Does Your Mission Feel Like Punishment? You Might Be Doing It Wrong.

We have a responsibility to be an instrument of abundance to our team members...as they are to us.

So many people start working in their passion when they finally identify what it is. And it is a terrifying step to take. For one, you need to realize that you are in a comfort zone and roll around in your mind what that discovery means to you.

Are you blissful in the comfort zone? How does it make you feel? Do you see other people working in their purpose and it flips on a switch inside you to change your life?

Then it is time to make the leap.

Let’s say you figure out making the leap and you even manage to assemble some sort of common-sense processes. You are open to receiving your abundant gifts and the easy opportunities (the ideas that find you and that you can reap some sort of currency from. Time, money, lifting someone else up. In other words, a meaningful conversion.)

Yes, you are pounding away at the pavement in your factory. Grinding every day, as the saying goes.

Stop and sit in your moment.

Contemplate where your energy is going and ask yourself if you are living in your purpose or becoming enslaved by it.

Our purposes do not just involve us. They are not one-dimensional paths to success or gratitude. They involve ensemble players; each of us serving the other and when you are becoming an opportunity hoarder, you lose your purpose.

Cycles are funny. We get into them like we circle the drain. This is where we live; this is where we should stay close to; this is my supposed comfort. But we evolve out of each one and when we remain open to what our true jobs are, we move into another cycle.

In case this is clear as mud, let me explain. When I first opened the doors of my digital marketing and editorial agency, it was out of necessity. I wondered, what amount of money do I HAVE to make to survive? I lived in this cycle for a long time like a hungry catfish on the bottom of the ocean, seizing anything that came my way.

Then my mind cracked, light flooded in, and I realized that service and commitment were my brand and that people were responding to that.

I shifted internally: What can I do? How can I become limitless?

We can’t traverse this journey by ourselves. We need help. I accepted that truth and my mindset shifted again. It wasn’t my purpose to become everything to everyone, but to identify how I fit into the cast of characters. To find people who were gifted and able to serve as I loved to do…so I could still go ham in my strengths.

And as this new idea set up shop, I also realized that when we work alone, and when we accept abundant gifts and manifest that THAT is only the beginning. If we are fortunate enough to be busy and work in our beloved passion, then we also have a responsibility to grow as large as we can in our mission, but we need help. Obviously.

When we take on help, we avoid grueling work; we avoid burnout. We avoid being a person who can’t turn any opportunity down for ourselves, but who instead, accepts it knowing it is ours, but only to share. It is ours, but only to give since we are an instrument of abundance for people. We are supposed to be in this place offering an assist. We snap into place innately.

You can work in your passion and your drive may be highjacked as you ply your loving energy, but as you swell with the possibilities of blessings, then you need to make plans to handle it. You need to sit back and say, “I need help. I want to help. I am grateful for this landslide abundance but it is not meant for me alone.”

Living in this space is such a trip and knowing we are here for a greater collaborative reason is heady and simply beautiful.

Selfishly, it is so much more rewarding than seeking only to fill our own hunger. We kill for the pride.

And that is when the real blessings begin to show up, in the form of people you have been waiting to meet. Who are working in what captivates them, in the most reciprocal relationship you didn’t even know you needed. You WILL blow each other up.

Echoing relief, you will also learn some jobs are not yours in the time it takes to snap, they are gone. Given to their rightful owner, a team member wallowing in joy over the hand off.

Protect your passion. Plan for its continual evolution. If this is what you want to do, you WILL succeed. And when you do, I hope your team is ready for you. Your team carries on with the elements you cannot manage anymore, that they love, and you will have your true mission returned to you, but better.

__

Original article appeared at The Good Men Project.