Purpose, Passion, & Priorities

For many years, I didn't understand what it meant to "live in your purpose." I just worked hard in my respective (and often multiple) jobs, studied hard at nights and on weekends during my strive for college degrees, and tried to balance family and health in there somewhere. I had a good grasp of priorities and lived them out, but there was no thought about finding something I was PASSIONATE about or discovering what my PURPOSE was.

Then, in 2008 I started teaching group fitness and discovered something I was passionate about. In there was a clue to my purpose - and I realize now that while some people know early in life what their passion and purpose is, many of us spend years developing into the person who can first discover and then live out their passion and purpose.

Regardless of where you are on that journey, you may also find it's challenging to balance both passion and purpose while making sure "priorities" don't get dropped as well. What I mean by that is, sometimes we have responsibilities we aren't really sure fit into "God given purpose" and may not be something we feel always "Passionate" about, but we feel the need to do them anyway.

How do all the pieces fit? Maybe a better question is, do they fit? Or, are you trying to force a piece that doesn't fit and maybe doesn't even belong to the puzzle of you.

I found it helpful to take a step back and look at each of these in context of a bigger picture. Rather than trying to define "purpose" and "passion" as a one sentence mission statement (believe me, I've spent HOURS first writing and then re-writing personal mission statements), I looked at it in terms of VALUES.

When I did that, everything else fell into place. My priorities get taken care of because they are in alignment with my values. I know what they are and I know how they fit into the context of my life's puzzle. I like to think about this in terms of the four dimensions of life:

1) Health Dimension: Physical body and our environment;

2) Head Dimension: Mental and emotional wellbeing, personal growth;

3) Heart Dimension: Spiritual dimension or Faith dimension;

4) Hierarchy Dimension: Social/Relational dimension

(I speak to each of these in more depth in my book, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Me: Become the Woman You are Destined to Be")

It's important to consider and carefully choose our values for each dimension of life. These are the clues to purpose and passion but more importantly, they give you the definition of YOUR priorities - and then it's much easier to live according to them.

If you aren't sure where to start, I offer this (free, no email required!) Abundant Life Assessment to help you get started identifying where you are in each dimension of life - and where you want to be. And, once you know where you are and where you want to go, it's much easier to get there!

Looking for more resources? Check out my virtual time management workshop HERE on Goals, Boundaries, and Effectiveness.

Keep climbing!