by Cara Lumen
Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you have to love doing it or even that you need to do it for your living. However, your skills and talents are guides to your most rewarding profession.
What’s at your core?
One of the ways to find out your core calling is to start writing down all the highlights in your life – in any aspect. Not just professional, but personal. The times you did something you were really proud of. Times you were acknowledged for something you did. Times that you felt a huge satisfaction for what you did – your heart was touched. Write down these occurrences, describe what happened and particularly write down how you felt emotionally. Then look for the patterns that appear. What legacy are you leaving?
For a long time I thought my calling was writing and to a great extent it is. I remember being made editor of my high school paper. Someone had seen something in me the seemed to suit that job. However, recently when finally tossing my yearbooks in order to move cross country, I saw that I had been made managing editor, not literary editor. My skill set was in my ability to organize. That led me to realize that many of the other choices in my life are based upon organizing something – words, ideas, and events.
Explore your innermost feelings to find out what your core motivation is.
What do you do with it now that you found it?
I also figured out that the talent to organize was what makes me good at writing workbooks and setting up coaching systems and organizing ideas. It also made me a really good administrative assistant when I temped. But you want to do what makes you feel good about yourself. And I am at my most powerful when I am learning and then organizing what I learn into teaching for others. When you find what you love to do, keep making choices that support it.
Don’t do what you don’t want to do.
I have been looking for services I might add with the express purpose of generating more income and I looked at administrative work – like submitting articles for other people, or optimizing posts for search engines. But it went against how I think of myself now and against what I really love to do and am good at so I developed the Community Building for Pro-Active Bloggers coaching series to help people capture and focus their ideas into compelling content that draws to them the people they are meant to serve. Now THAT will be fun. It’s creative, challenging, and rewarding to help people create compelling content for their blogs.
Stay as close to your passion as you can possibly get. Do things you love to do.
It’s important for me not to repeat things. I want to learn and move on. It’s part of being an Enneagram 7 but it can present a bit of a problem. I get bored staying with something to long. The fun is in the discovery and creating something new from it. I need to keep that in mind as I move forward. Every time you make a choice, give it an emotional quotient – a number value on a scale of 1-10. Then try to do only the things that rank 10.
What do you want to learn next?
Now that I’ve had additional time to write I realize that I love to write philosophical pieces like this and practical pieces as well. But it’s been a long time since I have written a story or a play. It might be fun to take a novel writing class. I would use that to write stories in my blog copy. And who knows, maybe I’ll be an interesting story teller.
I thought I wanted to learn about making video, but I really don’t. I probably should, but I don’t really want to. I’ll honor that.
I’ve noticed that my rapid recovery from knee replacement surgery is directly related to studying yoga deeply in my 40’s and continuing to do Falun Gong today And it crossed my mind that it might be fun to teach Medical Chi Gong to people preparing for that type of surgery. I don’t know Chi Gong. I know T’ai Chi but I can learn Chi Gong and teach it – if my interest holds. I took a great Chinese Brush Painting course at one point, and flower-arranging and stain glass making. Go check out your community college adult education series and go learn something new. What do you want to learn next? Then see how you might apply it to your business or simply use it to enrich your life.
It doesn’t always have to be about money
What would it feel like to create a class and give it away free! I did that when I was becoming a certified teleclass leader and I changed lots of lives. Who says I have to charge for everything. What a concept! It’s a very freeing one. I could have the joy of making stuff up and with no fee there would be tons of takers. And I would have a great time doing it. It doesn’t always have to be about money. It can be about the sheer pleasure of changing lives.
Are you doing what you are supposed to do?
If your days are wonderful, you are. If you feel satisfied at the end of every day that you have achieved something you value, that you have touched someone’s life, then you are right on target. Journal to find your patterns, look at what you’ve put off doing that you’d like to do now, go learn something new and see what you might do with it. It’s not about doing what you are supposed to be doing, it’s about doing what you LOVE to do – every day – every moment – love what you are doing and who you are doing it with. Then your days will be amazing.
©2010 Cara Lumen