Is It Time To Do What You Love?

Let’s start with that question — is it time to do what you love?

What comes up when you ask yourself the question? Do you smugly smile at the screen and tell me I am. Or, are you feeling a little off key and wishing that you could find the thing or turn your thing into profitable products?

It can feel rather overwhelming — can’t it?

I adore helping people to turn their stories into products — books, courses, programs, blogs etc. My way of doing it is to create one piece of content and then looking at how it can be used many times.

But that’s the way I do it. The thing I love is exploring ideas and creatively finding ways to inspire others. I am like a little child when I am being creative and working with ideas — it’s play time.

And I love books but oh deary me — formating and uploading and all that faff leaves me cold. But when I get them done and back in my mits — I am overjoyed.

As a child my mum would lose me — often — because I would go off wandering. I wonder where this would take me? What if I climbed over this? What would those flowers look like with no heads? How do I put this watch back together? I could while away endless hours lost in curious play. And, of course, get told off for my misdeeds — which I could never understand.

When forced out of dirty wellies and rats tail hair and into the world of work, I’d always look for ways to make my job more interesting. Do you know how many ways you can seal and pack envelopes? Thank you the Civil Service for those endless boring tasks…

Naturally, this got chanelled into doing things I loved. I adored selling software because I could see so many ways that a company could be more efficient and effective. What do you mean you have a problem… Let me show you this!

When my spine fractured, I spent a long time working out how to heal naturally and get back to better health. I channelled my inner wild child into my healing.

And now lockdown. No where to go (mostly) except in my imagination.

But here is the secret sauce, I get to turn my ideas into tangible assets for myself and others. I feel excited that so many people are thinking about — how do I do what I love? How can I turn my story and passion into products or services easily?

Has lockdown changed you?

It has made me reflect me and do a massive declutter. But most importantly it got me thinking about a life of purpose and meaning and I started to think of my dreams and hearts desires.

Did you know that I want to write a novel? Maybe or maybe not. When I was in my last relationship everything felt that it was being destroyed. But the dream never left me.

There is now a book cover mockup proudly sitting on my vision board. I have some of it outlined and I can feel its pull. Though I think I need to get out of these four walls before I can write more creatively — or is that my block talking to me…?

What I have noticed is that many people still dream of creating a life of purpose and meaning, where they listen to their hearts and manifest magic but think they can’t for some reason. I get it…

It’s like they are frozen at the crossroads of their life wondering how to jump out of their comfort zone and into the field of possibilities.

They believe it’s too late, that they are too old for that specific dream or they don’t have the skills to reach for what they want.

But the truth is it’s never too late to follow your dreams and claim your hearts desires.

My mum is an amazing example of someone who thought she couldn’t write and who has now written 7 books. She amazes me.

Today she is painting and indulging her artist side, which was denied to her for many years.

What do you love?

The heart of you and your hearts desires are all about what you love and your passion. What do you love doing and what are you passionate about? Remember, you can be passionate about many things, and you can link some of these together to inspire others and to make an impact in the world.

Ikigai

Have you heard of Ikigai? Ikigai is a great tool for looking at the passion and purpose question. Ikigai roughly translates into the meaning of your life. The reason it is useful is that it wakes you up to your reason for being and helps you to live a life where you feel fulfilled. I believe that the books, courses and programs that we create and share must both speak to our hearts and be commercially viable.

• The basis of IKIGAI is not to only enrich your own life, but also to enhance the lives of others
• Every person has a strong drive to find meaning in life — purpose
• Intrinsic motivation
• Seeking fulfilment and inner peace

Purpose and meaning arrive at different times of your life, which means that you may have many IKIGAI’s.

Defining your Ikigai is a very personal and private journey and combining it with some pro-active business planning can result in achieving what you love to do and much, much more!

I love discovering someones one thing. Often when someone comes to write a book, create a course or program they find their lives disrupted as they work through their ideas and identity. They start off with ‘just’ an idea, and then they realise it’s more than the book, course of program it’s their brand and their business. It’s their life’s mission.

Four questions

Right now, grab a pen and scribble. There are four important questions I’d like you to consider.

• What do you LOVE?
• What are you GOOD at?
• What does the world NEED?
• What can you be PAID for?

These four questions are fundamental to working out not only your idea but what the business is that you want to create around it. Please take your time and spend time reflecting on each area. Then notice where you feel the excitement, and where you feel resistance.

Note: Ikigai is a very deep process, and here you are just scratching the surface, which is a great starting point. My hope is that it raises questions in you that you want to explore further.

Journal it: Ask your four questions. What do you learn?

Here’s a few other things to mull over

Let me know what resonates. Grab your journal and explore…

All you need to remember is that you are never too old to go towards your hearts desiresand to do what you love. All you have to do is decide what you want and take action to go after it.

Book a call and let’s explore

Originally published at https://daledarley.com on February 16, 2021.