Day 20: Soul-Deep Important To You
Your life will have to change if you want to be passionately working on things that are soul-deep important to you.
Listen to the audio, then do the journaling activity below.
In the years between 2013 and 2017, I was;
- a non-executive director,
- setting up a charity,
- running my own business,
- running ultra-marathons,
- and running a home, eating, sleeping…
You get the gist. Listed out like that it looks like I’m a mega-star of discipline, but that’s not the truth of it.
My secret to maintaining a lot on my plate is setting up the right routines. When I’m taking on a new project, I make small tweaks to my day, one tweak at a time. When I do that, change is easy and over time, the ship that is my life sails in a different direction.
Your life will have to change if you want to be passionately working on things that are soul-deep important to you.
Don’t get fixated on making big changes. Make small tweaks and the big changes will happen as a consequence. Small changes give space for your creativity to generate better answers and opportunities to arise.
Now, to tie this all back to our specific task at hand: your intrinsic motivation. When you look through the list of 40 moments of joy, you’ll notice there are some common threads among them.
Some examples are;
- Deeply connecting with people (e.g. family, community, colleagues)
- Deeply connecting with nature (e.g. outdoors, animal relationships, gardening)
- Contributing to the lives of others (e.g. acts of service, making a difference)
- Self-expression (e.g. through creating, art, writing)
- Learning new things (e.g. mental stimulation, problem-solving, new ideas)
These themes represent what is soul-deep important to you. They are your “true north”. Fill your life with these themes. Orientate your decision-making and behaviours around them. It will give you an endless supply of energy and fulfilment. You’ll also be 100% confident that any decision you make is leading you in the right direction.
Time To Journal…
- Look over your 40 moments of joy and identify your themes.
- Use the examples above to get you started, then refine it into your words. You may also come up with completely different themes to those shown.
- Don’t stress about getting it right the first time, just come up with some initial ideas. Just like you, they will always be a work-in-progress. You’ll gain greater clarity as time goes by.
- Aim for approximately 5 themes in total.