Am I purposeful? Showing determination or resolve? Is my intention strong enough? These questions popped up for me today as I looked at my To Do list.
It’s the one I shoved on one side yesterday because it was too hot. I’d returned to my desk this morning ready to pick up what I’d left yesterday. But as I checked the list I thought about that sense of being purposeful. I do lots of things in my working ‘week’ but I sometimes forget to ask if what I’m doing has a purpose. And I feel that’s a theme that came out of the mentoring I did with clients today too. Often the people I work with have reached a point where they feel lost. The driving force, or purpose, of what they are doing has disappeared. They have become stuck. And often frustrated in that stuckness.
I know that feeling very well. It seems to me that we human beings survive better when we have a goal, focus or purpose. Not to have one leaves us at the mercy of the flow of life. So we create meaning and movement to our lives by setting intentions. Or you could call it building dreams. I also know that when we get to the point of the dreams coming true we quickly ask ‘what’s next’. This purposeful expecting and achieving pushes me forward. I remember times when I was so determined to make my dreams happen that I overspent my time and effort to make it so. Then I had to rest and find another purpose.
So being purposeful can be helpful yet it can also be my downfall. Pushing myself too hard can end up with me not able to enjoy my newly achieved dream.
It’s all a matter of balance. And also finding pleasure in those times when there is an absence of purpose. Being able to switch between purposeful action and creative imagining. Bringing my focus in to this moment or this day. Finding a purpose in what I am doing right now. The bigger picture will emerge if I let it. I’ve also found that there is a point at which I have to reconsider my activities. I might have started them with a very clear aim. Yet are they still necessary to my dreams.? What am I still doing that no longer fits with where I’m headed? Is it time to stop doing some things? Certainly a good prompt was me looking at that To Do list. Because it shrank as I thought about each item.
That’s a good thing. I was able to focus my attention on what will carry me forward. On those things that will show the Universe I’m serious about the dreams I want to achieve. Too many times I’ve defeated my own wishes by putting my attention onto those things that contradict what I really desire. Getting lost in the things I feel I ought to be doing. Not the things I can do to move forward. Being purposeful about something is the signal for progress. It also shows that I am ready to receive all that I’ve asked for. Because I have accepted that it fits where I’m headed to. Even if I don’t know quite where that is yet. And I’ve also accepted that I deserve my own good fortune.
My life is full of purpose. I would say it’s purposeful. Only it’s not yet possible for me to see the ‘big’ purpose to it all. And that’s ok. I can wait for the bigger picture to emerge. In the meantime I will focus and dream in equal measure. How about you? Can you do that too?
Day 575 of my blogging challenge