Who's in the same boat? I need advice...

[Honeywith4bees]

Hey Clarity!

I just wanted to let you know about a little thing that happened to me last week. Things have gotten kind of tight at work due to the economy, I work at a non profit and we rely heavily on Foundation grants and individual donations. AS you may imagine, things are looking rather gloomy so my boss announced that everyone in the organization would be getting pay cuts instead of raises and that all three of us staff members would be getting cuts in our hours. As you know, I am the sole provider for myself and my four kids so I took this news rather hard. I don't make the best pay as it is! The night after he told us, I went to Yoga and when my instructor asked how I was, I told her the news. Well, to make a long story short, they are hiring me part time to be their studio director. The pay is good and includes FREE YOGA!!!
(When I went back to work the next week, my boss said that the Board had voted in favor of the pay cuts and hour reductions for every one but me, they thought it was of utmost importance for the stability of the organization for me to stay at forty hours. They are still taking away a buck an hour from me though. Luckily, the Yoga studio is flexible and I can come in nights and weekends.
My point about this post, is be open, be flexible and just keep letting people know that you are interested in something different. The yoga place wants me to eventually transition up to 25 hours a week and my boyfriend has been wanting me to work part time for him for ages.

Happy Thanksgiving Clarity!

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Happy Thanksgiving to you to Honey!! Definitely something to be thankful for!!!

That's amazing to hear and has really given me a little jolt...just what I needed right now. Things are going a little better at work on the days I remember to adjust my attitude. And I've started working on the Passion Test process online as well as a bit of Steve's podcast. Still more to do, but I've gotten going.

YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!! And thank you so much for coming and sharing this very encouraging story with me. It's a good reminder to look at "bad news" from another perspective. And of course, as you said, to stay open. Thanks again!

(I'm kind of at a loss for any more words because I am so stinkin happy for you. I hope you and your boys -- including the bf -- have a fantastic holiday).

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by Honeywith4bees

Hey Clarity!

I just wanted to let you know about a little thing that happened to me last week. Things have gotten kind of tight at work due to the economy, I work at a non profit and we rely heavily on Foundation grants and individual donations. AS you may imagine, things are looking rather gloomy so my boss announced that everyone in the organization would be getting pay cuts instead of raises and that all three of us staff members would be getting cuts in our hours. As you know, I am the sole provider for myself and my four kids so I took this news rather hard. I don't make the best pay as it is! The night after he told us, I went to Yoga and when my instructor asked how I was, I told her the news. Well, to make a long story short, they are hiring me part time to be their studio director. The pay is good and includes FREE YOGA!!!
(When I went back to work the next week, my boss said that the Board had voted in favor of the pay cuts and hour reductions for every one but me, they thought it was of utmost importance for the stability of the organization for me to stay at forty hours. They are still taking away a buck an hour from me though. Luckily, the Yoga studio is flexible and I can come in nights and weekends.
My point about this post, is be open, be flexible and just keep letting people know that you are interested in something different. The yoga place wants me to eventually transition up to 25 hours a week and my boyfriend has been wanting me to work part time for him for ages.

Happy Thanksgiving Clarity!

That's awesome. I'd take free yoga over a pay raise any day. I think it's all about well-being. Making more money, having more stuff, doesn't equate well-being.

You've definitely influenced my Christmas list.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by {aspiring_to_clarity}

I really do think that the first order of business is to find that pesky purpose.

Indeed; I concur.

That said, can you define "purpose?" And I mean really define it, as in "purpose is X". Not your purpose, but what a purpose actually is.

For months I worked with talents and strengths, not really understanding what those words meant. Now that I have an understanding--a good one--I can wield those tools like a sharp blade, cutting through things effectively.

Other people also know about strengths and talents, but they understand them not quite as well as I do, so they find the tools more challenging to use, or at least, don't get as much out of them. But, on the other hand, there are also people who know more about them than me--people like Marcus Buckingham and those with much more experience with the concepts and ideas behind talents and strengths than myself, as well as the real-world application.

If you want to find your purpose, you first need to know what you're looking for. I put the "find my purpose" project on hold to get a better idea of what I'm actually looking for in a purpose.

I think you'll find that your purpose represents a desire. Once you know what the criteria of that desire is, you'll have a much easier time with fulfilling it. First, you must become aware of your criteria and you do that by defining "purpose." Your answers may be different to mine, but only your answer matters.

Postscript

Personally, I'd ditch the idea of purpose and try out truth, love, and power if you understand how to apply them. This interview with Steve gives a good overview of the "how" to apply TL&P:
Steve Pavlina’s Secrets Of Truth, Love, And Power

Another idea: consider dropping the idea of purpose and directly doing what you think it will bring you.

E.g. I'd like to have a nice statement to help guide my actions--something that feels intuitively right to me so I know I can trust it completely--but I need to work on other projects to pay the bills, so I don't have time to explore that while I sit and let my finances go to hell. So I'm going after what I think a purpose will bring me--greater contribution to people and a greater sense of alignment.

Another idea to consider: do you think your soul defines a purpose for you, or do you think your soul incarnates in the physical with a certain area of development, a certain energy to contribute, and a certain background? I believe it's the latter, and as such, it helps to take those ideas into consideration when you're looking for your purpose, or trying to define "purpose." If you're looking to your soul for guidance, but it's only 20% soul influence (soul mandate, attributes and training, and primary life lesson), 80% physical influence (beliefs, talents, desires that have evolved while you're here, etc), then you might need to look elsewhere.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Honeywith4bees

Hey Clarity!

I just wanted to let you know about a little thing that happened to me last week. Things have gotten kind of tight at work due to the economy, I work at a non profit and we rely heavily on Foundation grants and individual donations. AS you may imagine, things are looking rather gloomy so my boss announced that everyone in the organization would be getting pay cuts instead of raises and that all three of us staff members would be getting cuts in our hours. As you know, I am the sole provider for myself and my four kids so I took this news rather hard. I don't make the best pay as it is! The night after he told us, I went to Yoga and when my instructor asked how I was, I told her the news. Well, to make a long story short, they are hiring me part time to be their studio director. The pay is good and includes FREE YOGA!!!
(When I went back to work the next week, my boss said that the Board had voted in favor of the pay cuts and hour reductions for every one but me, they thought it was of utmost importance for the stability of the organization for me to stay at forty hours. They are still taking away a buck an hour from me though. Luckily, the Yoga studio is flexible and I can come in nights and weekends.
My point about this post, is be open, be flexible and just keep letting people know that you are interested in something different. The yoga place wants me to eventually transition up to 25 hours a week and my boyfriend has been wanting me to work part time for him for ages.

Happy Thanksgiving Clarity!

That is a brilliant example of what a focus on strengths and assets, and what you can do with them, can bring you everything you need.

You can focus on what you don't have as much as you like; you'll just learn a lot about what you don't have. That can be useful, but if you want results, learn about what you do have and how you can put it to use.

[mercuryrising]

I think that we all have the same purpose that is just expressed in different ways, which are our passions and talents.

That purpose is:

1. To wake up to the present moment.
2. To help others wake up to the present moment.

Note that it is one purpose and not two. The act of waking up and waking up others is one activity.

What I mean be waking up to the moment is finding the flow-- the mind state where you are so into the now that you forget the past, future or 'you'. There is just this.

I think every moment and activity are an opportunity to wake up. If not, then we would have to denote the 'now' as somewhere in the future or past which doesn't make any sense.

Our passion is a particular activity that brings us into the flow without much resistance. And it's what we gravitate towards, especially when other areas of life make it difficult to find flow.

I have a crappy job too (in some ways). It's crappy because a lot of times I have difficulty getting into the state of mind I'm talking about. There are people at my job who don't have that difficulty. That's why I go home and write on this computer for the majority of my free time. Because writing puts me into the flow and it has done so for most of my life.

In terms of work and money. I think a person is more likely to enjoy their life and make more money if they are making it from their passion. Steve's podcast on making money without a job really brought me around on this subject. But let me say, it's not a prerequisite to happiness.

For myself, there are these limiting beliefs I have around making money from writing. I told my Dad when I was a kid that I wanted to be the next Shakespeare and he laughed. He said that I'm a good writer, but not that good. In another conversation, he said that artists don't make any money until they are dead. These are really my dad's limiting beliefs that I have inherited. The majority of people have them about passion. Probably why most people are doing work that is unsatisfying to them and why they only make a fraction of the money they could make.

Btw, these are the conclusions I've come to from talking to people like yourself ATC. I think it's weird in a way that I'm telling them back to you. Perhaps that is why we are here discussing this stuff in the first place. To remind ourselves what it is all about.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Thanks, Bruce and merc. You guys have brought me some more solid insights.

All along I think I have really been waiting for something amazing to happen that sheds light on my purpose. Beginning with my upbringing that we have a God-ordained purpose that we can discover it's always been talked about as something that already exists that we have to find. I think that puts a lot of undue pressure on the topic. What if we guess wrong and waste the life we've been given? What if we hate the purpose we are assigned?! (That always scared me as a kid lol).

Bruce, I like the idea of going after what I think my purpose would bring me. It fits very nicely with the work I've done with Angela. She talks about generating the quality or condition you want...what you would have "if". I'll also take a look at the linked piece. Thank you.

And merc, I appreciate what you said about purposeful work putting us in that state of flow. I think that is part of the quality or condition I feel would be present if I did have a purpose. Funnily enough Angela said that Admin Assistants bring flow! Sometimes we just have to laugh at ourselves! I feel like you do about writing too. Let's both squash our limiting beliefs about that one. We are here to remind each other and I thank you for doing so. When one on the forum has a momentary lapse, we come to them and bring them back up to what they know. It's why I like this community so much.

[CroMagna]

How are things with ATC?

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by {aspiring_to_clarity}

Thanks, Bruce and merc.

You're welcome, Aspiring.

I'll share a few more tools. I'll share them in separate posts so it's more clear and less confusing.

Here's the first one:

Steve explores "what" purpose is
While I was working on another project I found an old article where Steve talks about the ideas behind his actual "purpose finding" exercise:
The Meaning of Life: Discover Your Purpose

Also useful, in combination with the above, is this statement (as well as the article it comes from, but the rest of the article is more about applying purpose to actions; might be useful to you later):

My personal GTD system starts with purpose. At that level I have a one-sentence statement of my life’s purpose plus a longer mission statement. My mission statement takes my high level purpose and breaks it down into the different areas of my life: physical, social, mental, career, spiritual, etc. I’ve only made very minor tweaks to my mission statement in the past couple years because it just seems such a perfect fit for me. Because my purpose and mission change so little year after year, they act as an anchor for me. At this level I’m not at all focused on goals, projects, or actions. It’s more of a focus on who I want to be, so it’s mostly about principles and character. This is even a step above values (which can shift over time). So my purpose and mission are about who I am, what I’m here to do at a very high level, and what I want my life to mean.

What you need to remember when reading any blog post from Steve is that each post is a fragment of the bigger picture. By definition, a fragment is incomplete. That's why in The Consciousness Revolution--a post separate to the one where Steve explores what "purpose" is--Steve says this:

Meditation, journaling, and other introspective practices can definitely help, and there are some articles on this site that can help you clarify your purpose here and here. But what I didn’t mention in those articles is that it’s immensely helpful to seek out people who’ve already gone through this transition and ask them for guidance. That isn’t always easy, but the best place to begin is by putting out the intention for such a person to come into your life, thereby activating the law of attraction. It isn’t necessary to establish a coaching relationship; all you really need is a person you can model to keep reminding yourself that your transition to a practical, purpose-centered life is in fact possible because someone else has already done it.

Always keep the idea that "blog posts are fragmented; they are not complete, like books mostly are" in mind when reading Steve's posts, since it'll help reduce confusion.

Interestingly, the fragmented, incomplete nature of blog posts not only makes it difficult to comprehensively understand specific ideas (such as finding your purpose), but it also makes you consider practices in isolation. E.g. In the same article I linked to above--The Consciousness Revolution--Steve says:

[...] Over time you’ll be able to attract and build a support group of like-minded people. It’s a lot easier to live a purpose-centered life when you’re surrounded by friends doing the same thing.

Steve hasn't spoken much about how immensely useful a local support network is. I first figured this out when I saw (A) how instrumental Erin was in his work, and (B) Steve mention the idea of writing a book about the idea of building a support network. (Erin--at least, her influence, and that influence is pretty big--is secretly in all of Steve's work if you know how to look for it.)

* * *

All that may seem confusing, but that's what you're dealing with. There are no absolutes in personal development, and to the degree there might be, we don't understand them very well.

Embrace the chaos and do the best you can within it.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Another tool for finding purpose:

Using truth, love, and power for the project of "finding your purpose"
Noticing that flow will be present in purpose is a good point, since that covers the principle of intelligence from Steve's truth, love, power model (note: when I say truth, love, power, I refer to the triangle--the fact that you use those core principles to make up all 7 principles; don't just focus on truth, love, and power--just those three--in isolation... unless that somehow works for you).

If I was actively trying to find or discover or create my purpose, I'd use truth, love, and power (the triangle; all 7 principles) on the concept of purpose itself. I'd look to what's true for me, as well as what seems 'true' in reality. I'd use love to connect with the concept on a deep level, communing with myself and others, asking the question "what does purpose really mean to you?" I'd use power to stay focused and to connect with my actual desires when it comes to purpose. And so on.

That would surely give me some sort of pretty good understanding of what a purpose is and maybe even how to find it. Then I'd take those ideas and use the truth, love, and power triangle within those ideas.

E.g. To give you an example of using TL&P within the scope of an idea--in this case, a specific method--whenever I do planning now, I use the 7 principles as headings, although I intuitively dive into whatever principle I'd like to write about and connect with; I find it not very effective to try to "slot" the contents of my intellect and emotional intelligence into a fixed method; I prefer to use method to give it structure, but ultimately, have the initial, original expression be primary. For me, much of what I do now is very intuitive, and, by using TL&P, very holistic and inclusive. I find I can no longer honour myself and the idea of growth unless it's all-inclusive and holistic; my entire being needs to come along for the ride.

That's what Steve means in the interview I linked to when he says this:

Hunter: Let’s say that we have a particular problem we want to solve, like saving money to send our kids to college. [...] Is the idea that we need to understand how to correct misalignments we have with the core principles, and then it will be easy to work out a solution to a specific problem?

Steve: Essentially yes. But it’s not just about correcting misalignments. The goal is to bring parts of your life into ever greater alignment with truth, love, and power. But for optimal results, this must be done in a holistic, across-the-board manner.

For example, as you proposed, imagine that you want to save money for your kids’ college education, and you find it very difficult to do so. Maybe you look at the big picture (truth), and you realize you can’t afford to send your kids to a very good school. But your desire is to be able to provide them with such opportunities, and this means a lot to you (love). However, you feel you presently lack the ability to fulfill this desire (power).

[...] You know what you want, but you lack the ability to get it. Why is that?

This is where we must broaden the application of truth, love, and power, and look at your life more holistically. Perhaps your lack of focus and discipline (power) is holding you back from advancing in your career, and this is depressing your income. If you could become more disciplined and focus, perhaps that would be enough. So what is keeping you from achieving this? Maybe the truth is that you feel uninspired by your work (lack of love). Or possibly you just don’t have the energy to advance because your health habits are poor (misaligned with truth).

When you apply the truth, love, and power model to your life as a whole, you’ll be able to discover the real problems that hold you back from growing and fulfilling your desires.

Most people, myself included, fail to grow--actually get results and make decent, meaningful forward momentum--because they try to solve the wrong thing by focusing on the "branches" instead of the roots. If you chop off a branch without addressing the roots, it'll just "grow back" (however "grow back" might end up manifesting). Or, as Steve says in Hunter's interview: "A major stumbling block in solving tricky life challenges is looking for the solution in the wrong place." (I highly recommend that interview; it's really good. Hunter secretly asked many of the questions I would have asked Steve. Hunter is sort of like another version of me, he just uses the Myers-Briggs framework instead of the strengths-theory framework.)

[Bruce Achterberg]

Yet another purpose-finding tool:


Using the "what quality do you think it would bring you"--an idea from Abraham
So yesterday I was watching some Abraham videos and I found a process that I liked.

#1
YouTube - MONEY AND THE LAW OF ATTRACTION: Aligning With Your Veritable Fortune - Abraham-Hicks

#2
YouTube - Attracting a mate: Abraham-Hicks

The two main ideas from them are:

#1
Most people say they want something, but their focus is on lack of what they want. I.e. "I want to find my purpose, but I don't know how to find it." You should use your feelings to determine the "feeling place" of what you're thinking about so you know whether you're focusing on your actual desire--if you even know what it is ("I want a purpose" is a statement about lack of purpose, not an awareness of what you believe a purpose will feel like)--or lack of it.

#2
To help with point #1, just find a single "piece" of feeling from your actual desire--something that comes from a place of what you're actually wanting, not lack of it--and "milk it." I find that when I'm not making progress, it means I have a desire for something, but I'm trying to get it by focusing on the lack of it (although it may not be apparent initially).

The videos are actually about alignment, not the specific topics they say they're about (i.e. money, the LoA, and finding a mate). Abraham is great because all of "their" specific suggestions come from an understanding of universal principles, so they work on both the high level and the low level application.