This exercise is hugely helpful for getting a new perspective and stepping outside our boring-ass ruts of tired old excuses and lame habits. It can also be very useful in making you aware of all the staggering possibilities and resources that you have at your fingertips and take for granted or do not see. Sometimes it’s as simple as looking at things with new eyes to see how astoundingly fortunate we are. Be the alien for twenty-four hours and see what you come up with.
2. TAKE THE FIRST RIGHT STEP
Instead of wasting hours and days and years trying to figure out your perfect next move, just DO something already. Oh the time we waste rolling ideas around in our heads, imagining what-ifs, coming up with perfect reasons why and then perfect reasons why not, tearing at our cuticles, making our friends and family carefully screen their calls in case it’s us again, wanting to go over some ideas. Get out of your head and take action. You don’t have to know exactly where it’s going to take you, you just need to start with one thing that feels right and keep following right-feeling things and see where they lead.
Most answers reveal themselves through doing, not thinking.
When I discovered my calling as a coach I was, ironically, in the midst of a lifelong obsession with figuring out what the hell my purpose was. While I always knew writing was part of it, I also knew I wasn’t meant to spend my life locked away in a silent room alone and half-crazed, wrestling words into submission. I wanted something that A) Involved interacting with other people B) Helped people in some sort of direct way C) Was really fun and D) Forced me to bathe, dress and leave my house. That’s about all I had to go on, that and my intense desire to figure it out, so when a friend told me I should check out a women’s entrepreneurial think-tank group that had just started up, I figured I’d go.
We were all supposed to bring a project to work on, but I had nothing, just the hope that I’d get some ideas from something someone else brought to the table. After sitting there for four weeks watching this roomful of women figure out what they love to do and turn their brilliant ideas into businesses, or grow the businesses they already had, I still had no project of my own. But I did know what I wanted to do. I went up and asked the facilitator if she needed any help, which she did. She hired me, and I started leading these groups, which, after a few years, led to me starting my own coaching practice, which led to me working with clients all over the world which led to me sitting at the kitchen counter writing this book.
No matter how clueless you may feel right now, pay attention to suggestions and opportunities that suddenly present themselves. And notice how you feel—is there something for you that, for whatever
reason, feels like it might be good to check out? What have you been saying forever that you’d love to do? Has somebody mentioned a course or a teacher or a book that keeps sticking in your mind? Take the first step in the direction toward something that feels right and see where it leads you. And do it NOW.
3. DO YOUR BEST WHEREVER YOU’RE AT
Once you take this first step, it’s possible that you won’t land in your dream situation right away. You might land on a stepping-stone. It could be an awesome stepping-stone, or it could be kind of an unpleasant stepping-stone. But no matter where your first step lands you, if you want to keep moving forward, appreciate wherever you’re at instead of feeling ashamed or grouchy or impatient about it.
Everything you do along your journey contributes to where you’re going.
Let’s say you’ve decided that you’re going to go after your fantasy of being a rock star, and you take a job waiting tables so you have the flexibility to travel and play gigs and go in the studio. Clearly, your calling is playing music, not being concerned that some whiney customer’s French onion soup is allegedly too cold, but it’s essential that you care anyway. Having a good attitude and being grateful for all the things that are helping you live the life of your dreams will not only make your life a more pleasant place to be, and get you bigger tips, but it will also raise your frequency and attract the people and opportunities to you that will take you in the direction you want to go.
This is where really being present in the moment comes in handy. Granted, you may not be onstage in front of thousands doing a split in
the air, but remember that you are going for it, you are bravely moving toward your dream, you are surrounded by unthinkable miracles and opportunities. Lean back, relax, and be grateful that you’re living on purpose, that you’re hanging out in a high frequency, and that everything you need is zooming toward you.
4. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL
Look around and see what other people out there are doing. Whose life makes you totally jealous? What things are people doing that you would love to do too? Who do you think is the coolest person ever? You don’t need to invent your ideal life from scratch, you just need to figure out what makes you feel alive. So if what someone else is doing sparks your interest, take notice. It could mean that your calling has something in common with theirs.
Get specific about the things in their lives that turn you on. Is it because they get to travel the world? Is it that they have a solid routine? Is it that they have no routine? Is it that they work alone? That they work in the nude? That they get to be outside all day? That they work with their hands? Their eyes? Their ears? Their animals? Their spouse? The more specific you get, the easier it will be to create a picture of what you want.
Read magazines that interest you, talk to as many people as you can, hang out in places where people who share your interests hang out. Put yourself out there and you never know what you might learn that will inform your next move, or whom you might meet that will present you with your next opportunity.
5. DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE THUNDERBOLT HYPE
I think one of the most paralyzing misconceptions is that we’re all supposed to have one true calling that comes to us in a mighty flash of soul-defining insight. While there are those people who’ve always known exactly what they want to do, there are a hell of a lot more of us out there who spend most of our lives, if not all of our lives, wandering around looking under rocks and behind trees for who we are.
Let yourself off the hook if you don’t have that one, big, perfect thing that you know you came here to do (same goes for finding the one, big, perfect soul mate, BTW), and feel good about the fact that you’ll probably fulfill several callings throughout your life (and possibly relationships).
If you think about it, it makes more sense to evolve as you age anyway. When I think about who I was in my twenties compared to who I am now, I can’t imagine anything more unappealing than going after some of the things that resonated with me back then.
Follow what feels good in the moment, every moment, and it will lead you through a most excellent life.
6. LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION
If you really want to get in touch with who you are and what you love to do, and who you love to do it with, dedicate some time to tuning in to your intuition. One of the best ways to do this is to spend five minutes of quiet, by yourself, every day. We spend the vast majority of our time moving at full speed ahead, both physically and mentally, and we literally bulldoze over the very answers we’re seeking because they can’t be heard above the din. When you sit quietly and ask, you get an
answer. Eventually. Stick with it, be patient and wait to hear from your inner guidance. You have all the answers you need, you just need to give them the chance to get through to you.
7. FOLLOW YOUR FANTASIES
Now that I’ve given you all the kinder, gentler ways to figure yourself out, I’m going to suggest something you’re probably not going to like so much: Jump in the deep end and follow your fantasies. What do you fantasize about when you’re staring out the window of a train, or before you go to sleep at night, or when you’re pretending to listen to someone really boring talk your ear off? Are you onstage doing stand-up comedy in front of thousands of hysterical fans? Are you surrounded by your beautiful children in the coziest, happiest home ever? Are you being celebrated for building orphanages around the world? Do this exercise as if money were not an issue. Tap into what brings you great joy instead of what you think you need to do to survive. If you had an unlimited supply of cash, what would you spend your life doing?
Our fantasies are the most revealing peepholes into who we are and what we think is awesome. No matter how out-there and ridiculous they may seem, they mean something to us, and usually represent our biggest and best versions of ourselves.
Our fantasies are our realities in an excuse-free world.
Meanwhile we’d all be mortified if anyone could read our minds and catch us in the act—“I know, it’s totally stupid, I want to sing on Broadway.” Well,
is
it really stupid? Someone’s out there doing it, so why couldn’t you?
Much of the time we pretend we aren’t clear on what our calling is when what’s really going on is that we’re horrified to face it because it seems too big or too impossible to make a living at or completely out of the question for us.
But what if you had the audacity to leave your excuses and your shame about wanting to be huge and fabulous behind and really went for it full-on anyway? What if you decided to do the most outrageous, most exciting thing you ever dared fantasize about, regardless of what anyone, including your terrified self, thought?
THAT would be living.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
Like you’re the only you there is.
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
—André Gide; French author, Nobel Prize winner, fearless self-explorer
Every May I go backpacking through the desert wilderness areas of southeast Utah with two longtime friends of mine. It’s one of the most magnificent and bizarre places I’ve ever been: giant, jagged, obscenely pink ridges of rock jut out of the ground like huge slabs of raw meat; white, yellow, and purple towers of sandstone stretch and twist into sculptures made of taffy; deep cracks in the earth’s surface form cathedral-like slot canyons whose walls, smoothed over from flash floods and sandstorms, change colors from moment to moment as the sun’s rays shift through the narrow opening high above.
It’s like the moon. Only cooler.
We merrily trip through this alternate universe, picking up colorful rocks, climbing around on boulders and arguing over which eagle or snake or mountain goat should be awarded Creature of the Day. Because my friends are such excellent navigators, we go deep into the wilderness areas, where there are no trails and even fewer people. In the sixteen years we’ve been hiking out there, we could practically count the people we’ve bumped into while backpacking on one hand. Which was why I was so surprised, and dubious, when my friend Tom, who’d gone ahead to find us a place to set up camp for the night, reported that he’d seen someone. “I just met this really wild guy,” he said when I caught up with him. “He was wearing nothing but a loincloth and a headband. He was holding a spear, too. Said he’d been living in the canyon for thirteen years.”
“Was he riding a magic dragon?”
“I’m serious.”
“So where is he?”
“He went off to check his squirrel trap. But he could come back.”
“Mmmm hmmmm.”
Tom is a lousy liar, and wherever he was taking this joke, he wasn’t getting to the punch line fast enough, so I put down my pack and started assembling my tent, only half listening to him. A few minutes into it, as I was bending over to hammer in one of my stakes, I looked through my legs and saw a pair of tanned feet in homemade sandals, strong, naked legs, and a dead squirrel dangling by its tail from a fist. I stood up, spun around, and there he was, Loincloth Man.
What Tom did not mention was that Loincloth Man was totally hot—he was somewhere in his late thirties, had a ripped, lean, savagely tan bod and shaggy brown hair with a matching beard. He fit the part perfectly—Modern Day Tarzan, Slayer of Buffalo and Ladies Alike. Which, stunning as he was, instantly made him a little bit suspect in my mind. That and the fact that his loincloth was impeccably tailored
and appeared to be made out of soft Italian leather, not some ratty canyon rabbit.
Would you mind handing that to me so I can have a closer look at it, please?
His whole deal was just a little too cliché. Couldn’t he have just worn shorts? And was he
really
gonna eat that squirrel? Still, we gathered around him like a baby pig at the state fair, awestruck by our luck. This time there was no argument; we had clearly found our Creature of the Day.
He was real friendly and answered all of our questions at a slow, deliberate pace, explaining that this and several of the neighboring canyon systems were where he made his home. He told us very matter-of-factly that he found modern society unnecessarily complicated and misguided, so much so that he preferred to live on only what nature provided him, storing his grain in the winter and sleeping in a cave. The thing that struck me more than the fact that he cut his hair with a sharp rock and probably wasn’t wearing any undies, was that he was totally unapologetic. There we all were, shifting around, feeling suddenly ridiculous in our expensive hiking boots and UV-protective clothing, while he described how it took him weeks to whittle the bow and arrow he used to kill the deer whose hides now serve as his bedspread.
“Good for him,” I thought as I watched him walk away, swinging his squirrel like a purse. He wasn’t worrying about what he should be doing or what he was missing out on or what some chick from L.A. thought of his fancy crotch pelt. He was just happy being true to himself, in the moment, in the middle of nowhere.