What's your raison d'etre?

Let's start with few simple questions

Are you excited about what you do?

Do you know why you do what you do?

If your answer is NO to any or both of the above, then it's time for self-introspection!

So, what should you do when you realize that your heart is not in the work you are doing and you seem to be just going through the motions?

The easiest thing to do is to start playing the blame game and look for the easy scapegoats, but the question to ask here is - for how long can you keep doing so and where would this lead to, in the long run? Is it going to lead to something better in your life or only lead to more confusion?

The feeling of emptiness that stares at you at the end of every workday and the frustration and irritation you experience in your work is an indication of "motivation" missing from your life and that's exactly what you should be addressing.

This is when you should start to engage in self-probe and discover the "WHY" of your work, the missing "PURPOSE" of your work/ life. What is it that keeps you going? What is it that gets you excited about life? What is it that makes you look forward to the day? 

It's not difficult to sense whether you are living with a purpose. When your head and heart are in sync while doing what you do, then it's an indication that you are living your purpose. When, at the end of the day, you feel you have made a difference with your action/ activities, you can be rest assured that you are living with a purpose.

PURPOSE and PASSION go hand-in-hand. Start by getting your purpose in place and the passion will follow suit. And, when you hit the sweet spot at the intersection of the two, you will be on course to discover your IKIGAI too!

Focus on the value you want to generate and the impact you want to create and you would start on your journey to discovering your purpose. get to understand the difference you want to bring through what you do and therein will lie your purpose.

There's always an impact you are creating with your vocation and all you need to do to realize that is to link your efforts to the big picture!

Summing up concisely, here's what you need to be aware of

Why do you need Purpose in life? As simply as to make your life worthwhile and live with an agenda.

How do you know you are living with Purpose? When you start to feel that you have accomplished something and have made a difference with your work/ vocation.

How do you go about identifying your Purpose? Observing whether what you are doing(actions) is generating the impact that you have identified for your life.

It's time to start living "purposefully"!

It's Time To Own Your Feelings!

SAD...GLAD...MAD...BAD...

At a fundamental level, that's how our feeling oscillates during the day. Feelings are fleeting by nature and we can't hold onto any one of them beyond how long they have to last. And how long they last are a combination of external and internal factors. But to a good extent, we can always control the longevity of an emotion/ feeling.

  

Emotions/ Feelings keep occurring in different shades and all that they need to get triggered is a stimulus (internal or external). The stimulus could be big or small, real or imaginary, internal or external. And that's what makes the world of emotions so complicated!

There is a dire need to understand how emotions/ feelings operate at a basic level so that we can be in control of our actions(mental or physical) while addressing the emotions. Being aware of our emotional state is how the entire process of emotional well-being starts. 

Talking about emotions/ feelings in a personal context, here's a small check to gauge the level of our awareness about our emotional state.

Here are the three important pointers:

We experience them all but do we actually feel them? 

we know there's something happening within us, at a physiological or psychological level but do we take the effort to recognize that and understand what's happening inside us. It makes sense to move beyond the level of awareness and into level of recognizing the impact of these emotions/ feelings.

Do we own them and accept them as part of our being or we treat them as something external/ outside?

For reasons known and unknown, at times, we tend to pass on the responsibility of our emotions/ feelings to external factors. Alienating ourselves from our feelings is not going to alleviate them. Rather it will only make the things worse. No one can force us to feel a particular way unless we give ourselves the permission for the same. 

Do we treat them as lasting or transitory?

Research says that most emotions last for only 90 seconds and beyond that its us who let these linger on for as long as we allow them to (through some stimuli or triggers). If we can manage to recognize an  unproductive feeling within 90 seconds of its occurrence, we stand a better chance to avoid its negative impact on us.

A quick self-check on the pointers mentioned above gives a good insight into our perception of emotions/ feelings and this goes a long way in determining the state/ status of our Emotional Wellness. The moment we start to accept our feelings is when we start to treat them as integral to us, something that's an undeniable part of our personality. Once acceptance is in place, the next stage of "addressing the emotions" becomes much easier.

So, first things first - "Have you started to own your feelings?"