Are you doing the things that bring you joy?
What was the first answer that came to your mind?
It’s either a big YES or a no.
If its a no, then you are not living up to your life’s purpose. That’s a bold statement to make, yet I truly believe that.
I have been struggling lately. A struggle that is coming to be a pattern surfacing every few months in my life.
It’s my excitement at creation, creating, the possibilities of what I can do, offer, be in service to people with – a vast platter of the most delicious fruits glistening with vibrancy. I want it all, to gorge on the sweetness and share it with those all around me.
That excitement at what I can create leads to overwhelm. I watch the duality in myself play out, it’s fascinating.
I believe it stems from being a naturally creative person. I can imagine something and put it into action and create results, from hours to weeks. I am a DOER once I get an idea that resonates with me.
Let me give you an example.
I came up with the idea to do the Instagram workshop two and a half weeks before I held them. When I decided to take action I managed to:
a. Decide on a title
b. Design all the graphics for the sales page myself
c. Setup the whole backend tech to link Paypal and Mailchimp via Zapier
d. Show up every day on Instagram sharing Instagram tips and strategies
e. Do IG lives reviewing people’s feeds
f. Design the slides for the workshops
g. Hold the workshops (1 week apart)
h. Sell the recordings to the workshops
My goal was to get 20 people to the workshops. I hit my goal! That was all in three weeks.
What’s my point?
I decided to do something that brought my joy IN THE MOMENT and it was all in “flow” (I won’t say it was effortless ’cause it took me time to do the actions and that PayPal to Mailchimp integration via Zapier took some serious digging to find out!)
As an inherent creative where I do have so many possibilities in what I can offer choosing what to do leads to overwhelm.
This is where JOY comes in. And where you can apply it into your life.
Ask yourself the question are you doing the things that bring you JOY?
In your work (career), relationships, friendships and with yourself?
By aligning to joy slowly over time you will feel fulfilled in your life.
It’s an experiment I will be trying over the next few (scary weeks).
Only doing the things that bring me joy.
Now I say scary because I have these thoughts in my head:
“You can’t only do the things that bring you joy – it means you won’t do any of the things that need to get done, like the website you need to build for a client, or the photos you need to edit, or the accounting you still have to do for the Tax year…”
“Only doing the things that bring you joy means you can’t be successful because you will be doing all these different creative things.”
“Doing the things that bring you joy will mean you are a mess.”
Yep, those are my self negating thoughts, this week I choose not to listen to them and instead focus on doing the things that bring me joy.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
Right now I’m giving myself the space to figure out what does bring me joy?
Here’s an activity that you can do too;
Make a list of 15 things (or more) of things that bring you joy
Ask yourself whether you are doing them and if not ask yourself WHY.
Make a commitment to do the things that bring you joy. Right now.
You see, what I presume that will happen when we allow ourselves to do the things that bring us joy…
a. you will start feeling uplifted (joyful) and happy
b. life will give you more joy and you will see more synchronicity in events in your life
c. you will feel contentment and purpose
d. slowly all the activities which felt strained before will start to feel joyful as joy becomes your natural state
Now that’s the kind of life I want to live!
How about you?
What DOES bring you JOY?
xoxo
I’ll report back in a few days + weeks to see how my little experiment is going about living a life filled with JOY
Nora
