You’re listening to Motherhood Aligned with Katy Weade episode 24, “Your Ultimate Purpose in Life”
Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of tMotherhood Aligned. I don’t know about you, but I cannot believe it’s already February. Time is such a strange phenomenon, isn’t it? For some of you it might feel like January dragged on and one and it felt like an entire year, and then for others, like me, it flew by. Either way, let’s do a quick check-in. So how did the month go for you? How are those resolutions panning out? This is about the time that the motivation starts to run dry and you fall back into your same old habits. So check in with yourself and reassess your beliefs and your priorities. And remember, change begins with your thoughts - if you haven’t worked on that part of the equation you’ll go right back to your old familiar actions.
But that’s not actually what today’s episode is about. Today I wanted to talk to you about something that’s been at the forefront of my mind throughout my breast cancer journey. I guess when you’re faced with a life threatening disease it’s pretty common to start digging deeper into the meaning of life and what our ultimate purpose is. For me, I’ve always had a curiosity around finding my life purpose and living my best life type of stuff. And I suppose that’s how I ended up so deep into personal development and becoming a Life Coach.
So let’s discuss why it actually matters to fulfill your potential and find your purpose in life. We’re all familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, right? If you can picture that triangle with me right now you’ll remember that at the bottom, the base of the triangle, are our basic needs like food, water, shelter, and rest. Then you have safety and connection, which I talk about all of the time, connection is at the forefront of my intentions for parenting, then you have belonging and self-esteem, and then you have self-actualization at the top of that triangle. So, in case you forgot, Maslow classifies actualizing our potential as a need for all human beings. Meaning this is not just a “nice to have”. If you aren’t living on purpose and feeling like you’re living in a way that has purpose and is meaningful, then you aren’t satisfying that need. And you’ll be able to feel that in your core.
So what is our purpose? I honestly think we overcomplicate this. We’re often looking outside of ourselves to find our true meaning in life. When really it is already there, you just have to activate it.
At the beginning of each year I always choose a word of the year to be like my North Star, my overall intention for myself to focus on. This year my word came to me really quickly. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what I want it to be. I was looking at lists of words and nothing was really sticking out to me at first. So I googled a phrase, I wish I could remember what it was, but it was something along the lines of living purposefully and being intentional, and the word FLOURISH was the first word that popped up. So I googled the definition of flourish and it really resonated with me. So I chose flourish as my word and felt really good about it.
Then the other night I was listening to a podcast by one of my coaches, Brian Johnson (the founder of Optimize) and it was all about ancient wisdom and the purpose of life, etc, ect. And it was talking about how flourishing is the ultimate purpose in life.
So what does it mean to flourish?
Simply put, flourishing is feeling good and functioning well. When someone is flourishing they experience positive emotions, positive interest and engagement with the world around them, and meaning and purpose in their lives most of the time.
So Brian says when we are nourishing our soul & actualizing our potential and helping other people, we are living our purpose. And that is what flourishing means to me. This is great news because it means that we all have the exact same purpose. Actualizing our potential and helping people. Boom.
So the question you should be asking yourself in order to fulfill that purpose is how do I give my greatest gifts in greatest service to the world. When you can close the gap between who you are today and who you are actually capable of being, you’re living purposefully and able to share your gifts with the world. That gap between who you are and who you’re capable of is where depression, anxiety, regret, etc exist. When you close that gap you enter a state of being in flow, and when you’re in flow you feel great and you’re moving towards that sefl-actualization.
Then the 2nd part of this is helping others. And the quickest way to do that is to be nice. You can do this anytime through random acts of kindness. It is the easiest and fastest way to feel better.
So, as Brian explains, to live your purpose, first get yourself into flow by expressing your highest version of yourself and actualizing your potential, and be nice. Help people. Find ways to give your greatest gifts in greater service to the world.
This is the part where we often get tripped up. You might be wondering, ok but what does that mean for me? This is what Brian describes as our missions. This is what are you here to do RIGHT NOW. This can be many different missions over the course of your lifetime, but what are you here to do right now? Your mission can evolve over time throughout your chapters of life. So you don’t have to continuously stress out trying to find thee thing. So just remember that you’ll have that one purpose of actualizing and serving and you’ll have many missions along the way.
In my opinion, the best way to get into your flow is to focus on self nourishment. Feed your soul, close that gap between who you are and who you want to be, and the specifics will follow.
So, in conclusion for today, If you aren’t living on purpose and feeling like you’re living in a way that has purpose and is meaningful, then you aren’t satisfying that need. Our purpose is to actualize our potential and to help people. If you’re interested in diving deeper into this particular subject on your own, your next best step is to check out Brain Johnson’s Optimize program. Much of what he teaches is now free for everyone and I highly recommend you check it out. I’ll add a link to the shownotes for you https://www.optimize.me/missions/purpose.
And, of course, working through this stuff with me as your life coach is always an option. I love digging into this for myself and love helping others uplevel their lives as well. Come find me on Instagram @katyweade that’s k-a-t-y w-e-a-d-e or visit my website www.katyweade.com.
Alright, that’s it for today! I’ll talk to you soon.
