How a Life Plan Illuminates Your Calling http://ift.tt/1Ju13Ml @jeffgoins #blogging

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Laurel Emory. She is a business and leadership coach with Building Champions, and a member of Tribe Writers.

Discovering your calling is not an epiphany but a series of intentional decisions. —The Art of Work

Dozens of books have been written over the last decade about how to discover meaningful work. While all contained nuggets of wisdom, by in large they’ve been too mystical, ethereal, or philosophical to actually be useful.

The Art of Work eliminates the mystery of finding our purpose and provides the practical “nuts and bolts” to help us get somewhere and live a life of significance.

As a business and leadership coach, I spend most of my time helping clients improve their decision-making process, and take deliberate action. Our philosophy at Building Champions is:

In order to fully live life, we first need to get clear on what matters most to us. —Laurel Emory (tweet)

Greg McKeown, in his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, says that a life of purpose and meaning comes to the person who “pauses to discern what really matters.”

The life planning process provides clarity about who and what is most important to us. Jeff speaks the truth when he says, “Finding our purpose is a path.” A life plan establishes boundary markers so we don’t venture off the path into the nonessential and end up having someone else prioritize our life for us.

As part of my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed CEOs of multi-million dollar corporations and each one of them said that making intentional decisions based on what mattered most to them was one of the major reasons for their success.

As the Millionaire Musician remarked to Jeff, success for him was “about setting a goal and then achieving it.” Nothing happens if we don’t make an intentional decision, take action, and do the necessary work to reach our goal.

The life planning process is a useful tool that guides us along this journey. A life plan helps us set a clear goal, and identify the required steps to achieve it. For some people we coach, this process led them to discover their calling. For others, it gave them permission to invest more resources on their current path and the motivation to move forward.

One client intentionally decided, through the life planning process, that she wanted her home to be a place where her teenage kids and their friends felt comfortable hanging out. When tragedy struck their town and a teenager was killed, our client and her husband were the people these teens went to for comfort because they’d grown to trust them and enjoyed the welcoming environment.

Another client offers grief therapy by using her horses. But she works full-time in a corporate job and hasn’t been able to commit as much time to serving others. As a result of creating a life plan, she is looking for another job that will provide enough flexibility so she can spend more time helping people in need of healing.

At Building Champions, regularly help our clients gain clarity on what matters most to them. As a result, they live more fully and are more present in the work and relationships that align with their calling.

Each of us has meaningful work that we were uniquely created and called to do. —Laurel Emory (tweet)

What’s in your life plan? Are you living to your potential? What do you want to change? Share in the comments

Tweet