Find Your Passion in Life by Remy Chausse - HTML preview

But the crossroads may be an illusion. If we’re clear on what we want and what we believe, then there often isn’t much of a decision to make! That’s why you always choose in favor of your passions and values.

This has become a magnificent guiding light for me. And it’s sometimes surprising how it helps along life’s journey. This tool is has been paramount in my evolution, and it probably will be for you, too.

Finding clarity

Do you know somebody who seems to always make bad choices in life? They don’t mean to, but it just keeps happening.

I often think of young people when I consider this deeply. They are just starting to figure out what their desires, dreams, and values are . . . and they are constantly faced with temptations that draw them away from their focus on what is truly best for them. Many haven’t had the life experiences or guidance that helps them make good decisions . . . so they’re left with the advice of friends and acquaintances who are often just as poorly prepared.

I’m reminded of Jarrod. He was born to a single mom, and his father was not in the picture at all. By the time he was 15, he had lived in six different cities and towns, and had attended at least a dozen different schools.

His mother had managed to stabilize their life by the time he was in high school. She worked to get him into a small town school district with an excellent reputation, but she was working two jobs to keep him there. As a result, she hadn’t been able to be there for him, to guide him as he navigated the perils of young adulthood.

Jarrod dreamed of being an actor and a comedian and he was good at it! He rarely got in trouble in class (even when he should have!) because he could always make his teachers laugh.

But even in a good school, Jarrod seemed to find the worst kids to hang out with. He drank, did drugs, and barely passed his classes. He was on a path to self destruction and it didn’t seem like anything could derail him.

And then it happened. One of his friends died of a drug overdose. As tragic as it was, Jarrod suddenly got clarity. He’d heard all the warnings, all the dangers, and hadn’t once taken them seriously . . .

until suddenly it was very real, and very serious.

Jarrod sat down with his counselor and talked through all of his issues, all of his concerns and all of his hopes and dreams for the future. He began to focus on what he valued in life: family, hard work, laughter, friends, and stability.

And he realized he hadn’t been living his life with those values in mind. Once he realized that focusing on his values would help him fulfill his purpose, he was able to start making better decisions. He started hanging out with better friends and getting better grades. He graduated from high school with plans to go to college for a business degree.

Why business, if he really wanted to be in the music industry? Because he knew the odds, and the dangers, of being successful. He wanted to understand the way the business world worked so that he wouldn’t be taken advantage of once he became successful. And, he also began to realize that his talent often shone best when he was behind the scenes, and a business degree would take him farther in the music industry than his “on stage” talent ever could.

For most of us, it won’t take such tragic events to get us to refocus our lives. But we can all probably remember the pivotal moment when we realized we weren’t living our dreams.

Identifying Pivotal Moments: An Exercise

Think of a pivotal moment in your life, one where you suddenly realized you weren’t living your dream; when you began to realize that something just wasn’t right.

Now answer the following questions about that moment:

What caused this revelation? It might be as profound a moment as Jarrod experienced, or it might be as simple as waking up after a dream and realizing your life is off track.

Was that realization based in a particular value you held?

Did you make a change? Or did you deny your dream and hope for the best?

What happened as a result of your action . . . or inaction?

Taking the time to do an exercise like this, where we identify our values, can help us get clarity, and start choosing in favor of our passions and purpose in life, rather than stumbling blindly through our decisions, hoping for the best.

Keeping it all in mind

Now that you’ve made your lists of passions and values, what are you going to do with them? It might seem like the exercise is over . . . the work is done. But the work is only beginning, and if you just throw those lists in a drawer, you might soon find that you’ve lost focus again.

So, how can you keep your passions front and center? Post those lists in a place where you’re likely to see them often. For me, that’s on my fridge. For a friend of mine, it’s in her bathroom, right next to the mirror . . . she actually typed them up in a beautiful font and framed them!

Michelle actually has several lists that she keeps on her fridge. As a single mother of two children, she found that the divorce, a house in bad repair, and some bad financial decisions had left her deeply in debt. She struggled to come to terms with her divorce and what that meant for her future and the future of her children.

Once she sat down and worked through identifying her passions and values, she was able to find her way through to getting back on track. Of course, it wasn’t instantaneous. But having the list helped her focus on what really mattered.

She sold her house and moved into a rental in order to add a measure of control to her expenses. This allowed her to establish a base. But then came the “to do” lists. Each one is based on one of her core values.

For example, her number one core value was to provide a stable and active life for her children. So, she listed the things that her children loved to do that she wanted to provide for them: camping, softball, violin, scouts, and family vacations.

But she also knew that a big reason that her marriage failed was because she had slowly “lost” herself in all the responsibilities of being a wife and mother. The things that she had once loved, she had given up, one after the other, until there was very little of herself left. So her second list is about her passions and the activities she wants to enjoy: kayaking, biking, traveling, reading.

My favorite list on her fridge isn’t even a list. It’s a vision board of all the things she wants to buy to help fulfill her passions and values. Never heard of a vision board? More on that in just a moment!

You’re probably wondering, “Do I really need to do this?” YES! You’ll be amazed at how much of a difference it makes! Putting the list (or lists!) in a visible place reminds us of our passions and values on a regular basis. It helps us maintain focus when we get caught up in the challenges of daily life, and it reminds us of our core values when we’re trying to make decisions.

You might be surprised to know that I don’t even keep regular “to do” lists anymore. They used to represent a harried lifestyle, and endless barrage of what other people needed from me. The way I’ve reorganized my life is to take my top 5 passions, and make a “to do” list under each passion. This way, every single day, I know I’m getting one step closer to what matters most to me.

One Step Further

You’re probably starting to get clarity about what you want and how you want to live your life. But for many of us, it is still an indistinct list of ideas. Yes, we want to live comfortably . . . or we want to travel . . . or be successful at work . . . but what does that look like? (Oh, this is a good time to mention that you have an opportunity to book a free “Discovery Session” at www.RemyChausse.com

and get three easy steps to unlock the life you’re meant to live!)

Insight #21: In order to really visualize what it looks like to live a life driven by your passions and values, create a vision board.

Maybe you’ve heard of vision boards before. Maybe you’ve even done one or two. If so, you might want to just skip over this section and go to “Vision Boards in the Digital Age” to see how you can update this process! If you’ve never done a vision board, however, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the concept first.

Vision boards are a great way to really get a handle on what our passions and values look like. There are many ways you can create a vision board, but essentially it is a poster you create of pictures of all the things you want in your life that you currently don’t have. It can be anything!

A picture of your dream house

A car

All the places you want to visit

A picture of a sweet corner office with huge windows

Whatever!

A vision board helps us literally see ourselves in those places, doing the things we want to do. Just like the lists of our passions and values, it helps us to imagine what it is like to live that life. And when we begin to envision it, it begins to happen! Not all on its own, of course! But when we know what we’re working toward, we start making focused decisions along the way.

In Michelle’s case, her vision board was filled with the “toys” she wanted: a kayak . . . an iPad . . .

bikes for the kids . . . all things that helped her fulfill her passions and support her values! Whenever she gets the urge to buy something new, she takes a look at her vision board and it reminds her of what she’s saving towards. That way, she has a little more willpower when she has the urge to purchase something else on impulse.

Digital age vision boards

Do the lists and vision boards sound like too much clutter? Or too much cutting and pasting? You might find a website like Pinterest.com valuable as your vision board tool. Pinterest is a game changing technology! It’s more or less the same thing as a vision board, but it’s online. When you’re surfing the web and find something you love, just “pin” it to one of your boards. You can also see what other people have pinned to their boards, and share your boards with your friends. A friend of mine has boards for “dream destinations,” “beautiful interiors,” and “lovely garden ideas.”

Each of these boards serves as a vision board. On each one, you are letting the universe know what you want, and laying it out for yourself. It helps you truly begin to imagine life once you have reached your goals. You can create as many boards as you want!

Still Without Clarity?

No matter what we do, no matter how many lists we create or boards we make, sometimes clarity still eludes us . . . and that makes it hard to focus on what we truly want. For those times, we need guidance. We need someone to talk things over with. But what do you do when you just need to make a decision and there’s no one to talk it out with . . . or maybe you just aren’t ready to share with anyone else yet? When you just can’t get clarity at all, it’s time to . . .

Meet Your Inner Board of Directors

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” Max Lucado

While it is wonderful to have friends and family we can go to for help in sorting out life’s questions, the reality is, it isn’t always possible. It would be nice to run every thought by those we love and trust, but sometimes we have to make those decisions on our own.

When Our Supporters Don’t (or can’t) Support Us

There are times when those we love and trust aren’t able to help us because they can’t see our vision.

Or, our passions and values conflict with the passions and values of those we love. Of course, our families and friends want what is best for us, but what is best for us isn’t always clear to others.

Many of us can relate to this from our own lives. Have you had an experience where your desires conflicted with someone else’s dreams for you?

Maybe your parents directed your initial choice for college

Maybe your husband’s desire to live near his family got in the way of you accepting a

promotion

Maybe you have a vision for starting your own business but everyone around you wants you to be practical and draw a paycheck

Now, that doesn’t mean we just drive ahead with our own will and ignore the desires and needs of others. And it doesn’t mean that we dissolve relationships because our desires clash. But it does mean that we need to really think about what it is we want AND how we can get a positive outcome that serves the highest good for everyone involved AND how we can stay true to our own passions and values.

Not only that, but sometimes a decision might seem to cause conflict between two different values or passions even within ourselves.

So how do we reconcile all this?

That’s when it’s time to consult our Inner Board of Directors!

Think about the last time you asked yourself, “Should I just run to Dairy Queen and get one of those chocolate extreme blizzards?” Didn’t you get into a dialogue inside yourself? Part of you said, “Oh my gosh . . . that would be sooooo good right now!!! Exclamation point!” And part of you got all logical, and had a total conversation about fat grams. You have these different parts that help you make decisions, right?

This section is all about how to begin to use that inner dialogue in a constructive way so that we can explore our evolution . . . and allow it to unfold without grasping at it or go into some crazy obsessive overdrive to make it happen.

Our Inner Board of Directors is simply a combination of three things:

different aspects of our personality

our knowledge

our experience that we can (and should) consult before making major decisions

Some of us do this naturally. When we weigh the pros and cons of a situation, we’re actually asking different parts of ourselves how they vote. But for some of us who have a single, very strong personality trait (in my case, it’s definitely optimism!), taking that extra time to listen to other, less enthusiastic aspects of our personality, doesn’t always come naturally.

So What Do We Do?

I was making vision boards with a friend one day, and we both were cutting out magazine pictures of celebrities. I love to find those photos where someone has just won an Oscar, or Dancing With The Stars, and they’re bathing in the exhilaration of the moment. I like to use those images to remind me of the way I’m going to feel when I reach one of my own goals.

My friend, on the other hand, picked up a design magazine and said, “I’d like Candice Olson on my advisory board.” Candice, for those of you who aren’t obsessed with HGTV, is a well known

television design star.

Now, I love Candice. But my friend is a child psychologist. She wasn’t planning any design changes in her company, so what could an interior designer have to offer her? A lot, it turns out!

Several years ago, there was a massive wave of stickers, shirts and bracelets, all bearing the letters WWJD: “What Would Jesus Do?” Now, regardless of our religious convictions, we can probably all see the value in this. For many, Jesus was the CEO of their Inner Board of Directors! When they were faced with a dilemma, they simply asked “WWJD?” and used that as their guide.

But your choices don’t have to be quite so profound. There are many people whom we admire for their various traits. We like certain celebrities, politicians, friends and family because of characteristics they possess. Now, my friend couldn’t exactly call up Candice Olson and ask her advice. But, by thinking “What would Candice do?” my friend was able to call on a certain trait of Candice’s that could help her make better decisions . . . a trait she admired.

This led to a far reaching conversation where my friend and I recruited (at least in our imaginations) various celebrities for our pretend Boards of Directors. We chose each one based on a particular strength we imagined they had. Like, “What would Mother Theresa do in this situation?” “How would Princess Di proceed?” “Would Katherine Hepburn even get involved in this?” We then made vision boards featuring our star studded boards of directors that we could perch in our offices for inspiration.

Well, that got me thinking. If we were able to assign each of these celebrities, whom we didn’t even know, a strength that inspired us, did that mean we actually possessed that same strength within us?

Well, duh!

Create Your Own Inner Board of Directors

So I wrote down a list of strengths that I thought would be helpful to me as a business owner, and created my own Inner Board of Directors, and these were some of my strength (or energy) positions: Optimist

Strategist

Visualizer

Power Babe

Inner Wisdom

Joy

Prosperity

Homeland Security

Then it was time to set up the ground rules.

I wanted all my members to have equal say. However, the Optimist position and the Homeland Security position could never have a deciding vote. My optimist would always be “Yes! Yes!” and my homeland security would always be “No! No!”

However, since my Optimist is my own greatest strength, that energy would have to be my Board’s CEO! I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I actually created a very elaborate Excel spreadsheet for mine. And anytime I get hung up on a decision, I consult my spreadsheet. I literally insert a column and type in a short heading to describe the situation that’s got me stumped. Then I go right down the list, allowing each board member to type in their response in the space provided for whatever decision I’m trying to make.

And what usually happens, is they come up with really great questions that I never thought of to ask, and that actually ends up solving the issue!

Insight #22: It isn’t always about finding the right solution. Sometimes it’s about asking

the right question.

I have a copy of this spreadsheet in my book, but this is something you can play with on your own.

You’ll also find the spreadsheet, plus an extended exercise, in the home study course at

www.UnleashTheVisionWithin.com

My own Inner Board of Directors has been instrumental in helping me solve some of the most dire and complex situations! But it’s a matter of knowing how to identify them, and how to listen to which ones at which time.

Split Personalities

By the way, I want to tell you about Melanie, and I think you’ll love this. When we met, her husband had left her, and her father had just died. She was working as an administrative assistant, and feeling a little bit abused with the hours she was working and an absolutely horrendous commute. It was a lot to take, all at one time. She happened to say one day, “You know, part of me wants to keep this job because it’s the only stability I have in life right now, and part of me is just so wrung out by it all.”

Whenever I hear someone say, “Part of me this . . . part of me that . . .” that’s always my cue to pull out the Inner Board of Directors exercise.

So we started dialoguing, and I said let’s talk to the part of you that wants to keep the stability, and then after that, I want to talk to the part of you that’s just so wrung out. Immediately, she said, “I don’t know . . . maybe I’m being extreme. Because part of me really wants to be a virtual assistant, where I can work with people all over the world, and take on only the projects I want to do, with people I want to work with.”

And right before my eyes, she’s identifying another part of her to bring into the exercise.

It went on like this for an hour, just in general conversation. But by the time we left McDonalds Playland (which I think is strangely ironic!), she had taken something that she wasn’t sure she could monetize, and mapped out three specific courses of action to take. Now she has a fulfilling career with a roster of clients who love and adore her. She works the hours she wants to. She makes enough money to tithe, which was very important to her. She feels that her success is aligned with her values now. And her integrity is more aligned, in such a way that she’s no longer embarrassed about things she was tolerating. Can you imagine? This is what this work can do! We always want to challenge what’s possible!

In fact, in just a minute, I’ll demonstrate how to use a technique with your Inner Board of Directors to help identify your true purpose in life. This is where it gets really exciting! And you can see how this is all building on each other . . .

First, we want to be sure there’s no invalidation in the way

Then we want to look at our energy, our inner genius, and what energy comes most naturally to us

Then we’ll use these inner parts to help refine our passions and purpose

See how it’s all coming together?

Building Your Inner Board of Directors: An Exercise

So here’s the exercise for this section: If you were going to hire your own board of directors, what individuals would you want on your board?

Think of . . .

celebrities (past and present)

friends or coworkers you admire

family members who have given you guidance that has helped you in life

spiritual figures who influence you

Make a list of ten people you’d like to have on your own board of directors, and assign each one of them a role. What can each of these board members bring to the table to help you sort through even your most difficult questions and decisions?

Next, map out a game plan using this board of directors. Not sure how? Well, don’t worry. Of course, I have more tips for you! You’ll be able to use your current life situation as an opportunity to grow, and I’ll show you how to get there, because we all love a great blueprint, don’t we?

Insight #23: The energy of each of these board members already exists within you! So be sure and write down what special energy they each possess (and how you already possess that energy).

Do you know what a mantra is? It’s that thing you say to yourself, or to someone else, every time you need advice. With your Inner Board of Directors, each energy position will have its own mantra.

Since your Inner Board of Directors is literally made up of the different facets of you, it’s perfectly natural for each of them to have their own mantra for you to repeat and draw from when you are asking their advice!

For example, my Optimist always says, “any negative can be turned into a positive.” So, in a given situation, the optimist will find positive outcomes, even in a negative situation.

Conversely, my Officer of Homeland Security will immediately say, “It’s too dangerous. Has our attorney reviewed this plan? It sounds like there's a missing objective here.”

The Visualizer will scoff and says, “Anything can be done, if we just put our minds to it!” And she’ll lay out what it will look like once I successfully accomplish a task.

That’s where the Strategist comes in: “Let's look at some different scenarios, and mock up some different outcomes. The we can strategize the right direction.”

Feel free to go great guns into the Inner Board of Directors exercise, because this can be instrumental in refining your vision!

How Does Any of This Help Me Find My Purpose?

If you’ve been doing all of the exercises along the way, then you probably already sense the answer of how your inner board can help you find your purpose in life.

Insight #24: Dialogue with your Inner Board of Directors by asking questions like

“What richness is waiting for me? What task has my soul agreed to while I'm here on

Earth? What work am I meant to be doing? Where is my fullest power and how can I

use it?”

Remember while ago, when I said sometimes it isn’t about finding the solution, but about asking the right question? When you’re looking for your purpose in life, asking a question like, “Why is my life so wrong?” is disempowering. But if you ask your Inner Board of Directors one of the above empowering questions, you can use their guidance to help you find your purpose.

How cool is that?!?

All of this work is leading to our last section. But before we move on, let’s recap the work we’ve done so far . . .

So far we’ve talked about . . .

overcoming invalidation

getting to know our own natural energy

finding our passions

identifying our Inner Board of Directors based on strengths we already have inside us

Now let’s touch on purpose so we can start to align with our legacy in life, because I just know we want to find fulfillment by awakening and embracing our legacy!

While I don’t really have space in this eBook to go into all of the detail I would like (that could be an entire book on its own!), I at least want to get us started on these basics. Because even with these little baby steps, we’ll be seeing such amazing results!

We’re going to be like a little kid waiting for the ice cream truck! Didn’t your ears perk up when you heard the ice cream truck coming down the street . . . and you’d do anything to find ten cents to run out and greet him? Can you already see the possibilities, and what would happen if you had the ideal advisory board, and where they could help you go in life?

Now, remember that you can use your Inner Board of Directors to help you find your purpose, just by asking each one, “What’s my purpose in life?” We go over this in more detail in the home study course.

But for now, let’s move on to one of my favorite topics on the SpiceOmeter . . . and those are the spicy, sexy hot possibilities from knowing your true life’s purpose . . .

Find Your Smart & Sexy True Life’s Purpose

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walt Disney

Here we are, closing in on the last and best item. I can’t believe how the time has flown! But now we’re getting into the sexy part! This is an insanely beautiful section on finding your life purpose.

This is where we’ll begin to develop a guided roadmap that will allow us to flirt with our true calling, and ease us out of any energy that isn’t working for us, or any confusing messages that have been in our head.

Purpose Has Three Parts

Let’s talk about the definition of purpose. I believe it has three parts:

First, is the message you have for the world, and this is your verbal mantra. This is something that you probably