Elevate Your Life 4/5 - Discovering Your Purpose

In part four of this five part series Fabienne talks you through how to Elevate Your Life by discovering your purpose. Our purpose is something that has been with us our whole life and it is not something new. We may have buried it deep though, so this talk will help you stir the pot and reconnect. Fabienne will share with you 3 practical exercises to discover your purpose.

Transcript

Welcome to this five part series on how to elevate your life with me,

Fabienne Sandoval,

Founder of the Elevate Coaching Program,

Award-winning author of 28,

The Age of Power,

And creator of the Insight Timer 10-day course,

Learning How to Love.

In order to elevate your life,

We work with a simple set of five principles that serve to rise you to your fullest potential and create a long-lasting transformation.

Today,

I will be talking about the fourth principle,

Purpose.

Discovering our purpose can feel very heavy and difficult when we aren't sure what way to turn.

A little over three years ago,

I was totally lost,

Unsure what to do.

I believe there was something so much more powerful that I was supposed to be doing,

But I had no idea what that was or how I would manifest it.

The key I believe now,

Looking back at my journey,

Was the sheer desire to understand the answer to this question.

I ask myself every day,

What is my purpose,

Knowing that at some point the answer would appear.

Some of us receive the call loud and clear.

For others,

It is more of a gentle reveal.

My path opened up slowly but surely,

And I truly believe it was down to my deep desire to understand how I could be of service to the world.

I believe that people are usually in one of three categories when it comes to finding your life's purpose.

One,

You don't believe that we have a purpose other than to be happy and enjoy life.

Two,

You believe we have a purpose but have no idea where to begin to discover it.

Or three,

You know what it is and you're moving closer in alignment with this every day.

Our purpose is something that has been with us our whole life and it is not something new or that we even need to discover.

This may come as a surprise,

But trust me,

It will have always been there for you.

It just depends how deep you have it buried.

For some of us,

That may go as far back as childhood.

There are some practical tips I would love to share with you to help you open up and remember your purpose more fully.

Tip number one,

Values.

The first place I began to tap into when discovering my own purpose was my values.

I figured if I didn't have a good sense of what was important to me,

Then how would I know what to cultivate more of in my life?

I would like you to take a moment and ponder on the following questions.

What do you stand for?

What do you really care about?

What habits,

Beliefs,

Attitudes do you wish to embody?

Once you can determine who you are and what you stand for,

You have a better chance of moving towards a life that's in alignment with what you truly care about.

Use your values as a compass.

Every year at a minimum,

And sometimes more when life takes its drastic twists and turns,

I pull out my values cards and sort through.

I have a pack of around 100 values,

Which read love,

Gratitude,

Spirituality,

Independence,

Compassion,

Self-acceptance,

Self-love,

Etc.

I'll pull these cards all over the table and start the journey of narrowing them down so I can come down to just four or five values that I truly cherish for this present moment and what I would like to bring more of into the future.

My current values are love,

Presence,

Listen,

Play,

And laughter.

What are yours?

Tip number two,

Gifts versus challenges.

As I mentioned earlier,

Our purpose is something that has always been with us.

It is our gift,

And it can also be our biggest challenge.

It all depends how we use it.

I personally found that one of my gifts was to speak.

I had always been vulnerable and willing to speak up,

Sometimes too much though,

Meaning I used to think that it was a bad thing that I spoke a lot.

I now realize I had to channel my gift into the right environment and speak to topics that would benefit others from hearing about,

Such as love,

Instead of aimlessly just using my voice to make sounds.

I would like you to consider the following.

What is my biggest gift?

What is my biggest challenge?

What have I loved since I was a child?

If you cannot remember,

Ask your parents or caretakers to help jog your memory.

These questions will stir the pot and help you gain more awareness of key moments in your life.

This still may feel like a stretch for you,

And if that is the case,

I would like you to bring your attention and awareness to what and where you feel happiest on a day-to-day basis.

The simple things in our life,

These day-to-day activities,

Are very telling.

Where and how do you spend your time?

What are your likes and dislikes?

These questions provide an easy guide to helping you onto the path.

There is also a direct correlation of what you love or did in your childhood,

Which plays a part in this too.

So don't be afraid to dig deep and look back into the past.

Tip number three.

Obligations.

What would I do if I had no obligations?

Now I want you to believe you're absolutely free.

Free of expectation,

Free of responsibilities,

Free of financial weights,

All of it.

It's all gone.

You are totally blissful and you can do anything you wish.

What would you do?

This may look like taking off and traveling around the world,

Starting your dream business,

Retraining in a new field,

Quitting work to spend more time with your family.

Take some time to write down all of the possible answers.

A fun way to do this,

And something I use with my clients,

Is to write down all the different types of imaginary lives you would like to lead.

This is an exercise taken from Julia Cameron's The Artist Within.

Her book provides a 12-week course that guides you through the process of recovering your creative self,

A key step in the process to awakening the path to purpose.

Do not overthink this exercise or judge the answers you receive.

In my experience with my own journey and that of others,

Our purpose rarely ever screams out the exact job title we're designed for.

It's usually much more subtle than this.

There's a gentle call,

A call to take the first step onto the path.

So,

What will your first step be?

Maybe it will be to dedicate time to the book you've always dreamed of writing,

Or maybe it will be to go back to art class.

Whatever the call,

Honor this.

This is the first step towards investing in yourself and your purpose.

I hope that you found these tools valuable in learning how to discover your purpose.

I will be back with the final part of this series where I will share how to elevate your life and rise up to your fullest potential.

If you would like to learn more about my personal journey and how I transformed my life,

Then please log on to www.

Fabsthoughts.

Com to check out my book,

28,

The Age of Power,

Or to discover more about my Elevate Coaching program.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Thanks, I enjoyed these questions, they help🤸🚶👪🎨🖌️🙏

I really enjoyed the steps she laid out to find my purpose and the reflection questions she gave to comfemplate and reflect on in the process. I look forward to listening to her more.

This is so very helpful... Thank you so much!!🙏💜🙏

Very helpful. Thank you!

Ok now I can complete my thoughts between #3 and #4, since they are linked.
This was I think the clearest of the series (so far), and made a lot fall into place.
My observations from my current place ('49, the age of meh'):
The link between passion/calling and empowerment seems key - key to your inner integrity and self-love ('am I being true to myself' and external ('am I being true to myself in the world').

I know where my passion lies, the tricky part is that it requires both engagement with some of the darker/disempowering inputs from #3, requiring even sharper focus, whilst living in a more disempowering context. So it's in the 'being empowered to live the purpose you found' where I'm struggling.
Perhaps #5 ties it all together? To Be Continued

PS: I really like the pauses - a perfect embodiment of your own value of listening (something I can happily be better at), and not that common in podcasts.

I'd also

Have a journal handy to capture the great questions!

Thank you for your time and guidance. I look forward to the next time.

Namaste 💕 ☮️