Welcome back to the Milspouse Mastermind Show. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve dug deep into this concept of purpose or calling. What is it? What is it not? What is the process of how we uncover our purpose, how we cultivate it and how we pursue it in our daily lives? And I bet at this point, you’re saying, yes, I get this.

[00:00:29] But really, how do I find my thing? I still feel stuck and confused. Well, today we’re going to get really practical and get on that tactical level. I think you’re going to find a ton of value in today’s episode. So let’s get started.

[00:01:39] Before we dive in, I just want to remind you that the best way for us to get found by more military spouses and be able to help more military spouses learn to thrive, to navigate military lifestyle. And ultimately find and live into their purpose without waiting until a future season of life is when you take the opportunity to share this show with others.

[00:02:06] If this episode is valuable for you, take a screenshot of it and share it in your stories. Or the best thing you can do is to go onto iTunes and leave a review for the show. This helps us get found in the feed and really allows you to make an impact on the lives of others by sharing this show. Now let’s dig in to how we practically live into our purpose.

[00:02:34] The first thing I want you to remember is that this is the process. We are getting clarity and you’re not going to walk away and be perfectly clear on what you want and how to get there, because it’s a process, right? We’ve talked about how this is something that we find over time, not something that we have in an instant. And sometimes we are actually too close to it to see what the biggest, most valuable thing we have to offer others is.

[00:03:07] So if you have a friend that you can listen to this podcast with, and then you can talk about your answers to your questions, that would be ideal. But if you don’t have someone like that in your life right now, that’s why we’ve created the Milspouse Mastermind Facebook community. It’s a free community for you where you can network with other military spouses who are also on that journey of finding clarity, finding their thing, finding how to live the life that they love, without waiting for some future season of life.

[00:03:40] Today, you can pursue a life of purpose, joy, and impact. And we’re here to encourage each other to help each other on that journey. So feel free to share in that group, talk about what is on your heart and what you’re struggling to figure out so that we can help each other move towards the person that we’re meant to be.

[00:04:05] Now, what I’m going to share with you today is a comprehensive look at your life. But just a starting point that will help get you thinking about what it is that lights you up inside. And there’s three parts to this. The first thing I want you to do is to create a timeline of your life. Think about all the significant events that have happened in your life.

[00:04:33] And then I would choose five to six of the most impactful memories. Now what you’re going to do next is look for trends, patterns, and anything that stands out from those experiences. You may want to write out two or three of the most impactful experiences. So you can start to see what elements of those experiences really resonate with you.

[00:05:06] What did you learn about yourself or how did you grow or maybe it’s something that really sparked a passion or something that you hated? You know, it could be a challenging experience. Just take some time to think about your life and unpack some of the moments that have made you who you are today. Now that’s obviously going to take some time.

[00:05:36] The next step in this clarity process is I want you to take another sheet of paper and you’re going to write down three things. All of your experiences, your interests, what you love to do, what you find intriguing, all of your hobbies, anything that you are interested in, write those down. And then the third section is going to be all of your skills.

[00:06:07] So many times as military spouses, we may have had this hodgepodge career or a bunch of jobs where we don’t really see how they all fit together or how we build something out of them. But if you look at each experience, each job, or each volunteer opportunity, there are probably skills that you have developed and taken from each of those experiences. Write down what those skills are, because when you are looking for who you want to be and what you want to make, comment, how you want to serve others, it’s not what the job itself is. It’s the elements of those jobs. It’s the skills that you learned.

[00:06:44] In my conversation with Mary Elaine Baker in episode 11, we talked about how she went from a teaching career to becoming a virtual assistant and then eventually creating her own business to help other military spouses find work from home opportunities.

[00:07:07] Now being a virtual assistant is very different from. But she was able to take the skills she had learned through teaching and apply it to her work as a virtual assistant. It’s easy to get trapped into this box of thinking. This is the only thing I know. This is the only thing I can do, but when you really start to pick apart what those skills and what you’ve learned.

[00:07:31] Through each opportunity. I think you’ll find a lot of valuable clues as to how you can use what you already have, to move forward into finding something for yourself that allows you to make a contribution, and show up and serve others in some way. So now you’ve written down your experiences, your interests, your skills.

[00:08:00] And so now I’m going to ask you a series of 12 or 13 questions. If you are, are driving in the car, you’ll want to bookmark this place. So you can go back and, and re-listen to these questions and write them down. The first question I feel fulfilled when I help people…, what, what is it that you feel fulfilled?

[00:08:28] Now think back to when you were a kid. The second question, when I was younger, I wanted to be… Now, most of us want it to be a lot of things when we were little, but what those things are, can sometimes give us clues into what really lights us up. For example, one of the things that I wanted to be when I was a kid was a meteorologist.

[00:08:58] Now don’t ask me why I wanted to do that, but that was something that got stuck in my brain. I wanted to be on the local news, giving the weather reports, which is slightly humorous because I never really loved science class. There are elements of wanting to show up and give people helpful information.

[00:09:19] That is exactly what I’m doing right now in sharing information with you on my podcast. So, what is it that you wanted to do or become when you were younger? Number three, I love learning about… Now, all of us have things that we are naturally drawn to, and it may be something that other people find really interesting, or it may be really random and nobody else understands why we are such nerds about this one topic for me, I love learning about businesses and entrepreneurship.

[00:09:55] And it’s so funny because I started listening to that business made simple podcast from the very beginning, it was originally called Building a StoryBrand and it was all about marketing and building a business. And it was obviously a podcast targeted to business owners, people who had already built a business and were growing their team and really growing into a multi six-figure or seven-figure.

[00:10:22] Here I was a stay-at-home mom with a newborn baby who is sitting here listening to this business development podcast. Doesn’t really make sense. I should be listening to mom podcasts, right?! But I love learning about business and entrepreneurship. So that is something that is notable to me. So what is it that you love learning about.

[00:10:47] Question number four, what topics do I feel passionate about? There are so many issues and problems in the world today, and we can’t really deeply care about all the things. So there’s probably something that really tugs at your heart strings. Maybe it’s foster care, or maybe it’s the care of animals or maybe it’s politics, or maybe you’re passionate about reforming the criminal justice system, or maybe yu feel passionate about climate change or education or empowering military spouses. What is it that you feel passionate about

[00:11:21]? Question number five: What do I want to be known for? And this goes back to the concept of, in episode three, we really dug into this idea that it’s not about what we do. It’s about who we want to be and the legacy that we want to leave. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, go back, listen to that because that is foundational to my journey and to, I think all of our journeys into figuring out how we really find fulfillment in our lives.

Question number six. What brings me joy? Not what most people find exciting or fulfilling, but what is it that light you up and brings you joy? What restores your soul? What speaks to you and where do you find contentment?

[00:12:21] Question number seven. The way I want to contribute to the world is… Sometimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day life that we don’t think about how we want to contribute. And it’s okay if you don’t know the answer to that question, but I think it’s a question worth reflecting on because there might be something that is tugging at your heart and you know, that you need to investigate that further. Have you ever stopped to think about how you want to contribute and make the lives of those around you?

[00:12:57] Question number eight is similar. What problem do I want to help solve? Similar to the things that we feel passionate about. This question focuses on what problems are out there that tug on our heartstrings and how we can use our skills and our story and our gifts to help be a part of a solution to that.

[00:13:34] For example, when I say I want to help military spouses, my next question is, what problem do I want to help solve for military spouses? And for me, the big question, that was the starting point for what do my next steps look like? Was the statistic that 90% of military spouses are either unemployed or underemployed.

[00:14:02] That’s a large number, especially compared to the general population. And there are a number of factors that contribute to this statistic. This number, and there’s a number of ways that we can get at solutions to this problem. But starting with that big problem of this affects almost all military spouses in some way. And what can I do? How can I use my background, my experiences, my interests to help. Make a dent in the problem to help us move towards solutions.

[00:14:28] Question number nine. If I was guaranteed success, I would… So often, we tell ourselves that it’s impossible for us to do something or we get so caught up in all of the factors that prevent us from taking action on something that tugs at us, that we fail to really focus on what we would do. If nothing got in the way. If there were no obstacles in your way, if you were guaranteed success, what would you do?

[00:15:14] Number 10. What I really want, but secretly believe I can never have do, or be is…These questions start to dig at things that we’ve buried. Those dreams that we’ve put so far down under the surface, that it takes some digging to really start to wake ourselves back up to what it is that really lights us up. That those dreams that we put on that back burner and said that can never be me. I can never do that. Start taking some time to dream again.

[00:15:51] Question number 11. If I wasn’t afraid, I would… So when we start digging into these concepts, into our dreams, our passions, what lights us up, we are going to have so many fears that start to surface. Who am I to do this?

[00:16:23] What would happen? Everything that could go wrong. If we did it, our fear of failure, anything that has negatively impacted us in life thus far. All of that will come to the surface. But if you can put all of those thoughts on pause for a second, what would you do if you weren’t afraid?

[00:16:49] question number 12. If I took tiny steps in five years, I would… Take some time to imagine yourself doing the thing that’s on your head. If you were showing up as the person that you want to be, if you were living the life, that’s starting to make sense in your head, what would your life potentially look like five years from now?

[00:17:14] Now we all know life in the military is super unpredictable. We don’t really know where we’ll be living or what our spouse will be doing. It’s hard to dream five years in the future. But just for a moment imagine what your life could look like in five years if you took steps toward becoming who you want to be. If you were using your skills and your story to impact the world for good in five years, what difference could that make? If you stepped out of your fear and just took tiny steps forward?

[00:17:49] Okay. Now I want you to imagine the opposite. If I did not change anything in five years, I would… What if you never took a step forward? If you never took a leap of faith, if you never took a baby step, if you never moved forward in your journey to uncovering the dreams on your heart and moving towards making them happen.

[00:18:25] What if you just kept getting by day to day, what would your life look like in five years? Is that something that you want now? We also know that sometimes life throws us curve balls and life is even better than we could have imagined. But this question, I think, gets to the heart of what it looks like to embrace.

[00:18:52] A growth mindset to choose, to continue to grow and develop us regardless of the outcome. Do we want to stay where we are today? Do we want to stay as the person we are today? Or do we want to keep growing into who we want to become? Okay. Last question. Now that you’ve taken this time to ask yourself these questions, your last question is, what is my next step?

[00:19:26] Not how do I get to this thing? How do I make this a reality? But what is this one next step you need to take. Maybe it’s just exploring a new opportunity, reading a book about it, listening to a podcast about this idea, talking with a friend, maybe it’s signing up for a class. Maybe it’s just. Looking at your schedule and saying, do I have a tweak I need to make in my schedule?

[00:19:57] Is there an opportunity for me to go volunteer with a certain organization or learn a new skill? I don’t know what your next step is, but I know for all of us, there is a next step. If we embrace life with a sense of curiosity and courage, we will continue to develop, to grow and to find a life that is filled with more purpose, more joy and more impact. But it all starts with figuring out what that next step is for us and then taking action on that.

[00:20:34] Now I’ve kind of given you three big categories of ways that you can look at your life to start identifying your dreams, your trends, those patterns of things that really speak to you to speak to your heart. That really will fill you up and impact the world for good.

[00:21:00] We’ve talked a lot on this show about how each one of us has a unique set of skills, abilities, and passions, and how we each have a role to play in making the world a better place in impacting the world for good. You, my friend have something valuable to offer you my friend, have something inside of you that the world needs.

[00:21:28] And it’s up to you to start figuring out what that is and how you can move towards who you’re meant to be, how you’re meant to show up how you’re meant to serve. So we’ve talked about these three ways that you can get started on this journey. Either by doing a timeline of your life and start looking at the big major events and experiences that have impacted you.

[00:21:56] And the way that you view the world, you can start with just making a list of your skills, your interests, and your experiences. Or you can start with these questions that really get to the heart of what dreams are inside of. Now, all of that is going to take some time. If you can get away and spend a couple hours.

[00:22:21] On these exercises or one of these exercises, you will walk away with more clarity than you have today. Now, if taking a couple hours for yourself to get clarity is not an option for you right now, I understand you may be, you know, navigating a deployment, taking care of the kids, working a full-time job, trying to manage all of the activities.

[00:22:46] And you don’t feel like that is an option in this season. Well, what I would say is what you should do is take a few minutes a day. And before you go to bed at night, just jot down one question and spend a few minutes writing an answer to that question. What I’m actually going to do for the entire month of June is post one question a day in our Facebook group to help you get more clarity on what dreams are inside of your heart. And really light you up inside, so that you can start aligning more of your day-to-day actions with what you value and how you’re meant to show up and serve the world.

[00:23:22] You can use these questions as your daily journal prompts, or you can respond to the thread in the Facebook group and we can help each other get more of that clarity that we need so that we know what our next steps need to be.

[00:23:53] The big thing I want you to take away from this is that it’s not about launching something today. It’s about the small steps that lead us to greater clarity. It’s about being able to move forward in whatever season we find ourselves in to help us become the person we want to be and make the impact we remit to make.

[00:24:18] I know that when you play small, the entire world misses out and we need people around us to help us find more clarity and to help us get where we need to go. So let’s be that community for each other and help each other, figure out how we can use our skills and our story to impact the world for good. You will find greater fulfillment.

[00:24:45] You will trade frustration for fulfillment and isolation for a life of community and impact. And it all starts with this desire to embrace curiosity, to embrace courage, and to start asking yourself the questions and taking your next step. If you found these questions helpful, please go share them with a friend of yours, share about it in your stories online.

[00:25:17] Send me a DM, tag me, let me know that you found this information helpful so that I can continue to equip you and help you figure out what lights you up and how you can use your skills in your story to build a life you love and impact the world for good to. I’m cheering for you. I believe that the world is waiting for you to show up as the person that you are meant to be. I’m so glad to be on this journey with you. Until next time may you live filled, fueled and full of joy.