Find it, create it, live it!
Have you seen articles or heard discussions about having a personal brand? Or at any time, right before this minute, wondered what your purpose is? Maybe you asked, what am I doing in this role, phase of my career, or company? What’s the secret to unlocking my purpose and how in the world do I figure out my brand?
Whether it’s in a moment of reflection or frustration, as human beings we want to be of value. If you opened this blog, you’ve probably seen the social media ads about finding your purpose or sharing your brand. When we ask the opened ended question – what is my purpose? – it feels huge and the what if’s can begin. Guess what? There is no big secret to figuring it out. I use a simple life equation (see above) and it’s fun to figure it out…. Kind of like a treasure hunt. So grab your compass and lets get going.
This way → I tell this story a lot, so you may have heard it before. Sorry, not sorry. After about 15 years of working as a project manager I thought, is this what I wanted to be when I grew up? I was frustrated with my lack of new learning, and feeling like I was solving the same problems over and over.
It was this thought that began my discovery of this equation and I’m going to share how you can use it to determine your purpose. So, get some paper and take some quiet time to yourself to think and capture your ideas.
Step P. What are you passionate about? What do you love to do? Write it down. Get detailed. Think about your experiences and how they made you feel. What do you love to do at work? Why? What do you love to do in your free time? Why? What do you love to do when you’re with friends and family? In volunteer work? When you vacation – where do you go, why do you love it? What brings you joy? You may have things like configure the network, solve the technical problem, lead the team in brainstorming, make people laugh, help others see the big picture, find the beauty in the simple, watch the ocean sunset. You see what I mean right? It’s both the tangible and the intangible ideas. Write it all down.
Step G. Don’t put your pencil down yet. Now write down what you believe your gifts are. What are you a natural at doing? Maybe it’s your sense of humor, or that you can drive a golf ball off the tee straight and true every time (hint – focus), or that you are an expert in something, or a great listener, or you can easily connect the dots. Aren’t sure of your gifts or feel like you’re missing something? Ask others. Heck, even if you have enough, ask anyway! What do your spouse, friends, family, peers, leaders say? You’ll be surprised – people love giving the good feedback. We just don’t always ask for it.
Step T: Find the themes or connections. What similarities do you see in the feedback from your brainstorming and from others? You should find that all of your gifts are supported by all of the things you love to do. You may actually find, as I did that your job aligns well to your gifts and passions, but you need something to create opportunity to use the gifts and apply your passions. For more on this, proceed to the next step.
Step D: What then, do you dream of? I ask this of people and often I hear – Huh! I don’t know! Go ahead! Dream big! Here’s the thing, by dreaming we take one step closer to living out our days purposefully.
So how do I dream you may ask? I suggest a few ways. The easiest is to observe what others you admire are doing - what would you do? How would you make it your own? Maybe you’re early in your career and you dream of hitting a milestone – experience, job title, certification maybe? When you dream it, be specific, by when? See yourself achieving and doing it. Maybe you love to create fun experiences for others, and you love to plan vacations for your family. You dream of spending more time with your family and friends. What are ways that what you do for your work allows you to do this?
Maybe you can figure out a way to use your project planning skills to plan events. You can also use tools like Vision or Dream boards. When you can picture it, you can create it – and your brain will find ways to get there. Write it all down.
Now put it all together to see your purpose so that you can begin to tease out your brand. When your dreams support your passions and gifts, and you begin to take actionable steps to making them come true, then guess what? You guessed it; you’re living in your purpose! In my case I determined that at the heart of all of it, I love to help others unite purpose with path. This ultimately became my brand. I researched what that meant and coaching continued to come up. I eventually pursued my coaching certification as way to enhance that purpose and I’ve never looked back!
But it becomes bigger than purpose – it’s living it out. It’s important to demonstrate and make sure that those in your life, peers, friends, leaders, acquaintances understand your gifts, passions and your dreams. Share them – you never know who may support you, or connect you to the next step in achieving that dream.
I hope that you have fun with this. It’s meant to get your creative juices flowing. If you need support pulling all this together consider an assessment like 360 Reach Survey. I offer it this survey and I love it because it allows you to pull all that feedback from a cross section of those who know you and compare it to your thoughts to help further clarify your brand. When you know your purpose and you can see how it helps you create your personal brand, it creates a confidence that allows you to be unstoppable in pursuing your dreams!
As a project, program and process improvement leader with 25+ years in the corporate world, I know that it’s truly those that informally lead who help drive the revenue, satisfy the customers, and create the opportunities for business to succeed.
It’s why I created Origin Coaching. To help those in informal leadership roles, like project and program managers, to create success because they are able to lead others, up, out and through to intersect purpose with path. Coaching is often available to the executive leadership team to drive results; my passion is to help their teams drive those same results by provoking purpose.
Are you interested in understanding the impact that individual or group coaching could have on you and/or your organization? Check out my website at www.origincoaching.net or email me; tara@origincoaching.net
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