Every person has certain themes they follow in their life. They may aim to encourage other people, build beautiful things, fix problems, create prototypes, fight for justice, pass-on knowledge, build a better world or whatever. Sometimes they find and follow these themes; sometimes they don’t.
“During my twenties I was idealistic,” said one person. “But I have lost my way a bit during the past ten years. Certainly I want to care for my family, but I am uneasy in my work. I am wondering if there is something more. There may be something that provides a greater sense of purpose in my working life.”
Here are three steps to consider when exploring your life themes.
1) You can find your life themes.
There are many approaches to finding your life themes. One is to tackle the exercise called My Guaranteed Income. If you had a guaranteed income for the rest of your life, what would you do? You might travel around the world, enjoy holidays and give money to other people. But then what would you do? How would you spend your time? Can you see any themes?
“My theme was growing things,” said one person. “I would devote more time to tending my garden, directing plays at the local youth theatre and teaching courses in creative writing.
“Throughout my life I have been fascinated by helping people and things to fulfill their potential. I have tried to play that role as a parent, as a partner and in my work as the leader of an arts centre. There was a period when I got seduced into sitting in meetings doing ‘strategic work’, but I quickly returned to the grass roots.
“My best work has always been around demonstrating how art can benefit the community. The common theme, however, has been helping things to grow.”
Try tackling the exercise on this theme. Imagine you had enough income for the rest of your life. What would you do? Try completing the following sentence.
What themes emerge when people do this exercise? Many focus on the eternal human activities.
These include exploring, learning, creating, designing, building, caring, healing, encouraging, educating, enabling, simplifying, communicating, orchestrating, leading, shaping, trading, selling, implementing, coaching, facilitating, problem-solving, measuring, entertaining and performing.
Different people then put together different combinations of these themes.
So what are your life themes? Looking at when you did the exercise, what themes emerged for you? Try completing the following sentence.
2) You can follow your life themes.
Consider how you can follow your themes the future. One person who made her living running a communications business said:
“My theme is ‘communicating people’s essence’. Ever since I was young I have been interested in finding people’s ‘story’. I love to explore and then tell the real story behind who people are, what they do and how they do it.
“Nowadays I practice it in several ways. One vehicle is writing people’s CV’s. But I produce something very different from the conventional format.
“I also help organisations to communicate their success stories. This goes beyond the normal kind of good news story. I try to get to the heart of the matter, meet the people involved and show the real value of their work.
“Frequently I meet people who have a great story to tell. But they don’t know how to share it or reach a wider audience. That is my role. I help people to get their real story out to the world.”
Try tackling the exercise on this topic. First, describe one of the themes you would like to follow more in the future. Second, describe the specific things you can do to follow this theme. Try completing the following sentences.
3) You can fulfil your life themes.
Following your life themes will be rewarding, but sometimes you may need a greater sense of fulfillment. How to make this happen? There are several ways.
* You can choose something you want to finish that will embody your life theme.
You may want to express your theme by creating a memorable event, renovating a house, writing a book, fixing a problem, building a successful prototype or whatever.
* You can enjoy the journey and also achieve the goal.
This sounds rather zen-like. But it can be useful to enjoy the process as much as reaching the prize. You can often do this by finding and following your successful patterns for finishing.
* You can pass on the fruits of your learning to other people.
This is possible in two ways. First, you can do something that helps other people. Second, you can share the knowledge you have gained with students, apprentices, readers, listeners, mentees or whoever.
Everybody has talents; everybody has something special to give to the world. There are many approaches to pursuing your purpose and achieving a sense of peace.
One approach is to find, follow and fulfil some of your life themes. Try completing the following exercise.
Posted on Sunday, August 28th, 2011 at 4:29 pm in Strengths, The Strengths Blog | RSS feed
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