Choosing a Path with Purpose

In life, there are 3 paths to travel.

1. The path of who others expect you to be.
2. The path of who you wish you could be.
3. The path of power, self-love, and purpose.

We choose which path to walk based on our thoughts, feelings, and own perception of self. The reality is, if we don’t love, value and accept ourselves, we are less likely to walk the path that leads to success, fulfillment, happiness, and purpose.

"The more you can be true to your authentic self, the more your life’s purpose and joy will follow you. You won’t even have to pursue it! Whereas the more you try to be someone you are not, the more your purpose will allude you, and you will be spending your life feeling joyless, pursuing something that you are not, while feeling like you have failed. Your only work is to be as YOU as you can be!” – Anita Moorjani

Path #1: You have no identity, are insecure, and lack recognition of your self-worth. Therefore, the only direction to go is on the road others pathed for you with no compass, no sense of direction, and no purpose.

Path #2: As you walk alongside a river, you see a reflection in the water looking back at you that you don’t like. You focus on your weaknesses, not your strengths. You travel the rocky road searching for ways to reinvent who you are. This path, ultimately, turns you around in circles only to lead back to where you started.

Path #3: Past challenges, life experiences, and disappointments have made you stronger. On your journey, you came to a fork in the road where you had to make a choice. You decided to take the path less traveled. The adventure re-ignites your hope and the freedom of choice to chart a different course gives you a sense of direction and purpose.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain

Regardless of which path you are on today, if you are not happy and do not love yourself, you can change directions. It is never too late to chart a new course in your life. But, it is a choice only you can make.

As a Certified Strengths Coach, I help guide people on their own journey of discovering their uniqueness, accepting and loving themselves, and developing a roadmap to chart a course to achieve fulfillment, happiness, and a life of true purpose.

POEM: The Power of ME

In many of my posts, I talk about discovering your innate talents, turning them into strengths, and discovering your purpose in life. I have walked you through my own journey of discovering who I am, what I do, and why I do what I do. I have done this by walking you through my own life story and writing about scenes of my life where internal and external struggles have taken me into a dark pit. I make connections to memories of past successes and how the power of persistence helped me crawl out of the pit on a search for solutions. And, most importantly, I teach you how my search led to discovering my own strengths which pathed the way to my breakthrough moment in life. But, today, I want to pause for a moment to address a fundamental part of this journey, self-acceptance.

The path of learning, inner-growth, and discovering your life purpose is a long winding road. One that never really ends as every new day brings with it different experiences, challenges, bumps in the road, and transitions. It can take years of self-observation, investing in coaching, practicing mindfulness and meditation, and inner awareness to truly acknowledge your innate gifts and accept who you really are. The truth of the matter, my friends, is that not everyone achieves this state of clarity ever in their lifetime.

“Self-acceptance is an invitation to stop trying to change yourself into the person you wish to be, long enough to find out who you really are.” – Robert Holden

When I speak about self-acceptance, I don’t mean liking some things about who you are and dismissing the rest. I don’t mean suppressing your weaknesses and pretending they don’t exist. True self-acceptance is about loving all of you inside and out.

This is by no means an easy task. In fact, it can be very painful. Those of you, who follow my Blogs, read my social media posts, and consider me your friend or colleague know I come from a heart-centered place. My consistent and authentic message is to inspire you and others to never give away your passions, dreams or hope. This is my personal value statement and my purpose in life.

But, self-acceptance is an area of struggle for me too. Despite all that I have shared openly, the path to success has not been straight and narrow. It has had it curves, turns, and detours along the way. To be perfectly honest, it continues, even today, to be that way. I can gain clarity, confidence and calm in one direction only to veer slightly and find myself driving down a road of fear, self-doubt, and frustration. I discover I am lost, have no sense of direction, and need to decide if I am going to stop to ask for help.

Take a moment to remember a time when you were lost. Metaphorically, a time when your GPS failed you? Despite your passenger begging you to turn around, you spent several minutes, maybe even hours, driving around and around? Yet, you were so determined that you could find your way, you refused to stop and ask for directions.

I hope in this very moment as you continue to read on, you have a slight smile on your face, let out a chuckle or paused to reminisce at a time when you too experienced this.

My point in yet another story is to share a poem that I wrote last night as I was contemplating my own journey and the day to come. It is a subtle reminder that can be read over and over again to help achieve the true desire of self-acceptance. It is a gift not only to me, but to share with you too. Visibly post it, read it daily and…if you really like it, please click like, comment, or share. Enjoy!

“Today, I choose MY life. Not what you think it should be, want it to be or expect it to be.

Today, I choose ME. Not who you want me to be, think I should be or expect me to be.

Today, I AM me.

The REAL me!

The me I was BORN to be.

Nobody can TAKE me away from me.

Today is the first step to FREE me.

It is the only step forward to BE.

Without the real me, I am useless. With the real me, I am LIMITLESS.

I AM ME.”

– ©2015, Beckie Jorgensen

7 Steps to Strengths-Based Personal & Professional Development

Live Your Life: The Art of Leveraging Your Strengths to Live Your Purpose

Living Your Purpose: The Power of Present vs. Future

Recently, I listened to the audio book, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. I am going to share my own interpretations and learnings from this book, which I applied to my fourth talent theme, Futuristic, identified by StrengthsFinder 2.0. There are many positive attributes to possessing the strength Futuristic, but there is an awareness that comes along as well.

My StrengthsFinder Report described Futuristic in me as follows:

“Driven by your talents, you possess a high level of skill and/or knowledge about specialized issues, subjects, processes, or programs. You probably combine this expertise with your ability to set definite goals for the coming weeks, months, years, or decades. Because of your strengths, you channel your mental and physical energies toward what you can accomplish in the months, years, or decades ahead. The question you must answer is this: ‘How far into the future can I think before my ideas start becoming vague or uninspiring?’ It’s very likely that you periodically establish performance targets for the week. Once in a while, you think about what your life could be like in the future. Some of these forward-looking images may motivate or energize you to meet your weekly goals. Perhaps you do better work when you can concentrate on your near-term objectives. Instinctively, you create detailed and vivid images of what the future promises. You can describe it long before others can imagine it. By nature, you are eager to get started on a project once you realize what you can accomplish in the coming weeks, months, or years. You work very hard to breathe life into your big dreams. These often push and pull you into the future.”

Part of my journey in living out my purpose is the realization that I need to consciously live in the present moment. However, using my strength of Futuristic in my work as a Success Coach allows me to carry out my “Mission” to:

1. Paint the picture of what could be, 
2. Help my clients understand what makes them unique, 
3. Connect my clients to their talents and strengths to achieve awareness of their true potential, and 
4. Inspire my clients to take action, move forward and live their life purpose.

My point is that I made a very clear distinction on how best to use my talent, Futuristic, without creating mindset limitations that could prevent me from being my best self, living out my purpose, and achieving my dreams! Futuristic is only one of 34 talent themes identified through StrengthsFinder.

As I previously explained in my last Blog post, Expanding Your Strengths:

“Your talents do not exist in isolation. You are not just one thing or five things. You use various talents to respond to different situations, and you frequently use several themes at once, whether you know it or not. The more you examine theme dynamics in your life, the more you will understand how your talents make you who you are.” – Excerpt from Expanding Your Strengths by Curt Liesveld.

For the purpose of this Blog, I am isolating Futurist to simplify and demonstrate application of this particular talent to my learning's from The Power of Now, which has given me a new perspective and has reinforced that living out my life purpose is a learning process. A process that has tremendous opportunities for growth and development to be my best self.

Just one other point to mention is that learning to live in the present has also taught me that there is no such thing as “problems” unless I choose to create and view opportunities as problems. By being open to and welcoming opportunities, and removing negative self-talk/perceptions, I open my Universe to receiving the good out of every situation.

“We must be conscious and responsible for our beliefs and behaviors if we are ever to be free.” – Brendon Burchard

The Power of Now provided me with a new awareness, which is, futuristic thinking unregulated (in my own terms) can create an illusion that the future will hold promises of fulfillment, happiness, and success. However, the uncertainty of the future, the “unknown,” creates anxiety and fear within and “negative thoughts” about problems that really don't exist in the now.  

“Why evoke within emotions of fear and anxiety and spend precious energy creating a problem that does not exist? Doing so robs us of the joy of living in the present moment.” - Beckie Jorgensen

So I have to ask myself, "What can I do now?"  If the answer is nothing, I need to trust that present moment awareness will in-of-itself provide me with a clear solution when faced with an opportunity. If there is an opportunity in the current moment that needs my attention, I take action - remove, change or accept it. Viewing situations as problems vs. opportunities causes undue stress, suffering, and pain.

From past experiences, I know all too well the consequences that negative thinking has on physical and emotional health and well-being. I lost my sense of self and weakened my strength of positivity.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that positivity is my fifth talent theme identified by StrengthsFinder. Below is an excerpt from my report:

“By nature, you desire to leave behind a legacy of great value and worth. In the end, you want your life to have mattered. For this reason, you are impelled to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the planet or people’s lives. Often you urge individuals to do their part in making the world, or at least their little corner of it, a better place for all living things. It’s very likely that you exhibit a deep fondness for people. This explains your ability to help others experience and compliment their accomplishments. Because of your strengths, you often motivate people. You patiently observe, ask questions of, and listen to each individual. This is how you pinpoint someone’s talents, skills, knowledge, interests, goals, and/or background. In the process, you usually discover the best way to train, coach, or praise the person. Instinctively, you like to lift the spirits of the people around you. You know what to do and say so individuals feel useful, valued, appreciated, and important.”

I share this specific excerpt because it demonstrates the POWER and meaning that positivity holds for me. Positivity is an innate gift!  If I do not intentionally fuel my positivity, my purpose of leaving behind a legacy of great value and worth is lost. My life will not have mattered.

“Every time you put something positive into the universe, the world changes. Your kindness invites miracles to show up, not just in your world, but in the whole world.” - Unknown

To stay present, The Power of Now teaches to also ask, "Am I experiencing joy, ease, and lightness in what I am currently doing?" If the answer is no, then I choose to change "How" and not "What" I am doing. By drawing upon my other strengths such as strategic #1, responsibility #3 and learner #6, I am able to create new ways to get things done.  

Because of my futuristic strength, I “channel my mental and physical energies toward what I can accomplish in the months, years, or decades ahead.” Setting goals is very important to me. But to fully live in the present, I need to focus on what I am currently doing now, not on the future results. You see, by focusing my actions in the present moment, I do not create those inner feelings of anxiety and fear nor do I create negative thoughts (i.e., What if I fail?) born from a place of “uncertainty or the unknown" or from worrying about the future results. Why?Because in the present state of being, I have already accomplished my goals and achieved success.

The Key Take-Away: We need to be aware of when our thoughts shift from the conscious (present) to the unconscious mind (past or future).  Listen to those thoughts, feel the emotions, and observe your reaction. But just listen, don’t waste precious energy judging or analyzing them. The art of listening to your mind alone can recenter you to the present moment and bring forth the tremendous value of clarity, confidence, and calm in living your life purpose!

“Living your life purpose is in the now. Not in the noise of past or future thoughts.” – Beckie Jorgensen

What is Your Life Purpose? Do You Know?

Confront Your Real Story Part 3: The Breakthrough Moment

On July 15, 2015, I crawled out of THE PIT and committed to my SEARCH for a solution to my current situation. This action was prompted after watching a 3 part video series with Ted McGrath and writing my first blog post, Confront Your Real Story: Get Rid of the Ghost. As part of my SEARCH, I continued listening to several more to live calls with Ted McGrath about his program “Message 2 Millions.” These calls were the beginnings of Ted teaching his audience how to create a 7 Step Blueprint to monetize their life story and grow their coaching businesses. As I listened, I became more and more intrigued. For the first time in 15 months, I felt every bit of advice Ted was giving made perfect sense to ME. Wow! I felt myself wondering, how can I continue to work and learn from this genius of a Man?

As I previously stated in my second blog post, Confront Your Real Story Part 2: The Power of Persistence, I had at that point only a few hundred dollars left to my name. I had been attempting to build my coaching business for over 15 months, burned through my retirement savings, had no income, and could not pay my bills. For the first time since my divorce in 2008 and being single, I had to ask for help. Holding my head up high, I continued my SEARCH for a solution as I watched my bank account diminish to less than $20.

What happened next, I can only explain as a shift in my Universe. All of a sudden, I was receiving multiple Facebook and LinkedIn invites from complete strangers, many of whom were coaches, authors, and motivational speakers. ME? WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL? WHO AM I? I watched my website traffic increase 900% in just 2 weeks, mostly from people reading my two blogs.

I diligently responded to these connection requests, accepting invites, and scheduling calls to actually speak to people on the phone. These conversations started to build a community around me of beautiful, kind-hearted, loving, and inspiring people. All of whom had a story of their own. On Saturday, July 25, 2015, I spent another three hours listening to Ted McGrath’s live webcast. Once the call ended, I ransacked my office, digging in file folders and drawers, searching for the one thing that could lead me to the BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT.

Embarrassingly enough, I found one inactive, unused credit card. Do I dare do this? Is this really the answer? I broke down crying, scared to death, knowing this was a huge risk to take. But, I needed to come up with a few hundred dollars to put a refundable deposit down just to schedule a call with one of Ted’s coaches. Yes, you read that right. I had to interview and be accepted into the “Message 2 Millions” program. Meaning, I could be told “this is not the right program for you,” get my deposit back and be sent on my way. With tears in my eyes and racing thoughts of failure, uncertainty and fear, I held onto the only positive emotion left, HOPE.

Three days later, I spoke to Ted’s Strategy Coach, Preston. He spent over an hour and a half on the phone with me. He asked me several questions about my business, Mission, and goals. He challenged my thought processes about money. Kindly, Preston pointed out to me that I had a major mindset block related to my own view of my “value” and being “worthy” enough to make a living doing what I passionately set out to do. In fact, Preston said to me, “Beckie, you can do this. But, you need to get out of your own way.” GULP, I held back the tears.

My reply, “Are you ready for my credit card number?” Preston quickly took my card number knowing that any further delay would be my breaking point. Either, I was going to “take action” or “stay stuck.” Ironically, this was the exact life lesson, taking action, that I was building my coaching practice on. In complete silence, he ran my card. Once the “let’s get started” transaction went through, Preston said, “It is okay Beckie, you can breathe now. We are here to help and support you!” GULP. (Need a tissue? I do.)

As I write today, my blog Confront Your Real Story Part 3: The Breakthrough Moment continues to unfold. But, the difference today compared to 3 weeks ago is sanely different. I am actually learning how to build a thriving business and am doing “the work.” The clarity of where I am going and how to get there has created a higher power of self-confidence, worthiness and belief within me that “I am living my life purpose.”

That my friends is the transformational benefit of confronting your real story, healing, and opening yourself up to the Universe to access your greatest power and purpose in life!

~ To Be Continued ~

To inspire you and celebrate your journey, click the link below to watch and listen to:Glorious by David Archuleta