How many of us like our job? According to a survey conducted by Gallup 70 percent of us are ‘disengaged’ with our job role. That is a huge 3 out of 4 of us really don’t enjoy the biggest part of our lives but why is that? What happened to so many of us to put us in this position?
In this blog post we share a video with you to help you realise it doesn’t have to end this way and discuss the importance of spending time finding your calling.
You are WHAT YOU LOVE, not what LOVES YOU
What did you enjoy as a child?
As you can see from this video we are all creative beings. As children we loved to play and be creative, we didn’t care how others judged us or our creations but as we grew older we feel we ‘can’t do things’ because others tell us we can’t do those things.
That, is simply not true.
You have to remember what you used to love when you were younger and what made you feel joy as this is usually what will make you feel alive and fulfilled once again.
For the founder of BoM he was always drawing, playing video games and messing around with computers, creating characters, those were his hobbies but outside of this, he always knew he wanted to help people but just never knew how to achieve that as an occupation alongside his love of the arts and computers until today, using his experiences and hobbies to benefit others.
He remembers at school that he used to hate seeing people alone or being laughed at so would always welcome ‘outsiders’ into his circle at school because they weren’t really outsiders they were just for some reason alone from others or excluded from friend groups, something I wouldn’t tolerate.
Who you were as a child, what you enjoyed and what gave you fulfillment is who you really are and who you are meant to be as an adult, you have to keep doing those things you used to do, even just as a hobby as eventually, if you work on it long enough, it may, if you are lucky enough, become your living profession.
Following your passion is life’s purpose, its never too late
Try and remember back to your childhood when life was playful and everything was new, an adventure and your imagination ran free, you’ll find something that really made you happy and it felt great!
Find the time to spend working on that passion even outside of your job. Don’t say you can’t do it or ‘your chance has slipped you by’ because you are a certain age or you have ‘commitments’, you HAVE TO enjoy doing what you used to and you’ll find your depression begin to subside and you may even feel ‘happy’ again. Life will get it’s purpose but don’t do it for money, don’t do anything just for money, do it because YOU LOVE IT.
Finding your purpose can lift you and gives you focus
When the founder of Battle of Mind had his first mental breakdown he was totally lost, he had graduated from Architecture in May 2008 in one of the worst affected cities in the UK by the economic recession and then, studying a new profession in teaching, a job he never really wanted to do but tried due to the recession, led to him to unfortunately meeting two people who were losing their jobs, made his life difficult because they didn’t care about their roles or helping with his future and he was loosing all hope for a brighter future.No money, no future opportunity and a lack lusture relationship.
Life felit like it had seriously dealt a bad hand and there was no hope of creating a future that he had worked so hard for, the only thing he had left was his family…at the same time as this happening he realised there was an art competition in his local art gallery, the walker art gallery, called the John Moores painting prize.
Never entering creative competitions before he felt, after hitting rock bottom in every aspect of his life, that he should give it a shot after all, he had nothing to loose!
This is where he first started to become creative again, this is where he decided to follow his true passions and began to feel good about himself and what he was doing again.
He continued to pursue his creative passions alongside completing his masters degree in IT tutoring (you can see this painting and further description here. ) and eventually, a few years later, he managed to follow his passion as a profession.
Following your bliss can create great change
As you can see, the founder did this as a return to his natural childhood enjoyment, a passion that took him away from his hopelessness and be born again with a feeling of hope.
It wasn’t completely intentional to make his hobby his profession but simply by following his bliss, looking for ways to explore it through local competitions and exploring it again brought it into his reality as an occupation.
Please note, this wasn’t a quick process, it was after a couple of years of painting, entering a couple of competitions, learning web cod, improving graphic design skills, helping people small businesses with some websites and graphics whilst also trying to heal from severe depression and anxiety he eventually found a job doing what he had always loved but 200 miles away from where he was from. It was a tough decision to move away to follow his dream job, especially with some of his family being quite poorly and himself, not being fully recovered from his depression.
It was a good decision, this decision to pursue his passion and take tough steps of migrating to a new location became one of the greatest catalysts, amongst others, for changing his depressive and hopeless feelings in his life.
Find your true calling through what you enjoyed as a child
The main message I want you to take away from this post is that it is important to remember what you enjoyed when you were younger. You shouldn’t loose sight of this as it is what makes you happy and continuing to do it as an adult reconnects those happy memories to your current situation no matter how bleak it may seem.
Always try to live with a child like heart. Be creative, have fun, try to let things go that bother you, be kind to others and don’t forget to spend time doing what you have always enjoyed regardless of your current situation.