Dear Jane,
What if you don’t know what your life purpose is? What if it appears to be many things, and it’s difficult to figure out? What if it is so powerful, it seems to have stopped you dead in your tracks for 50 years, living a safe life of symbols of success? What if it is fear of shame and humiliation at such a fundamental level that you have been frozen in time?
If you feel overwhelmed by figuring out your life’s purpose(s), you may be thinking too grandiosely, causing you to feel paralyzed by your dreams rather than motivated by them. We may procrastinate our lives away because the goals we set are too daunting. We become spiritually paralyzed, caught up in a vicious circle of wanting and inaction, wanting and inaction.
First, stop focusing on what stops you. We are all afraid, at some level, of fear and humiliation. Don’t let that be your excuse for suffering. Take one action step towards one of your dreams. If you wanted to be a writer, that would mean writing one page, beginning a journal, talking to another writer, or taking a class. When you take even one step towards your spirit’s longings, you are facing your fears with courage. So write down a few small steps towards one of your goals. Make a commitment to take one of these. Tell someone who is supportive that you are doing this.
The aspirations we hold most dear always require courage. Courage requires action. We can’t get rid of a fear simply by hoping it goes away. As I talk about in Enough Is Enough!, Chapter 5 “Break the Spell of Fear: Make Fear Your Ally,” we learn how to downsize fear by working with it, not avoiding it. So taking one step towards your spirit’s ideals makes a big difference. It shifts your attention, helps you face and shrink your fears, and offers you the opportunity to admire yourself more.
About Jane
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, StopEnduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes.
Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.