How To Discover And Define Your Life's Work

The Importance of Aligning Your Professional Life With Your Life's Work 

Here is a simple tool to help you discover and define your life's work. Write a descriptive statement specifying why you are doing what you do, or what you would be doing in an ideal environment. This descriptive should be a single sentence that answers:

Who are you professionally?

What are you doing for a living?

Why are you doing this?

For instance:

I am a highly paid executive (who)

generating significant personal revenue (what)

to enable me to fund projects that feed the hungry (why).

I am a teacher (who)

opening young minds (what)

so the world will be a better place for my grandchildren (why).

I am a consultant (who)

who advises business start-ups (what)

so I have time to write children's books with moral stories (why).

The "why" should be clearly aligned to your life's purpose, which can either be directly linked to your employment work (as in the case of the teacher example above) or not (as in the other two examples). The "who" and "what" are the means to your Determined Life desired outcomes or goals.

Remember, the "who" in this purpose statement is not a true reflection of who you truly are, but merely a descriptive of who you are in your professional life capacity. 

When you align your professional life with your life's purpose you will be Living A Determined Professional Life. 

When that happens, you will never long to stay in bed longer (even on a cold winter's morning) nor will you ever again not look forward to Monday mornings. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Working To Live A Determined Professional Life

Do You Love What You Do? 

Your life's work is not necessarily your employment work. The latter is how you put food on the table, clothes on your back and shelter over your head.

It is interesting that the workplace has so many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tracking a variety of areas in order to measure organizational success and improvement. And yet, very few people use the one solitary KPI of determining their own career success that makes the most sense ── do you love what you do?

If you do not love what you are doing in your employment chances are you are working to live ── generating an income to meet your financial obligations and some of your wants and desires. Hopefully some of these wants and desires are aligned with your Determined Life goals and desired outcomes.

You can leverage your income generating activities one of two ways:

1) continue to climb the income and status ladders in your organization or industry and focus on career success as a key metric for your life, or

2) use your employment income to fund your dream fulfillment and achieve your Determined Life goals.

The first alternative makes your personal revenue scalable, but often results in the postponed pursuit of your dreams, goals and life's purpose. 

The second alternative leverages your ability to produce sufficient (though perhaps not maximum) income while making your Determined Life dreams and goals scalable by reserving the majority of your time and energy for pursuit of your goals and life's purpose.

Albert Schweitzer understood the linkage between success and doing what you love: "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." 

That's what we would call Living A Determined Professional Life. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Project You: Words of Wisdom (Free on Kindle)

Motivational Quotes for Living A Determined Life

As part of our Mid-Year Resolutions launch celebrations, we are making our book Project You: Words of Wisdom free this weekend at Amazon.

In Project You: Words of Wisdom you will find a wide range of quotations selected to help you examine your life experiences and to aid in charting a future path that will bring your life's purpose into clearer focus and attainment. 

We have also discounted the paperback version of the book to $6.45, the lowest price ever.

Project You: Words of Wisdom is one of the top-selling motivational books on Amazon:

• #3 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Personal Growth > Motivational 
• 
  
• #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Personal Growth > Self-Help 
• 
  
• #33 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Occult

We hope you enjoy the book and the hundreds of motivational quotes it includes. Hurry, the free offer on Kindle is good only through Tuesday, July 5th. 

Here's the link: http://amzn.to/1JnH71Q

And, if it's not too much to ask, please leave a reader review at Amazon after you've had a read.

Many thanks.

Purpose Bigger Than Self

You Make A Life By What You Give

People who lead rich lives tend to have two qualities in common: 1) they are optimistic in their outlook and approach to life, and 2) they excel at giving.

What do they give?

They give money to causes and others they believe in. They share their wisdom, skills and lessons learned freely with those willing to listen. They give their time to their communities, religious institutions, schools, neighbors and to those they mentor. And, of course, they regularly agree to help when asked; but more often than not they volunteer their assistance before they are asked.

Author Kent Nerburn wrote, "Give in any way that you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how it is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace."

It is frightfully amazing the number of people who do not make any charitable contributions, or who make only a few each year, despite their obvious wealth or financial well being. Even though there are definite tax benefits for donating money to charities in many countries, some people just cannot be motivated to give any of their money away.

Incredibly, there are even some people who spend more money on grooming their dogs than on feeding hungry children or contributing to cancer research. Apparently such people have never been exposed to these words from P. Anthony Ridder, the former CEO of the Knight Ridder newspaper publishing group:

The bottom line about success in life isn't whether you are financially successful, but whether you have given of yourself in some way to help others less fortunate than you and to serve your community and your country.

 On the positive side, it is hard not to be amazed by the overwhelming generosity of people in reaction to natural disasters, even when these occur in remote and faraway places. Examples include the millions and millions of dollars donated in response to the Black Saturday bush fires in Victoria, Australia; the Boxing Day tsunami that hit coast lines around the Indian Ocean; and the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Japan.

For anyone on the Project You Life Journey, the words of Sir Winston Churchill will definitely ring true: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Major acts of generosity or giving are not required, however. Small, everyday acts also add up to make the world a better place. 

In fact, as William Wordsworth wrote, "The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." 

Plus, as Herm Albright said, "Perhaps the world little notes nor long remembers individual acts of kindness ── but people do."

This article is excerpted from the top-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.90) and Kindle ($6.88) formats. 

Evaluating Your Life Satisfaction

Creating Your Determined Life Road Map 

There are seven aspects to a Project You Life (Your Personal Life, Your Professional Life, Your Family Life, Your Health and Fitness Life, Your Emotional and Mental Health Life, Your Spiritual Life, and Your Interconnected Life). 

You may not know the details of each of these seven core life aspects until you have read our book Project You: Living A Determined Life. So for know just use your intuition on what these seven aspects of life mean to you.

Rate how satisfied you are with each of these seven life aspects on the following scale using your own preconceived notions of what these aspects entail:

7 -- Highly Satisfied

6 -- Fairly or Moderately Satisfied

5 -- Satisfied

4 -- Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied

3 -- Dissatisfied

2 -- Fairly or Moderately Dissatisfied

1 -- Highly Dissatisfied

Next, review the vision you previously created (see previous blog post on Planning Your Determined Life Journey). 

Evaluate whether your vision incorporates all seven elements of a Project You Life. If any are missing, ask yourself why. Then decide whether the missing element or elements should be added to your overall vision and how.

After you have reviewed your vision for missing elements, assess the gaps between your vision and your current situation. Key areas to identify include:

Which gaps are the most important?

Which gaps will be critical for you to close?

Which gaps should be given priority? Why?

Which gaps will require assistance from others to close?

You are now ready to create a road map from your current situation to your desired state. Defining some parts of your path will come easy. Others will require more thought and effort. It is best not to shortchange yourself by trying to create your path too quickly.

As you write down your draft ideas on how to create your path, be sensitive to how your gut and heart feel as you record each one. This will be your spirit communicating with you and giving you an indication as to how aligned each option is to your spiritual needs. 

For the next three days, take 30-60 minutes in solitude to continue your reflection and thinking. What emotions are you feeling about your Determined Life Road Map? How strong are these feelings? Remember, the stronger the feelings, the more certain you can be that you are embarking on the right path and journey for you. 

This article is partially excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

Planning Your Determined Life Journey

Questions to ask of yourself

One method to help your create and maintain responsibility and ownership for your actions is to proactively plan them. After all, if you plan your actions and activities, then you are certainly accountable for them.

Planning your Project You Life Journey is also important. For achieving your dreams, hopes, desires, and goals is unlikely to happen arbitrarily or randomly.

Additionally, planning a Project You Life Journey helps you to overcome the concerns, fears and anxieties you have about your personal hopes, dreams, desires, and goals.

The key step in planning your Project You Life Journey is to start with your hopes, dreams, desires, and goals in mind first.

Many people start their self-development planning process by painting a picture of where they currently are and then deciding which area or areas of improvement to tackle first. This is the wrong approach, especially when you look at life-long goals and desired outcomes.

You must start with a clear vision (or at least a semi-clear one) of what your dreams, desires and hopes look and feel like. What will bring you authentic happiness? What will achievement and success feel like to you?

Answering the several questions on your unique personal gifts and talents (see earlier post on Key Questions for Identifying and Understanding the Purpose of Your Life) is the first place to start. Then record any others that spring to mind.

Writing down what you believe to be your unique personal gift and individual talents will help you formulate a tangible view of your visions. Doing so also helps to provide clarity and understanding to what you believe to be your life's purpose.

Only after you have your personal vision firmly figured out is it time to make an assessment of where you are at the moment in your life's journey. The key questions to ask yourself for this stage are:

What are the positive aspects of your life that you can leverage going forward?

What are the negative aspects of your life that need jettisoning?

Who can you rely on for support?

Who is holding you back?

Which areas of your life need fine-tuning?

Which areas of your life need strengthening?

Which areas of your life need a major overhaul? 

You are now almost ready to create a road map from your current situation to your desired state. Defining some parts of your path will come easy. Others will require more thought and effort. It is best not to shortchange yourself by trying to create your path too quickly.

That is why the next step will be to rate your personal satisfaction with seven aspects of your life. We will discuss this step in the next Project You Life blog post.

In the meantime, reflect upon the vision you have for yourself. How does thinking about this make you feel? Excited? Nervous? Motivated? The stronger the feelings, the more you will know that you are on the right path to understanding how you want to Live A Determined Life. 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Making Progress on Goals, Dreams, Hopes

Even Small Progress is Progress

One of the critical choices you need to make concerns who you socialize and interact with regularly.

Who you interact and engage with partially determines what you dream, hope, and desire.

Who you interact with and engage also impacts your personal goals and intended outcomes (both short term and long term). You can change your desired outcomes by changing your circle of friends, acquaintances, and even co-workers.

As you embark on your Determined Life Journey, it is important to surround yourself with positive, forward-looking friends and associates who are good role models for you, trusted confidants and valued advisers.

This will help you develop a stronger sense of self confidence and appreciation of your own worth and talents. Surrounding yourself with an array of good people will also help you stay on track and continue your journey, especially when the inevitable bumps and hurdles get in your way.

Embarking on your Project You Life Journey requires initiative that only you can provide.

Too often people procrastinate, waiting until they believe they have all the right answers in hand, or for what they perceive to be the perfect moment of opportunity.

But that is why they are stuck. Many of the answers will be found while on the journey. And the only perfect time to start is NOW.

The only way to get unstuck is to get started ── now. Step by step. One answer at a time. One change at a time.

Remember, as the American psychiatrist David Viscott said, "If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."

So don't just start. Continue. Proceed. Keep moving toward your intended outcome. Even small progress is still progress. 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

Key Questions for Identifying and Understanding the Purpose of Your Life

Finding the Meaning of Life. Discovering the Purpose of Your Life. 

We all have an innate need to find meaning and purpose in life, especially our own lives.

From a Project You perspective, this pursuit is best stated and comprehended as:

The meaning of life is to discover, grow, develop, and enhance 

your unique personal gift and individual talents.

The purpose of life is to use your unique personal gift and talents 

for the betterment of mankind, planet Earth and the Universe of Souls.

In our last blog post we promised to give you some key questions to ask yourself that will help you identify and understand your unique personal gift and the individual talents you bring to the world.

So here they are:

What are you passionate about?

What are you doing when you feel a flow of energy racing through you?

What drives you?

At what do you excel?

What are your greatest strengths?

What do you least like doing?

How can your talents be put to use serving others?

How would you define your skill sets?

In what ways are you different from others, either in what you do, how you do it, or the knowledge and experiences you bring to what you do?

How would you define your greatest purpose in life? Your second greatest purpose?

What are your core values?

How would you list and define your principles?

What brings you joy?

What brings you authentic happiness?

How can your gift and talents be put to use helping others achieve their dreams, hopes, desires, and passions?

How can your gift and talents be put to use helping others solve their problems and challenges?

After you die what is the one thing you want to be remembered for? By whom?

After you die, what are the next four things you want to be remembered for? By whom?

It is important to also remember that your true purpose in life is bigger than just your work (Your Professional Life), even though it may be included as a component of your life's purpose.

Your overall life's purpose will encompass every aspect of your life.

Hence, identifying and understanding your life's purpose is not an exercise regarding career paths, but rather a holistic approach to identifying and knowing who you are (and who you will become) at your very core.

These are questions worth reflecting on.

Go clear your calendar for 90 minutes to two hours, at a minimum. Get up two hours early if you need to.

Go find someplace very quiet and peaceful, preferably outdoors. Use the sounds of nature to help focus your thoughts. Take nothing with you but paper, a writing instrument, and your own thoughts. Leave your cell phone, tablet, and computer behind.

Isn’t the rest of your life worth a couple of hours of solitude and quiet contemplation? 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Planning Your Life Journey

What Are You Doing With Your Life? 

At this point in your journey, as you contemplate taking steps toward leading A Determined Life, do not let anyone else hold the pen or touch the keyboard. This is your story, to be written by you.

Your story is yours to write, edit, direct, and produce, in line with your personal values. If you haven't been doing so previously and continuously, now is the time for you to chart your path, set your personal goals and define the intended outcomes you seek. 

In the most recent Project You Life blog posts, we have written about the need to shift momentum, move forward, face your challenges, and define your life's purpose. The first step, of course, is self discovery.

This process starts (and ends) with you. The Project You Life Journey is about looking inward and asking two critical and illuminating questions of yourself:

What am I doing with the rest of my life?

What can I do to ensure the world will be better off after me?

 So, if someone asked you today "what are you doing with your life?" how would you respond?

These two questions will open an array of possibilities and surface an abundance of desires within you that may be currently hidden. 

Brainstorming a list of answers to these two questions is often like discovering an iceberg with your name blazoned across a flag flying atop it. You will rapidly record the top-of-mind things that your ego wants and wishes for, but through further contemplation and reflection you will slowly and steadily uncover the deeper, inner desires of your spirit.

It will be these deeper convictions that will help you define the Determined Life that is truly relevant to your life's purpose and resonates with both your spirit and ego. 

With answers to these two questions in hand, you are prepared to start charting your Determined Life Journey. 

Seriously working on these two questions will widen and deepen your relationship with yourself, which in turn will widen and deepen your relationships with everyone else. 

Similarly, this process will lead you to a deeper and greater understanding of yourself, and likewise will deepen and greatly improve your understanding of others. 

The end result is that you will have a clearer answer to the question what are you doing with the rest of your life? 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Identifying a Path for Your Life Journey

The True Measure of Success in Life is Who We Are Becoming

It is said that if we could truly see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

For one thing, we would stop taking for granted all the miracles of life (the daily rising of the sun, the twittering of birds, the laughter of children at play, the colors of the leaves as they change, the beating of our own hearts, etc.). Instead, we would treat and respect these experiences for the miracles they are.

As we start to see the miracle of our own lives, our approach to life changes remarkably. This leads to greater respect for our own existence, and a deeper desire for improving the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of our human vessels.

 In doing so, we also come to the clear realization that the true measure of success in life is who we are becoming rather than what we are accumulating (either in terms of experiences or material possessions).

Billions of words have been written in hundreds of languages about understanding the meaning of life. Billions more have been uttered and written about the need to find purpose in one's life. From a Project You perspective, these two pursuits are best stated and comprehended as:

The meaning of life is to discover, grow, develop, and enhance your unique personal gift and individual talents.

The purpose of life is to use your unique personal gift and talents for the betterment of mankind, planet Earth, and the Universe of Souls.

How you go about accomplishing this is up to you.

Everything in your life (now and in the future) is a reflection of the choices you have made or will make. Just remember, when you start to change yourself, you start to change the world.

In our next blog post we will give you some key questions to ask yourself that will help you identify and understand your unique personal gift and the individual talents you bring to the world. 

This article is partially excerpted from the Amazon best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in Kindle and paperback formats. 

The Purpose of Life is to Find Your Gift

Live the Length and Width of Your Life. 

Plato said over 2300 years ago, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

The Project You Life Journey is not just an opportunity to examine your life at a particular point in time, but rather an on-going observation and examination that helps you build and journey on a path that aligns with your life's true purpose.

There are no set elements, rules, protocols or rituals involved. Rather, it is a holistic approach to understanding how your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual attributes work and function across the various components of your human experience (personal life, professional life, family life, etc.).

As you embark upon your own Project You Life Journey, here is a wonderful, motivating thought to keep in mind: some of the best days of your life have not yet happened. Now, isn't this a great reason to get your Project You Life Journey underway right away? 

From a universal sense, the purpose of life is to find your gift. Life has a rich meaning when you are able to find your gift and put it to use for a purpose bigger than yourself. The Project You Life Journey will help you accomplish both.

As Henry James wrote, "It is time to start living the life you've imagined." 

This is true for each and every one of us.

After all, wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to claim American author Diane Ackerman's words for ourselves: "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well." 

A good question to ask yourself this weekend: what will be the length and width of your journey from now until the end of your life? 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Benefits of Living A Determined Life

Rewards Are Many For Those On A Project You Life Journey 

The benefits of Living A Determined Life are ginormous. Not only will you be pursuing your life's purpose, but you will be doing so in a highly contented and confident way. Those leading A Determined Life are less stressed, have fewer worries, and are more emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically stable. Their lives are more holistic and in greater balance.

Living A Determined Life reduces distractions and the tendency to worry about things beyond your control. You will become more focused on what is important to you and a sense of rightness will envelop you. A feeling of pure contentment will wrap around you as you honestly tell yourself: "This is who I am and I am doing what I am meant to be doing."

As you stay on this path in this mode your world becomes clear, calm, peaceful, and purposeful. Anxiety reduces, as does your blood pressure. You become more in tune with your environment, and therefore more aware and receptive to things and people that can enhance your journey.

When you are not on your Determined Life path, and not operating in a purposeful mode, your life will tend to be chaotic and confused. You will feel that life is a roller coaster of wild ups and downs, full of short-term highs and depressingly low lows.

You will feel connected neither to yourself, humanity nor even the general world around you. The connections you do have will be shallow and weak. Your life will not seem to have a purpose, other than perhaps the short-term pursuit of pleasures and material possessions. And your tendency will be to look to external sources for guidance rather than within.

However, when on your Determined Life path and living in a purposeful mode you open yourself up to receive and appreciate all the positive and heartwarming emotions and experiences of life as a human being: love, joy, ecstasy, thankfulness, friendship, companionship, gratitude, etc.

You will also feel a deeper connection with all humanity. But most important you will have a deeper, more complete connection with yourself on all levels ── emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual.

This, of course, will make you more attractive and attracted to others. As spiritual teacher Matt Kahn notes, "When your heart opens completely, you will stumble upon the most powerful force in the universe ── your loving eternal presence."

Undoubtedly, the biggest benefit of the Project You Life Journey is attaining this deeper and more complete connection with ourselves.

As the 20th century sportswoman, global traveler and photographer Ella Maillart noted, "It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better." 

In the Project You Life sense, the sooner and deeper we understand ourselves, the better.

But this is not a selfish journey. The changes you make in your life will impact others. In fact, when you change yourself, you start to change the world. 

Now that's both an awesome responsibility and an awesome reward, simultaneously. 

This article is excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. 

Thinking About Your Life's Purpose

Defining and Describing Your Life's Purpose 

Buddha is one individual who did give the purpose of life a great deal of thought. He concluded, "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it." 

Note how this instruction from Buddha can be individually interpreted and actioned by each of us. Rather than proclaiming a universal purpose, goal or deed applicable to all, this decree dictates that every individual on earth has his or her own unique purpose. 

These thoughts are at the heart of the Project You Life Journey. Each of us has our own journey to make, one that is hopefully aligned with our true life purpose. Only you can determine your own life purpose, and therefore only you can determine the journey you take as a sentient being. 

When your journey is not in alignment with your life's purpose, your spirit is not at ease and the repercussions are felt emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Typical symptoms are anxiety, fear, angst, indecisiveness, low energy, emotional outbursts, and vengeful thinking.

The opposite of this, when you are solidly in tune and on track with your life's purpose, is called flow. Everything seems easier to do, there is an abundance of synchronicity in your life, and optimism and positive people far outweigh pessimism and negative people. As Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the famed Chicken Soup for the Soul series wrote, "When you have a clear purpose, you won't have time for negativity."

How you define or describe your life's purpose is critical for creating A Determined Life. In essence, A Determined Life is one that seeks to deliver upon your life's purpose. 

Note that we didn't say "achieve" your life's purpose, for the concept here is that your life's purpose is not a destination, but rather a journey you continue until your final breath (or into the hereafter if you believe you are a spiritual being having a human experience here on earth).

But even if you do not believe in a life or universe after death and accept the scientific theory that this life was randomly created as a result of a cosmic big bang, this does not prevent you from conceptualizing your own life's purpose, nor from establishing your own Determined Life journey.

Not Living A Determined Life results in a suboptimal existence. It means falling short of your potential and not living in sync with your life's purpose, or even becoming aware of your life's true purpose. As theologist Ben Herbster said, "The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become."

Not many people fully grasp their life's purpose, for the simple reason that few ever invest sufficient time to deeply understand themselves and their purpose for being in this world at a particular time and place. Regularly thinking about your life's purpose, however, is a highly recommended activity. This is the only way to ensure your life's journey is aligned with your true life purpose. 

One who has done so is poet Maya Angelou, who says, "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.