If money were no issue, I’d take endless holidays, spend more time with friends and family, hire a personal trainer to get fit, go shopping, and… then? Eventually the holidays wouldn’t feel like a holiday anymore, shopping would get boring, and my mind would atrophy.
Why? Because at our core we need purpose in life!
When all the fun is had, we crave purpose, a reason to wake up and be excited each day. For most work – what we do for a living – provides this purpose. And to find your purpose your work needs to be aligned with your values.
So how do you align your work with your values?
You might not know which of your values are of the most important to you, or how can they be applied to your purpose. Let me introduce you to an exercise called My Ideal Day.
In this exercise you intentionally go through your ideal day, from the minute you wake up, what that would look like, to the time you go to sleep. It’s not a ‘to do list’ of your day, but a way of intentionally thinking, ‘What would my ideal day look like if I could design it?’
Here are some of the questions you may like to ask yourself:
- What time would I wake up?
- What kind of breakfast would I have?
- What would I be wearing?
- Where would I be doing my work from?
- What things would I want to work on throughout the day?
- Who would I be working with?
- What type of workplace culture would I feel comfortable in?
For me, an ideal morning me would be waking up super early around 4.30am (while the world is still quiet) doing things I enjoy such as meditating, exercising and inspiring myself by watching a motivational video – a great way to start my morning with a positive frame of mind!
Mapping out your ideal day helps gives you insights about who you really are. As you work through them, you will eventually reveal what your purpose is. Your ideal day exercise can be extended to your ideal, week, month etc. and may take a few revisions before your values and purpose become clear.
Repeat the exercise and you will see a pattern. What keeps coming up? The things you value the most, which will lead you closer and closer to what you enjoy doing most, that which gives you purpose.
Now, if I were to ask again, what would you do if money was not an issue (or you didn’t have to work), your answer won’t be endless holidays. Once you have aligned yourself with your purpose, it will be, “I would be living my ideal day.”
What would your ideal day look like?