I had a wonderful conversation with a client this morning. They came to me with questions about meaning and purpose and direction (how to find them, naturally) and we explored that together, nice and slowly, leaving no stone, or assumption, unturned.
Now, I have lots to say about purpose and direction—probably too much for a single Daily Reminder—but the long and the short of it was that when quizzed, we discovered that my client:
- had an interest in a direction to go in ☑️
- had their passions (as we all do; you too) ☑️
…but had inadvertently put their foot on the brakes with them.
They were showing up in front of me with a feeling of being a bit stuck and directionless, because they had the brakes on.
In all the work I've done with people around career change (that I’ve been looking at now for almost 20 years!) this is probably the most common presentation.
Why would we do that?
So why would we inadvertently put the brakes on our own hopes and desires?
Isn’t that a bit bonkers?
You’ll not be too surprised to learn that it’s that monkey-mind of ours, ruining everything for us, as bloody usual!
🐒
Specifically, it’s because it thinks that it’s in charge of things like change, direction & purpose, so in its apparent ‘wisdom’ (it’s really not wise) it encourages us to turn to it and think more about these things.
It eggs us on to wrack our brains for solutions and mentally prepare lists of pros and cons, measuring each of our passions up against the likelihood of being able to make a living out of them, and slowly but surely grinding us to a rather depressing standstill.
(We’ve all done it, me included, oh yes! 🤦🏻♂️)
Unfortunately for us, all the mind has at its disposal for such exploratory activity is a rather limited repository of:
- our conditioning
- the past
- other people's opinions
- our beliefs
…and it uses these (because this is all it knows; it has zero awareness of anything outside of itself) when it’s making up a story about how it sees our future panning out for us.
Not surprisingly, when working from such limited data, it usually ends up furnishing us with just two basic options:
- Pursue what really lights us up, in the knowledge that we’ll probably fail and we definitely won’t ever make any money out of it, and therefore will end up living in a van down by the river, subsisting on ALDI own-brand baked beans until we die of hypothermia
- Find something to do that isn’t completely unbearable, but pays the bills.
Both of which are rubbish options!! Is it any wonder we spend so much of our time feeling either stuck, directionless & apathetic, or a bit panicky?!
So what’s the answer?
Well, I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not to quit your job / relationship / family / responsibilities, drop everything and head off to another country to become an artist / pop star / yoga teacher / astronaut / didgeridoo salesperson / internet sensation / cultist* (all of which is just more of what the mind would have you think is required, because when it doesn’t have any of the answers, it makes up some terrible crap instead).
(*Please note, you are more than welcome to do any of these things, just make sure you’ve got a good divorce lawyer and enough cash in reserve to keep you afloat for about a decade.)
No, the answer is plain and simple.
(And easy and painless and illuminating.)
The answer is in fact so simple, it’s going to seem equally bonkers and you’re probably going to get a little bit cross with me for saying it.
The answer is…
🤫 [whispers]