Live Your Calling

Knowing what you want makes it easier to get it. Pursue your passion and dream big time for this stirs your blood and makes you feel alive.

“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach for.

It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.

It is not a disgrace to not reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.

Not failure, but low aim, is a sin.”

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays

This is your decade, make it rock. Here´s some practical instructions and a printable worksheet to get it started.

1. Find yourself a peaceful and calming place to be with yourself.
Grab some paper and pencils, switch off your phone. Put your favorite music on and take in a comfortable position.

2. Visualize your past events.
Close your eyes, breathe deeply and let your imagination flow. Imagine all the great moments you have experienced. Live them again in your minds eye. Make those great moments brighter, bigger and bring them closer to yourself.

3. Note down the best moments.
Write or draw down the keywords that describe the best moments, events, activities and quotes from the past years. All the good stuff your are proud of and what made those years really great.

4. Select the important areas in your life.
These areas can be for example: personal development, relationships, education, career, material needs, health and vacation (feel free to add or replace some of these areas of life).

5. Think of your big goals and think of your needs for this year.
Print out the worksheet (the link is in the end of this article), mark your big goals for each area and your goals for the upcoming year. The yearly goals help you achieve the big goals.

Visualize yourself achieving those goals very brightly and feel how it feels when you have achieved them. To spark ideas for setting your goals I will provide you with some helping questions for each area of life.

Relax, take your time.

Personal development – What do you want to be as a person? What do you want to be remembered by? What is your talent? What kind of skills and abilities would you want to develop further?

 What would you consider as your ideal daily regime – how early do you want to wake up, what kind of habits do you need to get rid off and what kind of new habits you need to develop?

Relationships – What is your ideal partner (someone to grow old with)? How many kids you want to have and when do you want to have them? What can you do to make your relationship truly enjoyable? What kind of friends do you want to have around you? What do you prefer to do with them?

Are you satisfied with the depth of your current relationships? Do you want to have more friends and to devote your time for being with them? What do you need to change or do this year to create these circumstances?

Education – Do you need to get a degree or extensive training in some field? Should you go to study in a university, take part in some specific courses or trainings? How are you going to freshen up your knowledge in your key areas?

Career – Imagine your dream job (or business). What kind of positive impact does your work have to pose on the society? Do you need to take your focus on some specific fields or perhaps even to switch your current job to do that?

Material needs – How much do you need to earn each month to live your life with the quality you deserve? What kind of devices, services or facilities do you need to achieve that quality of life? How to make your assets produce those financial means.

Health – Perhaps you want to play football with your grand children when you turn 70? Do you need to change your habits for eating, thinking, resting and physical exercise to make it possible? If yes, then what kind of actions do you need to take?

Vacation – How do you want to spend (invest) your free time? What kind of hobbies you want to take up? Where do you want to travel and what to experience?

6. Make sure that your goals are:
1) Specific – good goal clearly describes what needs to happen, what is the expected outcome. 
2) Measurable – good goal can be objectively evaluated – was it or was it not achieved. 
3) Time bound – good goal has specific dates as deadlines (“in 1 year”  is bad, “achieved by 14th of April 2011” is better).
4) Realistic, yet exciting – good goal is something you believe that you are able to do. Better goal is something that also stretches you by taking you out from your comfort zone.

Ask yourself:

• Why is this goal important for me?
• What am I willing to do to achieve that goal?
• Who could help me to achieve that goal?
• What happens if I do not achieve that goal?
• What do I need to change in myself to achieve that goal?

The more action you take towards achieving your goals, the more likely they are achieved. Achievement comes from taking action.

Some questions to stimulate your ideation:

• If you only had one year to live, what would you do?
• If you won a lottery, how would you invest the money?
• What was it that you wanted to do when you were a child?
• What kind of stories do you want to tell to your grand children about your life?

7. Once you have finished goal-setting, then thank yourself and take action.
Give yourself recognition – praise yourself by doing something you really enjoy (eat some chocolate, listen to some good music, dance, call a friend). Do some specific step (even if it is a small one)  immediately towards your goals.

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it. ”
Alexander Graham Bell – scientist, inventor, teacher.

I wish you great inspiration and moments of flow for the fresh year. Enjoy making your dreams come true!

Cheers!

Harald