Have you been wondering about the secret to happiness and why it feels so out of reach?
First, let’s look at what holds us back from happiness, and then I'll give you some tips on living a happier, more joyful, purpose-filled life.
A client said to me recently, “Carin, I didn't come to you for purpose. I came to you for joy.” Another client was there and she said, “I came to you for purpose, but I feel so much joy in my life. Like, I feel so alive. I didn't even expect that I would love myself and love life this much.”
Of course they feel this way. Because joy and purpose are so interconnected. They're really the same thing. And if someone asked me, what is the number one thing that's getting in the way of women's happiness or women's joy, it's this: Doing what everyone else has wanted you to do, instead of doing what actually lights you up.
Yes, the number one thing that is keeping you from being your happiest, most joyful, most alive version of yourself is doing what everyone else wants you to do, instead of doing what actually makes you happy.
I want to dive into this more deeply and give you purpose power tips for you to be able to apply this to your own life, or for you to be able to share this with your daughter, your sister, your mother, whomever.
A couple of years ago, I was giving a talk at a corporation and I was talking about happiness and someone raised their hand. He said, “So are you telling me that I just should not work anymore? And I should just be drinking beer all day and playing my video games? Because that's what would make me happy.”
And I said, “Maybe, but really would it make you happy? Because what would happen if you drank beer all day and you just played video games all day? You would probably feel sick to your stomach after a couple of days, if not after just one day. You'd get bored, real bored. Right? You'd probably feel apathetic. Would that really make you happy?”
You need to mix what makes you happy with a deeper sense of fulfillment, a deeper sense of joy.
The Secret to Happiness
The client that came to me for joy already knows her purpose. She's a coach and a mentor as well. But she wasn't setting boundaries. She was saying yes to everyone who needed her, who wanted her time, and who wanted to pay her less than she was worth.
She did not have healthy boundaries around her. She was accepting crumbs instead of standing by her worth and knowing that she's a queen, a Goddess who deserves more. She wasn't saying yes to what was in her heart.
She so badly wanted to join my courses. She so badly wanted to travel and had all these visions and dreams of all the ways and the luxuries that she wanted in life, but was saying no to herself by not setting boundaries.
It came down to, “Can I really say yes to myself when other people want my time? Am I really worthy enough of that?”
We got into some of her deeper programming around what she had been taught her whole life or shown her whole life as a woman born in black skin. And this was an opportunity for her to really go under those stories. For her to do the work of getting to the heart of those stories, to do the work of shifting them, rising above them, doing all the exercises that I do with my clients in order to break free of the old patterning that's been put on us and to rise up.
One of the ways that she was accepting crumbs was in what she was being paid. We had to work through some of that old patterning. Now she's out there mentoring and coaching, and she's enrolling women in her course and it is blowing up. But it was getting to this worthiness, not just doing what everyone else had wanted her to do but actually doing what lit her up, what made her happy, knowing she was worthy to do that, putting that first.
We squash down who we really want to be to do what other people want us to do. And then we wonder why we end up having no joy.
Your Purpose Doesn’t Have to Be Your Career
There is a myth that our purpose has be our job, it has to be the way that we make money. But this simply isn’t true.
Recently, I held a sisterhood circle. When we were each going around sharing, one woman said, “Oh, do I need to speak out loud? Or can I put it in the chat?” I said, “It's up to you, sister. If you're willing to speak, we'd love to hear you.” And she instantly had a tear in her eye. She had spent her whole life not being heard. She's a social worker so she gives and she gives and she gives, and she's not done for herself. She said she feels like she's been put onto the back burner. She's been put backstage.
I told her we were bringing her front and center stage. It was uncomfortable for her to take up space, but as she did that and she shared her story, it actually brought us closer, because so many of us could identify with that. She loves doing social work. But she lets other people be front and center. She came to this moment in her life where she asked, “What about me?”
So many of us think our purpose is our job, and it might be. I want you to jump out of bed, knowing who you are and feeling good and feeling like you are worthy. You can take up space. That's why joy and purpose are so intertwined.
Women will be happier when we allow ourselves to do what will make us happy, to be who we were born to be, and to do what it is that we really want to do.
We all have fears, like, “What is everyone going to think? Is everyone going to abandon me? Can I afford it? Will I fail?” There are so many reasons that we don't do the things that make us happy.
In fact, you might want to join my Goddess On Purpose class, but maybe you’re thinking that you can't afford it. Or wondering if you really want to go that deep? Or what if it doesn't work? What if you’re the one person it doesn't work for?
I have to laugh because last year, a woman who joined the program sent me an email and said, “I'm going to be the one person this doesn't work for.” I'm thrilled to tell you that she now has an amazing podcast. She's all about bringing reality through hope to moms. And she's growing a community and it's just beautiful.
I was exactly where you were: I had no clue. I was totally floundering. I would read all the self help books. There were no podcasts at the time, but if there were, I would have listened to all of them. And I needed to get to a point where I was actually working with a coach who actually could see me and know me and take me through it.
The 5 Steps to Knowing Your Purpose
#1. Clarify Your Vision. We actually have to get in touch with what it is that we want to feel, our vision. The feeling of knowing how we want to feel in our bodies, how we want to feel about our life, how we want to feel about our health, our finances, our love, everything. Because when we have that sense of how we want to feel, it can then start to tell us what then gives us that feeling. So we always want to start with that vision, that feeling.
#2. Define Your Inspiration. You're reading this because there's something I say that inspires you. I fill up on inspiration. And that can be information for us about our true desires and about what we want and about what makes us happy. And so we want to start diving in and uncovering that idea of inspiration, who we feel we were born to be, all of that. So you want to peel back the layers of inspiration and be able then to hold the mirror up and even look at where you are already inspiring in life. How other people find you inspiring.
#3. Define Your Superpowers. What is beautiful and unique about you? Every single one of us needs to own and to look at what is special and unique about ourselves. What makes us different from the next person? And sometimes we need other people to reflect that for us. Sometimes we need to take online assessments. But when you start looking at what is unique and special about you, you can start feeling really proud of yourself and start feeling really good about what you contribute to the world and the ways that you want to be in the world and what you want to do. It's magical.
#4. Discover Your Joy. If I started with joy as step number one, you'd be like, “Ah, I have no idea.” But do you see how once you start going through each of these step by step, by the time you get to joy, you have an inkling? What brings me joy is being with other women, what brings me joy is speaking on stage or on the microphone, what brings me joy is loving people up. We can start getting more and more into the joy once we have gone through all these other exercises to get into our heart and into our soul.
But the thing with joy is, there's the discovery of joy, and then there's the allowance of joy. Now, here's the beautiful thing: Joy fuels purpose, and purpose fuels joy. So they work in harmony with each other.
#5. Live with Courage. Many women think that they're not courageous but I know that every woman is courageous. We all have courage within us. Even when you're going through a hard time, you have courage. You're drawing upon it. And so this last step is learning all of the tools to start you off courageously toward doing what you want to do, and being who you were born to be in your purpose, and the tools to stay courageous, Sister.
I can't speak more highly of Goddess on Purpose. It has literally changed the lives of more than 100 women. Women rave about this course without me asking them. They're online talking about it.
The doors are open, Sister, walk through them.
There's nothing more important than you and your happiness. So if you want more go to GoddessOnPurposeCourse.com.
I'll see you on the inside.
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