Throughout my life, my goal has remained the same: to do what I love and to love what I do. Finding and creating your life’s work, even if it is entirely different from what you have done most of your life, will bring you more happiness and money than any other single action you can take.
Your life’s work involves doing what you love and loving what you do. What IS that work? Probably something that causes you to experience a strong emotion whenever you think about it. It is something you were undoubtedly meant to do something you know in your heart is the right thing for you to do. Whatever it is, you may be sure that you have a talent and also an instinct for it. And as you perform this life’s work, you will be providing a valuable service to others.
Finally, you can count on being well paid for what you love to do. Why? Because money is a natural by-product of doing anything well. Many people feel that they could not possibly earn enough money doing what
they love to do. But my question to them is, “Do you think you will ever earn MORE money working at something you dislike?” The answer to that, as you will see, is “Absolutely not!”
When the word work is mentioned, what thought immediately comes to your mind? Is it a pleasant thought? Does it generate feelings of happiness and enthusiasm? Most people would laugh at the very suggestion of such an idea. For them, the groaning begins somewhere around six A.M. on Monday morning. They get out of bed and march, back to their jobs, behaving like doomed criminals about to face a firing squad.
Somewhere, somehow, some way, these people have come to accept that work is drudgery. And yet, that is NOT what work was intended to be. We all knew this as children when we fashioned our elaborate dreams and set our sights on only the highest goals. What happened to those dreams? You may be sure they did not voluntarily die. More than likely, they still exist somewhere deep inside you.
DON’T PUT RESTRICTIONS ON YOUR DREAMS
As a child, you didn’t think that what you wanted was really too much to ask. Why should your attitude be any different now? This is the time to hold on to your dreams. Bear in mind that they won’t materialize instantly. You don’t even have to understand the mechanics involved in bringing them about. That’s the job of your subconscious mind, which will work long and hard to bring the right people and the right circumstances into your life.
You can draw your life’s work to you one small step at a time. In the process, you need not take large risks or invest huge amounts of money. Each small step will bring you closer to your dream and, in the
process, develop your inner resources and resolve to make your dreams come true.
Doing what you love to do will require that you listen to yourself and follow your own wisdom. Remember that you are the center of your own universe! Wisdom and power are a part of your spiritual identity. Trust them to be there. You have a vast storehouse of knowledge you have not yet used. You also have the capabilities and the tools to shape your own destiny.
LEARN TO DISCOVER YOUR OWN ANSWERS
Doing what you love to do is a process of self-discovery. You must learn to listen to yourself rather than to seek answers from others. Quite often, we mistakenly assume that others are more knowledgeable, particularly on subjects with which we are unfamiliar. Although there are certainly appropriate times to seek outside counsel, it is extremely important to develop self-reliance and to trust our own decisions.
As you gradually develop your creative-thinking and problem-solving skills, you will find that you will become a much more effective and competent decision-maker.
Beware of the pitfall of dedicating yourself to live another person’s dreams. Although you may feel obliged to set aside your own life’s work until someone else close to you succeeds, remember that you cannot give something you don’t already have. Giving must come out of surplus time, money, and energy. The important word here is surplus.
You must give to yourself first before you can give to others; otherwise, your gift is fraudulent. Some people have an inner sense that they have much to accomplish in life.
It is almost as if they have a mission. Some of these people begin to work on their missions when they are young, while others may spend many years gaining knowledge and experience before any of it is actually applied. If you have a feeling that you were created to do some important work, trust your inner guidance system and continue to make choices that bring closer to whatever you feel you were created to do.
Doing what you love to do requires that you believe in yourself and that you act upon you inner desires. Never allow yourself to be discouraged by others who insist that what you are seeking to do is too difficult or impractical to accomplish. More than likely, these are people who have never chosen to pursue their own dreams, so they are hardly in a position to tell you what is best for you. Perhaps there is some jealousy and resentment involved, or perhaps they are afraid that once you dedicate yourself to your life’s work, you will no longer have time for them.
Do not let anyone else’s ideas or opinions about what you should do determine the path you take in life. Only YOU can know what that path is. Doing what you love to do may be something quite different from what others had in mind for you. To succeed at anything, you must love it, and only YOU know what you truly love.
Being able to make independent choices requires that you take control of your life, even though you occasionally go against the wishes and desires of others. It is important to become involved in the “right work,” so that you don’t stifle your natural talents and abilities.
When you are doing what you love to do, you will handle even the most demanding aspects of your work with ease. Total commitment will no longer be a problem. You will not be easily swayed or disappointed
because you will have learned how to enjoy the journey, not just reaching the destination.
WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL BLUEPRINT?
The key to choosing your “right work” is to determine how you feel about yourself, which is closely related to your self-image.
In building a house, you begin by laying a foundation. In building yourself, the foundation is your self-image. Your progress follows a blueprint that you have carefully prepared so that you will successfully achieve the end result.
What is your blueprint of yourself today? Does it conform to the person you truly want to be? If not, it is time to change it!
Think about the person that you REALLY want to be, the person with extremely high self- esteem. People with high self-esteem know what they want because they listen to themselves. They pay attention to their inner voice and listen to their own intuition rather than relying upon what others have to say. They feel they deserve a life that makes them happy. This includes a satisfying job or career.
They are also problem solvers. They take responsibility for any situation and solve whatever problem is facing them without waiting for circumstances or other people to change.
They are self-disciplined and are willing to work for what they want. They are not swayed by “instant gratification,” because they know there is something more to be gained, something more to be achieved.
Compare these people to those with low self-esteem who will readily admit that they don’t know what they want. People with low self-esteem usually live protected, security-conscious lives that are motivated by fear. They place great importance upon doing the “right” thing, and they allow others to determine the course of their life.
In the final analysis, it all comes back to what you feel you truly deserve. If you feel undeserving, you will unconsciously sabotage yourself if things start going too well. You can easily do this by selecting the wrong job or career, or even the wrong friends and associates. In addition, you will be inclined to place too much emphasis on other people’s opinions, especially those of authority figures and so-called “experts”. Guilt feelings may impede your ability to take the action you really know you should be taking.
Or you may decide that you are aiming too high and, in this way, severely limit yourself. For example, you may conclude that you have no business being a doctor, and so you settle for becoming a medical assistance instead. Your ultimate goal should be to find what you love to do and become an expert at it!
At this very moment, you are either seriously or casually committed to personal success. If you are totally committed to achieving whatever success means to you, and are able to understand the need to move forward consistently, you are on your way to doing what you love and loving what you do.
Do you find your present surroundings discouraging? Do you feel that if you were in another place, success would come easier? It wouldn’t, you know. Your success environment is within you. You make your own inner world, and through it, your outer world. Consider this! If you have difficulty overcoming obstacles, it is only because your inner guidance is
taking you in a direction that is not in alignment with your creative intention.
But once you faithfully begin to serve your creative intention, you will automatically generate the energy required to overcome obstacles and achieve your goal. In this way, your goal will become a reality. In short, if you truly intend to have something – you will!
Activities you love involve using skills and talents that are natural to you. Your life’s work can change through the years, but whatever it is, you will recognize it as your life’s work because of the sense of vitality and aliveness it gives you.
What you love to do will also help others in some way because when you use your natural skills and talents, you are automatically in tune with a higher purpose. When you serve others, doing what you love to do, your work and services will be so much in demand that money will literally flow toward you.
Also, doing what you love to do provides a vehicle for enlightenment and spiritual growth. Your life’s work will be something for you to think about, to feel connected to and to help you to grow, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
It may even be something you once considered a hobby or the realization of some past fantasy. Never dismiss your dreams and fantasies as just “wishful thinking,” because it is through these very dreams and fantasies that your subconscious mind speaks to you.
One way to discover your life’s work is to observe what you do naturally. Also, notice which skills you enjoy using. Everything you enjoy has some potential for fulfilling your dreams.
Even if you do not like your current job, it has within it the seeds of your life’s work. You are learning skills right now that you may use later in different ways. If you learn a skill that you love to use, it will be important in discovering your life’s work.
After looking at your skills, look at your dreams. Your dreams act as a mental model that your subconscious uses to attract your life’s work.
Occasionally, your dreams may seem impractical – in other words, too difficult to obtain, too far away, and too impractical. Perhaps you feel you are literally “stuck” doing something you don’t enjoy while waiting to do the thing you love. You can rationalize by saying that you will work at something you don’t like until you save enough money to pursue your dreams. But often the money needed is impossible to accumulate because of obligations that already exist. What then?
From my own experience, I would have to say it is always best to direct your time and talents toward whatever it is you most love to do – or at the very least, toward a job that is very close to it. Set yourself up to work in the proper environment, in an environment that supports your ultimate goal.
Remember that the long-range objective is to be happy in your work! Are you moving forward with your life, or just stagnating in a job you are truly dissatisfied with? Perhaps it is time to take a mental inventory of things so that you will really know how you feel about yourself and your future goal.
HAPPINESS – THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS
The fact that people often accept unhappiness of feelings of vague discontent as normal conditions of life does not prove that this is the way things were meant to be. We might just as well say that the body was meant to be diseased since so many people fall ill at various times in their life. And yet we know that the body is actually a magnificent machine that is constantly striving for wellness. Whenever illness strikes it is immediately combated by all the body’s natural resources that put up a determined fight against infection and disease. From this we know that good health is the natural order of things. And so it is with happiness.
The wonder is that we do not immediately attack our periodic states of unhappiness as diligently as the body attacks disease, since unhappiness is really only another form of disease. Look more closely at the word itself. Disease. Meaning not at ease. There are many circumstances and events in life that can cause disease. Certainly one of them is working at something you do not enjoy. Each day that you go back to doing this thing you do not enjoy is another day of disease.
In the back of your mind there may exist a constant nagging anxiety. What I am doing here? Why I am performing this particular job? What future is there in any of this? These are good questions to ask yourself, although I must warn you that you may not like the answers. Still, it is important to know the truth about any situation in which you are involved. Once you are ready to accept that truth, your Higher Self will begin to lead you in the “right” direction. You may be sure that every situation you are involved in will ultimately resolve itself for the good of all concerned, but only if you do not persist in standing in the way of your own happiness.
Just this once, listen to that nagging little voice inside you as it reminds you again of happy childhood dreams. Allow it to talk to you and to begin a point a way. Don’t interrupt with a lot of “Yes, buts:
“Yes, but I can’t afford to walk away form a guaranteed salary.”
“Yes, but what if things don’t work out as planned?” “Yes, but with economic conditions the way they are…”
The standard list of “Yes, buts could fill this entire book, but of course, we are not interested in all the reasons why you should not do something. We are interested in the one good reason why you should.
And that reason IS – because it will make you happy! Happy as opposed to being resigned to having things the way they are. Happy instead of just being grateful that things aren’t worse than they are.
Once you stop to examine what people are willing to settle for in lieu of happiness, it becomes a really eye opening experience!
One day, while I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for a friend to arrive, I happened to overhear a conversation in a nearby booth. Explaining the circumstance surrounding her recent divorce, I heard one woman say to her friend, “I had to leave my husband once I realized he had become totally dependent upon me for his happiness.”
As I pondered this, it occurred to me that there are many variations on this particular theme, many ways in which people delude themselves into believing they are happy, or something or someone outside of themselves will MAKE them happy. In the case of the divorced woman
in the nearby booth, I could well imagine the early stages of her relationship with this man who was now her ex-husband. Undoubtedly, there had been a time when she actually felt flattered at the thought that he considered her the center of his universe, not yet realizing what an incredible and suffocating burden this would ultimately become.
And so it is with jobs that we take on simply to earn a living. At the time, we do not ask ourselves if earning a living is enough – or if this is even the work we should be doing in order to make a living. We just take a job because we need to support ourselves. “Just let me find a job where I can make a living and I’ll be happy,” I’ve heard many people say, but once the job is theirs, happiness seldom follows. What is interesting is that the person then blames disillusionment with this particular job as the cause of his unhappiness.
If he is able to find some other means of employment, he believes that things will get better. What he fails to understand is how can things get better if the next job is as far removed from his real life’s work as the first one was? And yet, that is the pattern that so many people follow.
Another pattern people follow commences when they decide that a geographical change is what is needed. But once they have moved to another part of the country or the world, they soon discover that nothing really changes. They are going to be just as unhappy in one place as another if they are not doing what they really want to do.
The secret forces of the subconscious mind should never be underestimated or ignored. Once they are properly channeled, they will go to work for you and cause incredible things to happen!
The average person employs less than 25 percent of his subconscious power. It is difficult to understand the real tragedy in this unless you also understand that this particular realm of your mind is devoted to your best interests and overall happiness.
Your subconscious works with your Higher Self to bring about your desires. Your Higher Self is always looking out for you and is always urging you toward those things that will make you genuinely happy. Your Higher Self only requires your recognition in order to begin manifesting its powers. Think of that! All you need do is acknowledge what is already there.
You might begin by saying to yourself: “I accept that there is a sleeping giant within me.” Repeat this statement several times and notice its effect upon you. “There is a sleeping giant within me. There is a sleeping giant within me. There is a sleeping GIANT within me!” Your Higher Self is extremely discerning and possessed of powers of great wisdom. Since it can see far ahead, it is able to assist you in selecting the right road, in spite of your own tendency to take occasional detours.
Every time you have taken a job “just to have a job,” your Higher Self has reacted, and you have felt this reaction through your inner dissatisfaction. Although you may have chosen to ignore the nagging little voice inside you, it did not go away. The fact is, you can never escape your Higher Self, and it is indeed fortunate that you cannot. It is your Higher Self that will enable you to do what you love to do.
Beginning today, I urge you to acknowledge this silent partner within, to allow the sleeping giant to awaken at last! Just believing that this power exists is enough to make things happen! Believing is the opposite of resisting, and once we stop resisting, we are able to get out of our own way.
Since we are all creative beings, we always have the capacity to create what we desire. If you are unhappy with your present circumstances, with your basic philosophy or ideas, you can expand your consciousness by looking farther and looking higher. If you do, you will find something more. Expanding your consciousness means expanding your ideas and beliefs, and as you do this, you will automatically experience more of your innate power. At every level, you will be given only those insights that you are prepared to comprehend and effectively apply.
Nothing more Nothing less. Emily Dickinson perhaps most accurately defined the principle behind all this in a line of poetry: “The truth must dazzle slowly or we would all go blind.” Your Higher Self is a wise teacher. It knows exactly how far it can go with you and how much you are prepared to accept and understand. Eventually, it will bring you to a point in life that you will recognize as a moment of truth concerning your life’s work. You will realize that it is something that can no longer be delayed or denied. It must be done!
The time is NOW! Another dead-end job will no longer serve the purpose. Moving to another part of the country will not make things any better. A guaranteed salary will no longer be enough to lull you back into a numb or apathetic state of being. Not anymore. And not ever again. I urge you to rejoice in that moment and to realize its silent partner
within. At last, you are awake! The giant no longer sleeps.