What’s your Why?
Your WHY is something that connects and resonates with you at your core. Our WHY is that thing that makes us cranky when we feel like we aren’t achieving it, and that thing that makes us smile for no reason when we are walking down the street because it feels so good when we are nailing it.
Your WHY is what drives you.
It is the reason behind why you do what you do.
For most of us, our WHY will be some type of the following:
We want to spend more time with our children.
We want to be the decider of how we spend our days and not be trapped in a job.
We want something that is just for us, besides the kids and our families.
We want to do something we are passionate about, that brings us joy every day.
We want to be able to travel around the world at the drop of a hat without having to ask anyone for permission
We want to be in control of when we work and how much we earn.
It could even be all of them.
My WHY is all of them.
As a mum and an entrepreneur, I want to be in complete control of my life. I don’t want to have to sell my life in a job working for someone else.
I want to decide when I will spend time with my children and when I will work.
For me, it really boils down to Freedom.
I need FREEDOM in my life. That’s my WHY.
If we can determine our WHY we can use it to get us through the tough times, past the times where we have NFI and feel like giving up, past the times we stuff up and want to crawl into a hole because what I know for sure is, all these things are normal within business.
But, a lot of people don’t know that so they give up when the going gets tough. Not realising that maybe they were so close.
Your WHY is your all-consuming, life-altering question to seek and answer.
What’s Your Purpose?
Your purpose is a little different. Your purpose is the action you take using your WHY to push you along.
When you find your Purpose, it is what delivers complete and utter fulfillment in your life as a result.
It is what you were put on this earth to do.
It involves going out into the world and taking action.
It usually involves using your skills and natural born talents to help others
It is when every cell in your body knows that without a doubt you are living in your Purpose.
When I started Business Jump two years ago, I had no idea(!) at all that I was on a path to finding my Purpose. I didn’t even know what ‘Purpose’ was.
At that stage, I had sold an existing business, I enjoyed the process and I had the skills and expertise to do it again, so I did.
In hindsight, that feeling of ‘enjoying’ the process and the whole experience of helping another mum into an online business was a sign, it was a little breadcrumb in a trail of breadcrumbs I was unwittingly following that was leading me to Business Jump and living within Purpose.
About 6-months into Business Jump, I realised, holy shit.
This is so much more than just creating online businesses for people.
I realised that my Purpose was to help and empower other mums to start an online business so they too can find the same fulfillment and freedom as I have found with my business.
The realisation came to me when I was being mentored by Joel Brown, from Addicted to Success.
The best advice he gave to me, which I would love to pass on to you is, when making decisions, ask yourself, is it aligned with my WHY and my Purpose?
Since that advice, I have been living in my Purpose.
In hindsight, I can absolutely see that the universe had been guiding me to this very position.
Suffering from PND when my littlest was a baby taught me how to live in the moment, how to use fear and pain as a catalyst to live my best life, it taught me how to connect and relate to others and it taught me that I was so passionate about not wasting a single day not being as happy as I possibly could. It gave me a story to share and skills to learn so I could help others.
Being fired from my job gave me the fire in my belly I needed to never be at the mercy of a boss again, and instead to take my fate into my own hands. It pushed me to start an online business and I have never looked back.
With hindsight, I can see now, that all roads lead me to my Purpose.
But I had no clue at the time.
Living in your Purpose doesn’t mean you have to be changing the world, or doing big massive, extreme things like saving people or that you need a story of PND or being fired like me.
It really just boils down to the way you feel when you are living within it, no matter what you are doing.
It is what makes you stay in the flow and be the best version of yourself.
Why it is Important For an Online Business:
I would take a guess that most people when starting an online business don’t do it with the intention of aligning it with their Purpose.
Like me, when I first started, a lot of people don’t know about living within Purpose or how instrumental it can be to creating a successful business.
A lot start a business just to make money, which is totally fine, that is of course what an online business is about.
But the is something that can expedite the success of your business.
When we are living in Purpose, or when we are on the road to discovering our purpose, we start to feel ‘in the flow’
The flow is when you feel connected, words and actions come easily, you feel inspired and motivated. Confident and unstoppable.
Your results come easier, decisions more naturally.
You’re completely involved in what you’re doing: you’re completely focused and concentrated.
You lose track of time and you’re completely focused on the present moment.
It’s almost as though you don’t have to think, it’s like everything goes automatically without thinking
We feel like we are making fast progress, we feel fulfilled.
We get shit done in half the time of everyone else because we are laser-focused and concentrating intently on what’s at hand.
How To Find Your Purpose:
Finding your Purpose is not something that happens overnight.
But the coolest thing is, it will have been manifesting the whole time without you even knowing it.
And, you now have the power to join the dots and see the previously unseen.
Sometimes we can join the dots by looking back, at some major events in our life.
For example, being fired from my full-time job and PND where major realignments in my life that served as clues and guided me towards my purpose. I use those experiences to help and empower other mums to take the reins of their life using an online business as a vehicle.
Reflection:
I kept on taking small steps of action and with awareness, intuition and reflection I was able to conclude my Purpose.
The biggest clue to finding your Purpose, is to look back.
What has happened in your life that you can use as a story, to create messaging around, something that you have overcame and that you can use to help and serve others?
Another example is my beautiful client Rebecca from Family Garden Life.
Becky started Family Garden Life because she loved gardening, but it turned into so much more than that before she even realised.
For Becky and her loyal following of like-minded gardening mums, their garden will become so much more than a place to grow food.
Becky is sharing the benefits of gardening that go beyond just pulling weeds and planting stuff. Gardening for her is a place to escape the daily grind, to reconnect with herself after life throwing her some curveballs, to reflect and compose with managing her dad’s dementia to reconnect with her children and to have a practice that is grounding and brings her harmony.
I’m not sure whether she realises it yet, but to me, this is her Purpose.
Serve Others:
You can use things that have happened in your life to now help and serve others, this is where complete and utter fulfillment comes from.
For example, we helped one of my amazing clients Kaylee, start up an online business called Grace and Comfort. Grace and Comfort is about helping people who have lost a loved one in their life, inspired from the experience that Kaylee went through after losing her beautiful mother.
But, you don’t need to have massive events in your life like this to live within your Purpose.
For example, one of my clients Angela runs Hamper Life, which is an online business that helps people find the perfect Hamper. Is this her purpose? Maybe, maybe not, but she is passionate about it, and loves without an ounce of doubt helping people find the perfect hamper which provides her immense fulfillment and enables her to work in the flow.
What if You Still Have NFI What Your Purpose is?
Don’t worry if you have no idea right now, we are all in transition and our lives are made up of many, many, pivots, turns and alignments which if you choose to be aware, will lead you to contentment and satisfaction if we stay true to our search to find our Purpose. The most important thing is to keep on taking small steps of action, don’t wait for it, try things, don’t be afraid to fail, dare to get it wrong, know in your heart it is a journey.
Know in your heart that all the no’s, all the things that didn’t happen, all the things that didn’t go right, all the things that hurt you, all your challenges, all the outcomes you’d rather forget are clues.
Ask Yourself Some Questions:
What have been the biggest challenges in your life?
Like mine with being fired and suffering PND. Write down all the stuff that has happened in your life.
What do people say you are good at?
Don’t know, ask at least 5 people that know you.
What lights you up?
When you are doing things, what feels good?
For example, I love buying pj’s for my kids and myself, it’s my thing.
Do you thrive when helping people?
Is it when you are giving advice? Helping the old man down the street?
What has led you to this point?
You are going to have to go deep, you could even make a timeline of the last year but have a think about all the things that came into your focus for you to sign up to this challenge.
What skills or knowledge do you have?
Doesn’t have to be something that you went to uni for, could be anything.
What social media, websites, books, events do you love following?
Here there are going to be some great clues to unearth the things that you are naturally drawn to.
Now, here is the biggest piece of advice I can give you. Don’t overthink it all. Just write what comes naturally and know that it doesn’t have to all make sense right now. Let things come naturally, don’t over-analyze it. Just sit with it and then take small steps of action.
