5 Steps to Finding Your True Calling and Purpose

Call it your purpose, vocation or authentic work, it represents the persistent voice within that calls you to do more, to be more. Some people know from an early age what they are called to do. They have a clear vision and pursue it with steadfast determination. Others, spend most of there life trying to figure it out. They stumble around it, sometimes incorporating their passions into their leisure time or “off work” time.

“The secret to success is making your vocation your vacation.” ― Mark Twain

But what if your play could be your work, your life and your job were one, an inseparable flow of emotional and financial reward and bliss? What would that look like? I know many would say that is not possible, it is not “realistic”. Believe me I have heard that many times. I even believed it myself until my life decided otherwise. Crisis pushed me to take a hard look at my career. It was the winter of 2009, only months after the market crash of 2008. My business had taken a terrible financial hit. Sales dropped 70% in the first quarter. But, much worse was the personal crisis that hit our family. My husband had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We had two young children, aged 5 and 7. My future was looking terribly bleak.

There was one shimmer of hope and light at the time. It was the advent of new social media. Twitter had just come on the scene and Facebook, Linkedin and blogging were becoming worldwide phenomena. You may wonder how this was in any way connected to do the crisis in my life. Well, I have often found that when my life, especially personal life, is in chaos, I find a comfortable haven in the creative and learning environment of work. So, I immersed myself in the new arena of social media. My background was in business, marketing and branding, so there was an obvious fit.

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” ― George Elliot

I read everything I could on this new technology and began to play with it to see how it could work for me. What I really liked was the freeing aspects of the new media and its potential to revolutionize the way we work. No longer did we need to rely on large organizations to employ us. We didn’t require anyone’s permission to put up a virtual storefront, create a thriving community of followers and pursue what we really love in a financially sustainable way. This insight was the driving force behind creating Designing Transformation Productions.

My path in identifying my true calling took several years and was full of twists and turns. In the process, not only did I create a totally new way to work and be successful, I learned very important lessons to help others identify their own calling. I learned that there are some fundamental steps required along the path which include: believing that your dreams can be realized, clearly visioning your own personal brand, creating a plan and sticking to it, experimenting with your ideas and surrounding yourself in a positive and supportive community.

5 Steps to uncovering you authentic path

1. Believe it is possible for you – Fear, doubt and disbelief are the main factors stopping people from making positive and transformational changes in their lives. For me, I had to believe. Going back to the way things were was not an option. But, it didn’t make things any easier. I was a caregiver to my dying husband, a full time parent to my small children and was trying to recreate my business in a down market, not to mention that I was a unilingual Anglophone in the predominately French speaking province of Quebec. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the next day, let alone keep a business going and pay my bills. But, I did believe I could find a way to recreate my work into something that would be better, more creative, more rewarding for me and my family, and I did.

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill

2. Go Within to create your vision – Gaining clarity is essential. This is a fairly basic concept, but one that is often overlooked. When we are looking for solutions, so often we look outside of ourselves for answers – in our friends’ advice, teachers, in books and other media. While this is important, before we venture outward we need to examine ourselves first – our desires, our skills, our unique competencies. No one can hear the song in our heart the way we can. When I was going through this myself, I realized that combining the Eastern philosophies of Mindfulness with good old business and branding practices offered an effective way to tease out a vision for myself. So, I developed an approach called Finding Your Zen Spot. It involves exploring what brings you meaning, what stirs your passions, assessing your assets, including your background and expertise, as well as what you are naturally good, and seeing where they all overlap.

3. Planned Flexibility – So often I see very talented soul entrepreneurs working hard to get their message out to the world, but at the same time are struggling to make ends meet. Often they appear to be unfocused, multi-tasking to the extreme and starting and stopping projects. I have also seen this in large organizations as well. People are highly reactive versus proactive. I will get a dozen reasons from clients why they can’t plan: “I need to stay nimble and reactive”, “I am a generalist, I get bored easily”, “I don’t have time to plan”. How I respond to this objections is that you can plan in flexibility. In other words, you can create a plan with a certain percentage (say 30% or 40%) unknown variability. This allows for some structure, which is necessary to achieve goals, while allowing for some room to maneuver if the plan needs to be adjusted. I developed the Abundance Academy for that reason, to offer world-class business advice and guidance to heart-based entrepreneurs, so they may develop their own plans for realizing their dreams.

4. Lean into it – Even if we believe in our own ability to achieve our dreams and we can visualize them clearly, many get frozen in manifesting them. The reasons are many including doubt, fear of failure, perfectionism, not knowing where to start, uncertainty of whether or not the chosen path is the best one for us, etc. What I have found most effective and what I recommend to my clients is to experiment with baby steps. For most people, the option of quitting their job tomorrow to follow their heart’s desire is not possible. Even if it is financially feasible, placing all of your time and energy into a single idea may not be the best option and could add a lot of undue pressure to make sure it succeeds. Instead, I like the concept of “leaning into” the new way. One of the best ways to experiment is something I call “Blog Therapy”. Blog Therapy involves using a multi-media platform like a blog as your personal sandbox in finding your unique voice and brand. You can make it private or public at any time, it is really for you to learn what you love to do, how you like to express yourself and basically what feels really great.

5. Surround yourself in community – Being on the cutting edge can be very lonely. There will be no shortage of people who will want to cut you down a notch or two, who will try to convince you what you are doing is not possible. They are only reflecting their own deep frustrations, but it can be hard not to get pulled into their negativity. To counter this, I surround myself with my tribe. Those are people like me who are positive, actively seeking alternative solutions to the 9 to 5 work day and who are passionate about what they do. I started by attending conferences and joining online communities. This lead me to create an event called the Awakening Festival and the monthly gathering called the Awakening Cafe. These explorations of my true passion (to bring people together in community to inspire conscious living) led me to create the Shift Leaders’ Network.

If you would like to explore uncovering your own true calling, Lianne offers one-on-one coaching services and hosts seminars in the Montreal area.

Contact Lianne at: lianne@designingtransformation.com