What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream. —The Alchemist
Are You Aware of What You’re Doing?
I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately (as if you hadn’t noticed). One of my most urgent ambitions/dreams is to live an entirely purposeful life. I see people around me everyday, sleepwalking through life, on autopilot. Alarm clock, shower, breakfast, commute, zombie work, commute, dinner, television, sleep. Repeat. Day in and day out. It breaks my heart. What hurts more are the moments (sometimes hours) when I catch myself falling into that terrible haze. Of course I snap myself out of it as soon as I realize it’s happening. The way that I snap out of it is simple enough: I ground myself. I literally take notice of my feet on the Earth, carpet, tile (wherever I am). I recognize my breathing. I acknowledge that I am a human being walking the Earth, beneath the sky, on a great big planet, floating in the Universe. It’s really important to do that, to ground yourself in reality at least once a day, probably more. If you don’t do it you will get caught up in the trivial — the fight with your spouse; the disappointment over your kid’s report card; the scratch on your new car; the ever-growing pile of papers on your desk; your unappreciative boss — you get the picture.
Proactive vs. Reactive Living
When you ground yourself, you pull yourself from the depths of the trivial, unimportant, little details that tend to take control. When you ground yourself, you become aware. The only problem with grounding yourself this way is that it is reactive rather than proactive. There is actually a much better way to avoid autopilot and that is proactivity. I am going to start talking a lot on this blog about reactive vs. proactive thoughts and actions. So let me take a moment to define what I mean by each of these terms.
Reactive—Something happens and triggers you to take action.
Example 1: You get on the scale one morning to realize that you’ve gained ten pounds. Your reaction is to begin a diet and start breaking your back in the gym until you lose the ten pounds.
Example 2: Your marriage has been falling apart for the last two years. You fight with your spouse daily or more. You are both unhappy. You put everything before each other — work, friends, hobbies, etc. The marriage is your last priority. As a last resort you decide to attend marriage counseling.
Proactive—You consciously prepare and act in ways that will produce certain desired outcomes in your life.
Example 1: You are aware that you want to be physically healthy. You continually live a lifestyle that promotes health. You always take the stairs instead of the elevator. You run a mile each morning before work. You feed your body foods that it craves & needs and avoid “junk” whenever possible.
Example 2: Your marriage is one of your top priorities. You make “alone” time and set dates with your spouse at least once a week. You plan vacations together to explore places you’ve never seen. You participate in each others favourite hobbies. You fight, as all healthy couples do, but you practice open communication and work through arguments before they become significant problems.
If you analyze all of the actions and thoughts in your life, you will find that each one is either reactive or proactive. The goal is to make all of your thoughts and actions proactive. The problem with practicing reactive thinking or action, is that it is usually too late. And even when you do succeed, it is usually a short-lived success because reactive thoughts and actions do not treat the causes of problems; they only treat the symptoms.
Let’s take the reactive approach to the extra ten pounds for example. You notice the excess weight, you starve yourself, you go to the gym religiously — within a few months, the pounds are gone. You feel great for a little while, but soon you go back to your old habits. A few months later and the pounds are creeping back on. On the other hand, if you had made a decision to begin taking a permanent proactive approach to maintaining your health, you would have achieved long-lasting, sustainable progress and results. These same principles would apply to the example of the troubled marriage and any other example that you could think of.
Proactivity is a crucial element to a happy, fulfilling, successful life.
Follow Your Legend, Confront Your Dream
Now, I am going to tie this whole thing together and tell you how you can live a life of constant proactivity and sheer joy. Ready? Have another look at the opening lines to this post. What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream. (If you are not religious, replace the word God with the word Universe. What is a personal calling? It is the Universe’s blessing, it is the path that the Universe chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream. To me, the words God & Universe mean the same, beautiful, powerful thing.)
That’s it, my friends, if you want to live proactively, if you want to live the life of your dreams, all you have to do is confront your dreams and follow your legend.
Ask yourself these questions: What fills me with enthusiasm? What is the one thing that I could wake up and do happily every single day for the rest of my life without even being paid? When you have the answer, then you have your personal calling. It is the path that is meant for you. When you do this thing, you will follow your legend and you will confront your dreams.
Next month, it will be one year since I discovered my own personal calling. I will never forget the moment. It hit me like lightning — to help people by sharing my journey & the lessons I’ve learned along the way — so simple, but so amazing. That is what compelled me to start this blog eight months ago. That is what has kept me going ever since. And I know what you are thinking now: Dena, I can’t do it. You are making it sound so simple, but it’s not. I can’t afford to quit my job. I have a mortgage to pay. My mother is sick. I am not talented enough. I’m too old. It’s not practical. And the list of excuses will go on and on and on. Well, I am sorry, but none of your excuses are good enough! No matter how stuck you think you are — no matter how dire your circumstance might seem — there is a way out!
Take it from me. I was depressed and anxious for the first half of my life. I spent much of that time wanting my life to end. I was seventy pounds overweight. I was $40,000 in debt. How much further down could I have gone? I could have used a lot of excuses to keep myself in that state; but I didn’t. I made a decision to change my life. I lost seventy pounds. I overcame anxiety and depression. I’ve cut my debt in half and continue to pay it down every day! I figured out my personal calling and I am doing it. I am following my legend, confronting my dreams. I am making it happen — and you can do it, too.
Before you get started with your excuses again, I’d like you to imagine something. Imagine being born a young girl in Alabama in 1880. Imagine then growing up to understand French, German, Greek, and Latin. Imagine then going to Harvard, at a time when few women from your town did anything other than get married and raise kids. Imagine then writing a book that was translated into twenty-five languages and inspired two Oscar-winning movies. Imagine then meeting every President in your lifetime and being awarded the highest civilian honor—the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That would be some accomplishment, wouldn’t it? Now imagine doing all of that whilst being blind, deaf, and barely able to talk for your entire life.
It’s not impossible, friends. In fact, it’s very possible and there is a woman who did all of that, her name was Helen Keller. She accomplished all of those things, and more, because she believed in herself and she had a good teacher. (Taken from How to Be Rich & Happy.)
“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.” —John Wayne
Every single day is a new opportunity for us to begin living the lives of our dreams. Today is called “the present” because it is a gift. Take it and do something with it!
I would love to hear your thoughts about this post. What is your personal calling? What obstacles are standing in your way? How are you going to overcome them? What can I do to help you get there? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for sharing, Dena. This is such an important (yet whack-your-head-against-your-desk simple) principle. Sometimes, however, there is a cavernous disconnect between wrapping your head around something and actually integrating it into our behaviors, huh? I wish it wasn’t so, but it seems to be a natural human handicap.
I agree, that to simply do things is the best approach. Every Sunday, I make a “to do” list for the week in the list of priority, with the biggest projects and soonest deadlines at the top, and mere “I might like to do this…” items at the bottom. A lot of times, I am so thrilled to do the very last items that it makes barreling through the most important ones seem easy (even if previously I had thought how in the F am I going to get all of this done? I know there is a reward at the end, much like the ocean at the end of the river. Or at the end of a turbulent tributary, there is a bigger body of water that is fresher, cleaner, colder, and moving with purpose towards its ultimate destination. And even when it gets there, it keeps moving. That is the beauty of it, and of us!! 🙂
@ Kristin – So glad you liked the post, Kristin. 🙂 You are right. It is a very simple, but incredibly useful philosophy. I have often wished to tattoo the word accept on my forehead or maybe my wrist. With all of the strife that I’ve been through in my lifetime, I have never found one where acceptance did not help. The challenge, though, is remembering to accept. It seems that our primal instinct (especially those of is with some anxiety!) is to resist.
It is a learned behavior. I hope that adopting “Be like water” as my current mantra will help me along the path.
Water adapts. It takes many different forms: ice, rain, clouds, and becomes many different shapes as well. Bruce Lee said, “If you pour water into a tea kettle, it becomes the tea kettle”, we ARE water.
My wife is a perfect example of this, once a goal is placed she seems to have a uncanny ability to wander and wear her way towards it. I have the nasty habit of analyzing almost everything, and that frequently leads to over thinking. Both methods provide their problems. There is a danger in flowing towards a goal that is never questioned, This is how driven people find themselves in a great job with an unhappy life.
I think the trick is to be able to question, and then flow. Only question for a set amount of time, then with this new redirection flow towards it… set points of reflection and redirection, and then again flow.
@ Tony – Thank you so much for stopping by. You are absolutely right it is so important to establish that balance between thoughtfulness & free-flowing acceptance. I am like you. By nature, I tend to over-think rather than just flow. My fiance is more like you wife, constantly flowing. It is healthy to have the yin & yang in the relationship, always balancing one another.
Thanks again for your comment. Have a beautiful day! 🙂