Looking back on my life, there are so many places where I not only didn’t follow my compass but I didn’t even know to follow it. (See previous post) As far as my career was concerned, I knew within seconds that my college major wasn’t the right choice for me but I stuck with it anyway and spent the last 20 years trying to get back to North. Here’s what I now believe is a huge problem with our culture: it’s rare to find someone who encourages us to follow our passions (or at least it was rare for me). The number one question that I got asked in my first 18+ years of life is this: what do you want to be when you grow up? I’m certainly guilty of even asking my own and other children this question. Hell, my husband and I still say we don’t know what we want to be when we grow up! Nobody asked me if I wanted to be happy or what kind of relationships would I’d like to have. Nobody asked what qualities do you want to embody as a person or how will you stay connected to your joy. Nobody taught me to meditate or how to be still and go within. Nobody taught me how to follow that inner compass. I was taught to seek a career and if I was really lucky, a high paying one. I was taught that if you have a high paying career than you, by definition, are the epitome of success. Shit, even the first m-w definition of success says “the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.”
Over the last 5 years, I’ve been open to and explored different opportunities in an effort to find North again. Some have led me closer, others not so much. It’s pretty easy to get sidetracked and discouraged but I just have to keep moving forward because backwards is never an option. Here’s how I learned to navigate my compass. I started listening with my whole body and not just my thoughts. I literally feel a lump in my throat or my heart hurts when I’m following the wrong path, in any aspect of my life, not just related to my careers. And when I’m following the right one, I feel joy, excitement, enthusiasm, passion and so many other amazing feelings. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out but it still took me a *really* long time till I stopped thinking and started feeling.
So one of the first things I’ve done is to redefine and broaden what the word ‘success’ means to me. And here are 15 ways how I’ve expanded success for myself:
- Does what I’m doing make my heart sing? And by that I mean, do I wake up every day excited to do it and have no need to seek motivation because it just comes naturally?
- Did I love my husband and children with all my heart and love them unconditionally?
- Did I provide value for others? Did I help make someone else’s life better by what I do?
- Was I able to fully be myself? My goal in life is to get paid to be me. I don’t want to spend any more time in my life pretending to be someone else and adjusting who I am to meet someone else’s expectations.
- Did I become better as a human being each and every day? I believe I was put on this earth to be the best Jennifer dePascale that I can. Sure, I make tons of mistakes and have lots of days that the answer to this is no but I just have to give myself grace and keep moving forward.
- Did I embody the characteristics of the kind of human being that I want to become?
- Was I in control of my emotions? Again, here’s another example of something that I spent years thinking I was a victim to when in reality, I have so much more control over my emotions than I had ever dreamed possible.
- Was I active today? Did I eat foods that make me feel amazing? My health and fitness are connected to every aspect of my life and when I take care of it, I am repaid in so many more ways than I could have imagined.
- Did I feel grounded and connected to my higher self? Did I find a way to connect with nature today?
- Did I meditate and find time to just be still?
- Did I trust my inner voice, my intuition and let it guide me in my life?
- Did I connect with someone who challenges me to be more, do more and fully embody the full me today?
- Did I learn a new skill that will help move me, my family or my business forward?
- Did I take risks? Did I take a step out of my comfort zone today?
- Did I make someone’s day brighter with a smile or a random act of kindness?
Each day, I ask myself these questions. The more yeses I have, the more successful was my day. It’s that simple. This, for me, is success. Interestingly, wealth isn’t even on my list. I’m not perfect and I fail all the time. There are often days that I answer no to many of these questions. But when I fail now, I celebrate. I know that the failures bring me back to North every time. I reflect on those failures and ask what went wrong and how can I do better next time? And strive for a ‘yes’ the next day.
This may look like a lot of work and the truth is, that it IS a lot of work, at first. Staying conscious on a daily basis is work, especially in the unconscious world that we live in. Undoing 40 years of unconscious living isn’t going to happen overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day, or so they say. Here’s what keeps me in the game: I think about what I want to remember while looking back on my life when I’m 100. Here’s a hint: it’s definitely not ignoring my compass. I want to make a mark, have an impact and follow North as much as possible. I want people to know that I ate fear for breakfast or that maybe I inspired them to follow their inner compass or that maybe I made someone’s day brighter by simply buying them breakfast or giving them an umbrella in the rain. I want to know who I am and that there was nothing I didn’t do to find North and become the best version of that person in my time here on earth.
Recent Comments