Lost on the Journey of Life: Soul Searching Questions to Discover Your Life Purpose

If you’ve ever found yourself lost, then you know the anxiety and fear that comes with not knowing your way. Regardless of whether you’re lost on the highway or lost in life, the feelings are quite similar.  Imagine yourself on a random road.  Of course you’ll end up somewhere eventually, but the question is, will you end up where you want to be?

The same is true for our lives.  We can live without direction, and eventually we’ll come to the end of our lives, but will we enjoy the way there?  Will we have taken the right route?  Will have seen the sites we were meant to see?  While we can’t possibly map out every twist and turn in our lives, knowing we’re headed in the right direction eliminates anxiety, worry and fear, and allows us to enjoy the journey.

Your true "purpose" resides in your soul and to discover yours you need not only intellectual contemplation but a connection with your intuitive self as well. Prayer, meditation and journal writing are only a few of the many techniques you can use to get in touch with your true you.

And, these Soul-Searching Questions will also help.  While initially the answers will come from your head, once you begin to open up to the process the answers will begin to come from your heart.  When acting on the messages from within, you can't go wrong!

• As a child, what did I dream of being when I grew up?
• What were my favorite pastimes as a child?
• What activities give me the most joy?  Why?
• What people do I most admire?  What qualities do I most admire about them?
• What things come naturally to me?
• If “no” wasn’t an option, and I could have, do or be anything, what would that be?
• When I think of my favorite books, movies, television shows, etc., which are my favorites? What common themes run through their plots?

The questions above provide enough fodder for several hours of reflection.  As you work the process and re-read your previous answers and entries, more ideas and thoughts will come to mind.  Feel free to edit your answers.  As a final step, read through your thoughts and underline or highlight key words and phrases that trigger an emotional response, and watch for the clues that lead you in the right direction and closer to the mission for your life.

The Soul Sisters

Soulspiration of the Week:
“Each person has an ideal, a hope, a dream which represents the soul.  We must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding and the essence of encouragement.” ~Colby Dorr Dam

Be Thankful

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, our thoughts naturally turn to gratitude.  We know things aren’t perfect by any stretch, and many of our readers and Soulspring Groups’ members are experiencing the backlash of political unrest, financials woes, and natural disasters taking place in their parts of the world.

Still, regardless of your situation there’s always something for which to be grateful.  Below is one of our favorite poems that puts the concepts of thankfulness and gratitude into perspective, and we would like to share it with you this Thanksgiving week.

Enjoy the holiday in joyful thanksgiving.

The Soul Sisters

Soulspiration of the Week:

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.

Author Unknown

The 30 Habits of Highly Empowered Women

While doing a little dusting in the office, I spotted a well-worn copy of Steven Covey’s classic, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.  This book first introduced us to concepts like the “abundance mentality” and the “upward spiral”, launching us down a path of personal development and growth, and a desire to support other women to do the same.

Seeing that title again got us thinking about the habits of highly empowered women.  What qualities do these women have in common?  What is it that sets these women apart from their counterparts?  Some lively conversation and a brainstorming session later and we came up with quite a list that inspired our Twitter-series for the month of November:  “The 30 Habits of Highly Empowered Women”.

Each day this month on Twitter we’ve been tweeting a habit that we have found that all empowered women share!  Below is a recap of our list...

1.       Empowered women know they have a mission to fulfill. They think, plan and live in accordance with their life purpose.

2.       Empowered women set aside the stereotypes and instead choose to focus on being their best and most authentic self.

3.       Empowered women know it’s o.k. to ask for what they want. They feel deserving of the best life has to offer.

4.       Empowered women have an open mind. They welcome new ideas and often a change of mind is more like a change of limiting belief.

5.       Empowered women see fear for what it is, “False Evidence Appearing Real”.

6.       Empowered women spread love and kindness wherever they go. Their open hearts attract great opportunities and wonderful people to them!

7.       Empowered women make their own self-care a top priority. They know they can’t help others if their personal energy is in short supply.

8.       Empowered women show gratitude for all the gifts in their life. It’s this gratitude that brings them abundance!

9.       Empowered women accept the differences in others. We’re all uniquely different (and equally important) after all!

10.   Empowered women surround themselves with other empowered women. They know the support of others allows them to do really great things.

11.   Empowered women close energy-sucking cycles in their lives. They know what’s important and can delegate or even dump the unnecessary.

12.   Empowered women are clear on their core values and live according to them. It’s the only way to fulfill their life’s purpose.

13.   Empowered women live a life of clarity. They know what they want to create or accomplish and they keep their eye on their goals daily.

14.   Empowered women take 100% responsibility. No matter how difficult, they always have a choice, and every decision is theirs to make.

15.   Empowered women believe anything is possible! They achieve because they believe!

16.   Empowered women recognize when things aren’t working in their lives and make the necessary course corrections to get back on track.

17.   Empowered women commit to constant and never-ending self-improvement. Knowledge is power!

18.   Empowered women put more focus and attention on the positive than the negative.

19.   Empowered women are constantly challenging their limits beliefs. They often question “why” and “why not”.

20.   Empowered women live in present time consciousness. They experience each moment to the fullest.

21.   Empowered women are honest with themselves and others. By living truthfully they will have no regrets!

22.   Empowered women “pay” themselves first. When their financial house is in order, they have more ways and means to give to the world.

23.   Empowered women empower themselves by empowering others. That’s all we’ve got to say about that!

24.   Empowered women don’t fall into playing the blame game. “If it’s to be, it’s up to me,” is their mantra!

25.   Empowered women know how to say no. They don’t let feelings of guilt or obligation keep them from what’s really important.

26.   Empowered women never, never, never give up on their dreams and goals. They believe and achieve!

27.   Empowered women have a strong relationship with their Creator, taking time for daily reflection and meditation.

28.   Empowered women live in balance; mind, body and spirit.

29.   Empowered women go over, under, around or through every challenge until they achieve their goals.

30.   Empowered women spend life doing the “right” things, instead of just “more” things.

Of course there are many, many more qualities that highly empowered women share.  What traits would have made your top habits list?  Please comment below.

The Soul Sisters

Soulspiration of the Week:

"Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.”    

~ Shaquille O'Neal

The Happiness Secret You’ve Been Longing For

Have you ever wanted to understand the secret to living a truly happy, empowered, and high-quality life?  Well today we reveal the secret...

The Secret: Happiness and empowerment are not always achieved by doing more; happiness is sometimes more about what you remove from life than what you add to it.  

How can this be?  Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a full life (doing, accomplishing, and getting stuff done) would also be a fulfilling one?  Well, not always.

Doing what you feel truly passionate about and eliminating what you do out of perceived obligation or guilt, is the key to living your best life.  It's by recognizing where you can get the most reward from your efforts, and how you and those most important to you benefit, do you allow yourself permission to give your time and attention to those areas.

So how can you make sure you’re giving your time to the right stuff?  Try this simple exercise:

Pull out your to-do list (if it’s currently in your head, get your to-dos down on paper for the purposes of this exercise). For each item on the list ask yourself the following questions:

Why is this task important?
Why is this task MY responsibility (in other words, why are YOU doing this task)?
Where does this task fit within MY priorities?
What is the worst thing that would happen if the task does not get done?

For example, if one of the items on your task list is to clean the cat’s litter box, the importance of the task would depend on how important your cat is to your life.  If the cat is your daughter’s, you may be coming to the realization that your daughter might be the better candidate for the job, and that the cleanliness of the cat box isn’t a high priority task for you at all.  You’re realizing you assumed the position of litter box cleaner several years ago, when the cat was given to your daughter as a kitten.  She was too young to care for the cat at the time, but now is quite capable.  Passing on the honor to your daughter is sounding pretty good right now, however the little voice inside argues that it’s easier for you to clean the litter box and takes less time and effort than the nagging that would be required to get your daughter to do it.

Well, that may be the case initially, however it’s now clear that you’re doing the task out of obligation, denying your daughter this important lesson in responsibility, and feeling very under-appreciated in the process; clearly not a recipe for happiness or empowerment for either of you.

While the above example may seem trivial, believe me, we’ve heard sillier reasons why there’s no time to work toward an important dream or goal.  And since when is cleaning the litter box more important than your life purpose?

It’s time to challenge your obligations and priorities.  While we’re not advocating that you dump all the dirty and menial chores on the spouse and kids, we are challenging you to question where and what gets your time and attention.  What you may discover is that you’ve been giving top status to things that are unimportant and not your priority at all.  Delegate, dump, divide or work out some deal, so  you can have time for what’s really important to you.

The Soul Sisters

Soulspiration of the Week:
“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar.” ~Victoria Moran