are, we may feel that we should have it all figured out by now or perhaps we are just frustrated and want to have the success, the income and the impact but in a way that feels more authentically aligned to who we truly are.
We may wish for deeper connections in our relationships too as we may have become a bit disconnected from what is truly important to us – we feel a bit like “is this it…..” and then we may even feel guilty for thinking that way because we already have so much……
Well if that sounds like you, then I can totally relate, because that is exactly how I was feeling about 9 years ago. You can find out more about my story on my “About Me” page, so I won’t go into that here, but I think these exercises will help you to put your focus in the right place…..
These exercises below help you to understand what is important for you at a CORE authentic level. It’s important to understand that when doing this exercise, you ensure that you are answering this from your “Authentic” self – your true self and not from your “Conditioned” self which is what you may have become in response to what other people expect of you.
So long as you can connect to your authentic self at any stage of your life – then you will be able to live in line with your values and purpose and you will instinctively feel happier.
This exercise is part of a new and updated mini program I have created on discovering your passion and purpose: – You can access that here:
Exercise 1a
According to Tony Robbins, the USAs leading “Self Help” and Transformational Life Coach, there are 6 key areas of our life that are essential to our survival. We fulfil all of these in some way in our lives – the problem is that in some areas we are not fulfilling them well.
Take a look at these 6 areas and decide which 2 are the most important for you – and then decide how well you are fulfilling them in your current life.
– Certainty (eg safety, comfort, financial stability)
– Variety (eg Excitement, change)
– Significance (eg needed, admired, respected)
– Love/Connection (eg friendships, partners, sharing, giving)
– Growth (eg. Learning, understanding, growing)
– Contribution (e.g giving back, self value,)
So for example if certainty is the most important thing to you in your life – and you’re thinking about giving up your job to start your own business, then you can see that this may cause some resistance.
If love and connection is the most important to you – and you’re not with a partner and you live on your own, then a deeper yearning for you is to find Love. Perhaps surprisingly, this actually affects how we feel about the role we are fulfilling in our career too, they are very much linked.
If growth is important to you – and you’re stuck in a dead end job with no room for promotion – then you may start to feel disconnected from your authentic self.
Just doing this simple exercise may give you an idea of why you are feeling like your life is lacking some purpose and joy.
When you’ve done this, now move on to Exercise 1b….
Exercise 1b
Take a look at the following list of values which you can download from HERE. For the first pass – just highlight or write down anything that really sticks out for you as being important to you – you’ll probably end up with a list of about 10-20 or so.
Then go back through the ones you have selected and really look hard at them. Decide whether they are REALLY a “must have” in your life in order for you to feel happy for YOU the real authentic YOU. Be really honest with yourself here and question your choices.
For example if you are drawn to choose “achievement” then write it down when you are going through the examples the first time. Then when you have about 10- 20 or so written down, go through those and start to question yourself on a deeper level about them.
So look at that word achievement again and decide if achievement makes YOU feel good – or whether its because you can tell someone else about your achievements so that they praise you and then you feel good. BIG difference. This is about YOU at a core level. So if achieving something makes you feel alive and is very important to you because you feel you are growing and experiencing more about life ….then that is a core value of yours.
By the end of this exercise you should have about 20 or so values that are fairly important to you but then I recommend you choose just 5 to be your CORE values and the ones you value and put a priority to over anything else.
These values that you were drawn to, will make decisions in your life a lot easier for you as you will be able to see if they match up to what’s important to you at a deep core level.
Exercise 2
Ask yourself these questions:
1) What do you enjoy doing now, or have enjoyed in the past in your career or business? – what aspect of it feels relevant, good or important to you ?
For me it felt good when I was training people on something that I felt confident and competent with – but for others, standing up and having to give presentations or training would be their worst nightmare. I found I enjoyed the strategy part of my role rather than the implementation.
2) What are you good at?
For me, I knew I was good at training people, but also had the ability to explain things in a way that people understand. I like people and relate to people and I am a natural empath. Once I learn something that truly works, I want to share it with others so they can live a better life. Doing what I do now, encompasses all of that which means I feel very happy and aligned with what I am doing. So make a list of what you are good at, and then ask a valued friend what they think you’re also good at. This is often an eye opener as they share things that you might not have realised about you.
3) What do you really dislike doing – what makes you start to contract down and feel pressured, drained or stressed when you think about doing it.
Try and exclude the boring mundane tasks that come with every job (and business! ) unless of course it’s what you do full time and you hate it! Think of other people’s jobs or things that you’ve done in the past where you felt it was not a good fit for you. For me it was tech stuff and trying to make something look good in documents or presentations. I also hated commuting and even though I was able to use the time to listen to my meditations or audio books, it felt like a waste of time to be travelling to a job when I could be work from home and be closer to my children and see them before bed.
List out all the things both at work and at home that you spend too much time doing that you feel stressed or pressured about doing.
4) What can you talk happily about – what lights you up when you speak about it?
This could mean aspects of your job or even a hobby that you love, or it could be a deeper cause that you feel passionate about that you have either seen in the news, experienced yourself, or just feel drawn to but may feel overwhelmed about – it’s important to know what truly lights you up.
5) What experiences do you have in your life that if you shared them you could help others?
Someone once said to me “Your Mess is Your Message” and that phrase has always stuck with me. When I was 40 years old and my children were still young, I started to feel like I needed to change things in my life. I didn’t listen to the niggling warning signs and then it all came crashing down on my when I was nearly 50. The struggle that I had, and the way I got myself out of it all – became my “purpose” which is to help other women to find their passion and purpose, to smash through their limiting beliefs that are SO outdated and so NOT true, so that they can live life to their full potential and in the process, they often discover their own pathway too.
Spiritual Teachers often tell us that our “Purpose” in life is known to us when we arrive on this Earth, but then is quickly forgotten about. It is then the experiences that we have in our life and how we navigate them that shows us what we need to resolve in our life, so that we find our Purpose. This was certainly true for me and many of the women I’ve worked with.
And in the process we end up feeling so much happier – Don’t we all deserve that? I believe we do !!!
6) What did you love doing as a child?
Look deep at this one – for me I loved riding horses…..but I wouldn’t want to do that for a living now, but when I dug deep I realised that although I loved the horses and horse riding – it was the FREEDOM I felt when I was galloping them through the hills with my friends with the wind whistling through my hair that I really loved. My Mum always told me that my favourite “toy” was a mini blackboard. I would line up my dolls and teddies and sit them around the blackboard and pretend to be a teacher. I didn’t become a teacher, but funny how I loved the training aspect of my job, and I am now a therapist, coach and trainer with the freedom to choose what hours I work – and feel totally aligned and in love with what I do.
So what did you love doing when you were a child or teenager – what have been the favourite aspects of any of the roles you’ve had in the past? The clues may be there.
7) If money was not an issue and you knew you could not fail….what would you be doing?
Where would you live……what would you be doing each day……who would you be with……how many hours a day would you be working…….?
For some – they just say I would lie around by a pool or beach each day drinking cocktails. And if that’s you, then you sound like you are exhausted, tired of life and you definitely need my help 😉
It is a core human need of ours to want to grow, and to have an impact in this world so that we leave a legacy, so thinking about what sort of life you would lead if you had millions in the bank allows you to get much more creative and visual. Have fun with this and note what springs to your mind and feels good!
If you would like to go through my full Feminine Fire: Ignite Your Passion, Purpose, Potential – program, then for more information – please visit: https://MebutFree.com/FF
In summary:
Look at your core values
Look at what you love doing
Look at what you’re good at
Does a group of the population need this?
Can you be paid for this?
Would you like to work with me? – Click Here for my most Transformative Program designed for women who know they are here for more! – More impact, more income and better relationships.
If you find this of interest and would like to know how RTT and Transformation Therapy can work for you, then please just schedule a complimentary 30 minute call with me
I’d love to help you.