{"id":30030,"date":"2017-04-27T19:12:03","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T03:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=30030"},"modified":"2017-05-27T08:45:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T16:45:22","slug":"successfully-start-living-soul-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/successfully-start-living-soul-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Successfully Start Living Your Soul Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When\u00a0I made the decision to not return to conventional employment, but instead\u00a0start\u00a0a\u00a0journey\u00a0of living my soul purpose and designing my own life, the question of ‘Where do I start?’ was extremely prevalent in my mind, and actually the night before my first Monday, I didn’t sleep.<\/p>\n

I often find that the best way to get motivated when feeling overwhelmed is to start with something practical. For me, 99{54c12dad2cc2b53ae830e39915b1a3e70288dbcbbeb8bbf8395437c5dc3c512c} of the time, this will result in\u00a0a\u00a0snowball effect; as in once I start something, everything else seems more manageable. It’s that feeling of accomplishment (such as dragging up a book-case twice my weight up the stairs on my own…) that increases\u00a0your\u00a0confidence to\u00a0maybe try\u00a0that other thing you’ve been thinking about.<\/p>\n

\n

IF YOU TRY AND DO JUST ONE THING EVERY DAY, EVEN\u00a0IF IT SEEMS INSIGNIFICANT TO THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE, IN 3 MONTHS YOU WILL BE OVER 90 TASKS CLOSER TO THE DESIRED END RESULT!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So,\u00a0in my first week as officially ‘unemployed’, I kept it simple and focused on practical preparation:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Create a work space\/home office<\/li>\n
  2. Meditate daily<\/li>\n
  3. Make lists<\/li>\n
  4. Build a routine<\/li>\n
  5. Take one day at a time!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1. HOME OFFICE\/WORK SPACE<\/h4>\n

    Whether you are planning on working full-time or part-time at home, it is important to have a space to work that is separate from the rest of your house. We have a small spare room that I used as my dressing room, and decided this would be a prefect\u00a0place\u00a0to start my awesome new life! I turned my dressing table into a desk, cleared all my make-up and products away (great opportunity to throw away that hair volumising, sparkling, root lifting thing you never use), and looked up on Google the best way to feng shui\u00a0a work space at home. Now I don’t know if I totally believe in the powers of feng shui, but it couldn’t hurt!\u00a0I needed everything to be on my side, even potential energy flows!<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0I found a site on\u00a0Feng Shui Office Space<\/a>\u00a0and proceeded to arrange my office according to ‘the rules’.<\/p>\n

    I didn’t have to spend any money as I utilised things we had already in the house (including a dining room chair as my desk chair!).<\/p>\n

    2. MEDITATE<\/h4>\n

    One of the things I started practicing 6 months ago was meditation. I was sceptical, of course, but I think if you haven’t got anything to lose, then surely it’s worth a go. Plus articles such as\u00a0How Meditation Can\u00a0Benefit\u00a0The Brain<\/a>,\u00a0as featured\u00a0on\u00a0Lifehacker, (I was especially intrigued by the anxiety aspect),\u00a0persuaded\u00a0me\u00a0it\u00a0was something I\u00a0couldn’t afford not to try. I initially started with just 5 minutes every morning – I believed I didn’t have time for any more being that my love affair with my bed was so\u00a0strong! Yet even that small amount, made such a big difference I started making more and more time for it. If I couldn’t sleep at night I would YouTube binaural meditation.<\/p>\n

    \n

    MY ANXIETY BECAME NOTICEABLY LESS SEVERE AS I LEARNED TO LET GO OF DESTRUCTIVE EMOTIONS, AND I STARTED HAVING FAITH IN MYSELF, IN MY INSTINCTS. I TRULY BELIEVE WITHOUT MEDITATION I WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE COURAGE TO DO WHAT I AM DOING NOW.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    I like doing guided meditations as there is literally one for everything you could think of, be it for depression, insecurity, anger, stress and so on. This\u00a0guided\u00a0Meditation For Clarity, Guidance & Inspiration<\/a>\u00a0on YouTube,\u00a0is a favourite and one I\u00a0go back to at least once a week as I always find the answers I need afterwards. I find that meditating has given me a great sense of who I am, who I want to be and where I should be heading. It was therefore important to me to set up a space in my office for me to sit and meditate. A\u00a0spare king sized duvet folded over 3 times and a sarong over the top is surprisingly comfy!<\/p>\n

    There is definitely not only\u00a0one\u00a0way to meditate. I tried a few, and different situations call for different methods. For me even walking in the beautiful countryside\u00a0brings similar results, so if you do want to give it a go, don’t put loads of pressure on yourself. You will find the best way for you. But I do challenge everyone to truly give it a go for 2 weeks. After all, what have you got to lose?<\/p>\n

    3. MAKE LISTS<\/h4>\n

    I get overwhelmed easily, and one of the things that helps reduce this is to make a list of everything I need to do. It is almost like I take the stress out of my head and tip it onto the paper. And I will list EVERYTHING, including ‘buy food for smoothies’ (an actual entry on yesterday’s list). Because the more I list, the more I can cross off! And the more I cross off the more I’m tricking my brain into thinking I have achieved LOADS, and that in turn gives me a\u00a0sense of accomplishment\u00a0which helps to motivate me. See how it can positively snowball from just a few simple routines?<\/p>\n

    4. BUILD A ROUTINE<\/h4>\n

    I would say that to have a routine will\u00a0make a huge\u00a0difference between success and ‘failure’ (hate that word but I really don’t think ‘misfiring’ or ‘abortion’ are a\u00a0suitable\u00a0alternatives – thanks anyway mac thesaurus!). I get up every morning at the same time as my fianc\u00e9 for when he goes off to work. I get dressed, brush my teeth, I make myself a cup of coffee, a smoothie or some other breakfast, I then go to my office to meditate\u00a0and then I am at\u00a0work. And it’s funny how much I don’t feel like I’m in the same house.\u00a0When I go to make a cup of tea, the living room and kitchen feel very\u00a0different and I actually love being in my office. It’s for this reason that it is so important to make your work space\u00a0a pleasant one\u00a0to be in.<\/p>\n

    \n

    IF\u00a0YOU DON’T HAVE SOMEWHERE SEPARATE TO DO YOUR WORK (IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A SEPARATE ROOM), YOU MUDDLE HOME AND WORK LIFE AND IT CAN LEAD TO BEING UNPRODUCTIVE THROUGH SHEER DISTRACTION.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    I must confess, I do find it difficult to switch off. I wouldn’t trade the opportunity for anything, but when I used to work for someone else, 5 o’clock would come and I’d be firmly in ‘home mode’, ready to think about anything BUT work. Now I can’t stop looking at my emails, my Facebook page, replying to people, watching if Facebook. Because it’s something I love, am passionate about and am more anxious to be successful at than anything else I’ve ever done, because I am bleeding out my heart and soul onto\u00a0these pages, it’s hard to stop.\u00a0Because ultimately, this is me, not a job. What you are reading and seeing isn’t what I do. It’s who I am. And you can’t switch that off.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    It’s one of those things where I really need to practice what I preach. At this point all I can say is, do as I say not as a do!<\/p>\n

    5. TAKE ONE DAY AT A TIME<\/h4>\n

    As human beings, living in a world where everything is instantaneous, we put a great deal of pressure on ourselves to achieve things quickly, else we see ourselves as being unsuccessful in our efforts. We often give up before having really tried because it either seems too hard or too unrealistic.\u00a0A great way of not letting the\u00a0fear of failure get the better of you is by taking things a day\u00a0at a time. To do this, try not to\u00a0look at your goal in its entirety in terms of EVERYTHING\u00a0you have to accomplish\u00a0to get your dream come true. It’s the journey that counts, remember. While it is important to think about\u00a0what your ultimate goal is, especially through visualisation,\u00a0if you look at the every single\u00a0task that needs doing, you’ll invariably either scare yourself off, miss all the little things that create your success and the feeling of \u00a0fulfilment it brings, or both<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0If you are able to concentrate simply on small manageable ‘bite-size’ pieces, instead of seeing an uphill struggle,\u00a0you’ll be amazed at how much more you can do.<\/p>\n

    I stripped my first week down to the above points. Easily achievable\u00a0and not too scary!<\/p>\n

    \n

    BY THE END OF MY\u00a0FIRST WEEK, NOT ONLY HAD I COMPLETED ALL THE TASKS ON MY LIST, I HAD NEARLY WRITTEN THE FIRST HALF OF MY FIRST BOOK…THE ONE I NEVER THOUGHT I’D WRITE!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Had I set myself the task of writing a book at the beginning of the week, I would never have been able to get\u00a0out of bed on the Monday morning…<\/p>\n

    Lastly remember that\u00a0success isn’t linear<\/strong><\/span>. You will have good days\/weeks\/months and you will had bad ones. Just because you aren’t achieving something every single day or not hitting targets week on week, doesn’t mean you aren’t successful or won’t be in the future. Give yourself a break; the world won’t stop simply because you take a day or two\u00a0for\u00a0yourself. Remember all you have achieved, don’t focus on\u00a0all you haven’t, and never\u00a0forget\u00a0to appreciate the things you have already accomplished, both on a personal and professional level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When\u00a0I made the decision to not return to conventional employment, but instead\u00a0start\u00a0a\u00a0journey\u00a0of living my soul purpose and designing my own life, the question of ‘Where do I start?’ was extremely prevalent in my mind, and actually the night before my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12163,"featured_media":49177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[37,210,9,30,6,36],"tags":[4030,4007,1611,2524,66,202,200,4629,382,4029,4640,4031],"yoast_head":"\nHow To Successfully Start Living Your Soul Purpose<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I made the decision to not return to conventional employment, but instead start a journey of living my soul purpose and designing my own life, 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