In the previous articles on designing your life, we have addressed two extremely powerful and important questions, “Who Am I Really?” and “What Do I Really Want?” The “Really?” part is what makes this so difficult. “Really?” brings us to our deepest, truest levels. Not what does someone else think, but what do “I” think?. Quite frankly, we haven’t been encouraged or taught how to think for ourselves. So a lot of us have accepted and internalized what others’ (parents, teachers, media, religions, so-called friends) have told us about who we are and what we should want. We’ve let sources outside of ourselves give us simple, merchandised answers. And we’ve bought them. Then we wonder why we are not happy. We feel “off track”.

And we are off track. We are not living in alignment with what is most important to us. We are not stepping up and being the people we truly feel we are. We are trying to fit other’s expectations and guidelines and we are not living our true selves.

How are you living your life? Are you thinking, being, and doing things that are a reflection of what you want? Is your outer life a representation of what is most important to you – your inner life? Carl Rogers says that one of the most reliable predictors of mental health is the gap between where you think you are and where you want to be – the bigger the gap, the greater our unrest and our dissatisfaction. How wide is the gap between what you doing and what you want to be doing? How big is the gap between what you say you believe and what you actually do?

Our premise, thus far, has been that the reason our gaps are wide is that we’ve just been unconscious – that we haven’t taken the time to do the personal growth work that would help us to know our true heart’s desires. So, in the last two columns, we stopped and asked some of the powerful questions. We dug down to the deeper layers of who we really are and found that we are lovable, spiritual beings who are each given gifts and have a purpose for being. We recognize and acknowledge that we are competent, capable, and powerful beings. We also looked at what we really want – our deepest longings. We all mostly want the same things – love, intimacy, peace, safety, and we want to make a difference. We want to live lives of meaning and purpose utilizing our best self and our best talents.

Is this how you are living your life now? If not, what do you need to be doing? Remember a fulfilling life is one that is in alignment with your dreams, your desires and your innate life purpose. Do you know the deeper purpose, the calling, for your life? In The Call, Oriah Mountain Dreamer says that we are each born with our own piece of truth that can be summed up in one word and then we are called to express it throughout our lives. “What is your one word that you bring to this great love poem called humanity?”

Stop, take a moment, and reflect on it. Let it just come to you from within. What is your one word that connects you to your reason for being, to your life mission? What do you stand for? Knowing your word, your purpose, your deepest longings will help you in making the decisions about how you shall live. Bottom line: life is about the choices you make. Imagine that rather than responding from old patterns, being reactive, or making choices from emotions like fear and confusion, now every choice is made in the light of our purpose, our values, our dreams – what we really want.

In the Consider the Possibilities life design program, you are helped to write your “Master Life Purpose Statement.” Next you rate your level of satisfaction in each of the major areas of your life – health, relationships, work, finances, emotional , well-being, spirituality, etc. For example, “On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your spiritual life?” Let’s say you rate your current state a 4. “In six months, where would you like to be on that satisfaction scale?” You say an 8 (which sounds like a very honest and doable goal). Next you are asked, “What would you have to be, do, or think to move your level of satisfaction from a 4 to an 8?” And then you listen … because you really do know the answers. In Consider the Possibilities, we don’t ask other people. As a personal life coach I do not tell you what I think you should or could do. As a coach I help you ask and answer for yourself. And you really do already know what it is going to take for you to be living the life of your dreams. You just maybe haven’t had the clarity, the courage, or the plan.

You do this assessment in all the areas of your life and then you begin to see a plan developing. This is not just another “to-do list”. These goals are now empowered. They are fueled by being directly, consciously connected to the deeper values of your life. We evaluate each possibility, each goal, each next step, against your master life purpose statement. If it doesn’t fit, match up and align, then you keep brainstorming until you come to that choice where you are able to say “Yes. This is it. This is something that will move me closer to my heart’s desires. This is something I can do and am willing to do. Yes!” Now that’s powerful. You will now be following a plan that is more closely aligned with who you really are and what you really want. You will be more satisfied with yourself and your life. You will close the gap.

You will now be making the big and the small decisions of your life in the light of a bigger picture. The next step in designing and living the life of your dreams is to learn how to hold a big vision for your life. This is one of the most powerful manifestion tools you have – the ability to create your life through visualization. Next month, we’ll talk about “The Power of Visions”.