This week we’ll continue to have a look at what the journey of fulfillment looks like and how we can pursue it for ourselves.
In our previous discussion we looked at the importance of truly knowing yourself and then honouring who you truly are. In this discussion, we’ll take a look at how we apply what we feel to our our daily lives.
Making a big life change is an attractive and exciting prospect. There’s a reason New Year’s resolutions are such a big thing (even if we hardly ever stick to our resolutions). It’s a good feeling to make a change for the better, and as long as we base our decision on sound thinking (like pull factors instead of push factors), we can sometimes work a fair bit of mundane magic and improve our lives dramatically.
But before we bring all of these additional wonderful things into our lives, we first have to stop for a second and take account of where we are right now.
Firstly, you are where you are for now, and in the now is the only place where anyone has any power. You cannot change the past, although you can change your relationship with the past, which is a whole other story that we’ll address another time. But if you are going to change the future, or even change your relationship with the past, it all has to happen in the ‘now’. To that end you need to first make peace with where you are right now. By not making peace with where you are, you start off by taking the power that you have in the now and giving it either to the past, to worries and concerns about the future, or to people and issues outside your control. You need to empower your now to effect change.
So, after you’ve reclaimed your power in the ‘now’, how do you go about applying that power to effect change in your life? In our scenario, does that mean that a different career is the next logical step? Not necessarily. First of all, if you have not made peace with where you are right now, you will not be surefooted enough to direct where you are off to next. Running away from the void that you are trying to fill will never work, because guess what? You will carry that void with you wherever you run.
Now, let’s say you have done the work to change your relationship with your now, i.e made peace with where you are. Then you can turn your gaze inward to be sure of what your passions are, to know what you like and do not like in accordance with your natural design. Only then, from this solid stance, will you more clearly be able to understand your relationship with your career going forward.
One of the outcomes may be a renewed love for your current career through a realignment with those aspects of the job that are also things that you are passionate about. From here you can further your career with a focus on the aspects that you love. In this way you can reach a place where you are no longer running from the negative aspects of your current job, but rather looking for interactions, places, situations and options where the positive aspects are the greatest and you move towards those.
A second possibility may be to supplement your career with passion projects or activities that bring in more of the things that you are passionate about into your life. We are complex beings, and we can have so many things that we are passionate about, and therefore a single thing, relationship or situation is unlikely to be sufficiently fulfilling on its own. Other things that you bring into your life can add to how fulfilled you are. In this instance, you can foster a deep appreciation for your job and still manage to find further fulfillment in a diverse array of other interests too.
There are so many scenarios of how your passion can be reflected to you in your life, but I’ll wrap up with one last illustrative scenario to give an idea of the spectrum of possibilities. In this scenario you identify something that you wish to pursue on a more full-time basis one day. You can be appreciative of your current job and recognise how it serves you in the now and provides you with the resources and security to make a start on something new and exciting that you plan to build your future around.
In all of the scenarios above, you will notice that to reach a place of appreciation for your current situation is a very powerful aid in pursuing your bliss as it truly empowers your now, and knowing yourself and the true nature of your deepest passions is the key to taking control of your life.
Remember to be kind to yourself.
Until next time,
Jean-Pierre