The Life Purpose Project

The Many (and the Unusual!) Paths of Discovery

2008-06-21T14:03:00.004-04:00

One of the fun aspects of the process of discovering my own life purpose has been reading over all the possible ways the discovery can be made. There are so many possibilities, from the more mundane personality Myers-Briggs type-testing to the esoteric concept of Human Design Analysis. And since I still read as much on the subject as I can, I'm bound to run into something really unique every now and then.

Enter Handworks International (http://www.handworksinternational.com), which uses hand reading as a guide to finding life purpose. The lines on our hands undergo changes throughout our lifetimes, and can be used to determine our purpose now. "Your hands reflect the inner patterns of your personality, your motivations and your behaviors", says the Handworks International web site, "When you change, the lines and hand shape reflect the changes."

Nothing on the site strikes me as being overtly along the lines of "psychic", and although it's not clear to me what is meant by such terms as "Life Lesson", and "Life School", it's still a nice alternative to the typical workbook-backed programs out there.

An ongoing internal debate - would love some feedback!

2008-06-20T15:46:00.003-04:00

It's been 7 years since I started kicking around the Life Purpose Project idea, and over that time I've realized there is already so much information on finding one's life purpose out on the web, published in books, magazines, and on television, that I'm not quite sure anymore what this site is supposed to be.

My goal originally was a full-blown site with an online forum, links to tools, links to other sites, book reviews, etc. The original versions of this site has forums, but hackers did those in. It then became a static blog site, where there could be interaction but it would be fully moderated by me using comment screening.

I'm not sure the blog version can do the job, either, so I'm asking for suggestions. What would be truly useful here? Helpful?

Drop me a line, let me know what you think?

Need ideas? Check this out!

2008-06-17T20:30:00.001-04:00

I've been on the internet since 1996 and have visited many web sites, but I especially enjoy sites that help spark creativity, generate ideas, and make us believe we can accomplish our dreams.

When I find a site that meets all three criteria, I'm going to brag about it.

How I came upon this site in the first place I can't recall, but here it is:

IDEA SANDBOX
http://www.idea-sandbox.com

I haven't even scraped the surface of the site's content yet, but have spent a lot of time on the site's blog. Ideas and ideas about ideas abound here. Now that I've spent so much time, just on the blog itself, I'm in full-scale creative mode.

Check it out sometime, let me know what you think!

Six Dollar Haircuts

2008-01-30T22:41:00.000-05:00

This is a true story about a third generation barber in a small community in the Mid-west. The shop had been handed down from his grandfather and developed not just a hair salon but more of a community center where the farmers and families would come in not only to get their hair done, but enjoy the coffee and donut bar and spend time with their neighbors sharing the news of their farms and families. This shop had grown to include 10 stylists who cut all the men's hair and all the women's hair in the community.

The owner’s son came home from graduate school over spring break, to find his father depressed and reclusive. Finally getting his father to share what the problem was, the father confided that there was a new, national chain that had been moving across the country, bringing in cheap hair salons into all of the different communities and driving everyone out of business. And so, even though the community had loved all of the work that he had done, the perms and the haircuts and the styles over the years, right down the street opened up this new shop. It offered six dollar haircuts. Person after person had left to go to the new low cost shop.

The father told his son, “There is absolutely NO way I can compete with $6.00 haircuts. So much of my clientelle has now gone to the new shop that I have no choice but to close our shop. After three generations, we are going bankrupt. I can’t pay the stylists or the overhead anymore,” he despondently said with his hands covering his face so his son would not see the tears rolling out of his eyes.

The son said, "You know, this last semester I took a “science of success” program that was offered for extra credit in my marketing class. One thing I learned was something that Einstein said. He said that “The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking of the problem." So, Dad, we have to find another way to think about this. We've got to find another way to see this. Another one of the strategies I learned may help us.”

So the son left the room and brought back a notebook and a pen. He told the Dad about “Masterminding”, a strategy introduced in the 1930’s by Napoleon Hill who had been commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to study the patterns of extremely successful people.

“Here’s what we do. We let ourselves think of any idea that comes to mind and we write it down. No editing. We get a flow of ideas for 15-20 minutes and try to get as many as possible. No idea is off limits. Let’s go.”

The father said, “Well, the only idea I’ve got is….close the shop!” The son said, “Well, you’re right that IS an idea.” He wrote it down. Then the son said, “Ok, let’s keep going.” Before long the son and the father started getting a flow of ideas and writing down every one of them, even every crazy thing that came to mind. When they finished, one of the ideas absolutely jumped off the page and they looked at each other in astonishment and said, “This just might work!” The son left the next day to go back to college.

The father implemented the idea. Within 6 weeks, not only had his drop in clientele completely returned, but the number of customers was now 11% higher than ever in the history of the shop. Do you know what the idea was that turned sure failure into a new course of increasing success?

The idea was, “Place a BIG sign on top of the shop that read,

“WE FIX SIX DOLLAR HAIRCUTS!!”

This story has meant a great deal to me particularly when I am tempted to think that the problem is “out there” in the land of circumstances. Any time I think the problem is “out there”, THAT THOUGHT is the problem. As Einstein said, “The significant problems we face can not be solved at the level of the problem.” Learning to think in a new way brings Freedom and Power.

Note from Lynn:

Always think outside the box. Never assume the end of a matter before you begin it.

Mary Manin Morrissey

Mary Morrissey is a minister, teacher and author. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Education, a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and a Doctorate of Humane Letters. Take a look at her latest collaboration with Bob Proctor here: http://www.insightoftheday.com

Resolutely Resolve to Make Meaningful Resolutions for 2008

2008-01-30T22:15:00.000-05:00

Up until the past ten years or so I would make resolutions for the new year. Usually it was the same resolutions that I hadn’t followed the previous year, such as:

Lose weight
Get healthier
et my home organized
Find a better job
Start a savings plan
Make better use of my time
Spend more time with family and friends
Spend less time on the computer

All of these are fantastic resolutions to make. Who doesn’t want to be healthier? Be better organized? Use time wisely?

Year after year I’d jot all this down on paper, anticipating success, and then, on January 2nd of the new year, I’d resolve (on some subconscious level) not to work at any of my resolutions. Within six months of making them, I’d find my written notes in a crumpled paper ball within the “dust bunny zone” under my bed. By then, the resolutions had long been discarded in my mind, and the paper ball would be tossed into the garbage.

Maybe next year…

The reality is that many people do the same thing. Year in, year out, they resolve, and then forget. They may start, and make it into the new year with their new resolutions in action. But something happens, and more penciled-in dreams on small sheets of paper become filler for the trash can.

Why doesn’t making resolutions work? What happens from the seed of crafting a resolution in your mind to the almost wholesale self-sabotage of the actual effort towards actually growing and achieving it?

There are, of course, a host of easy answers. I just got lazy. I just became too busy. I have to put it off until another time, the time isn’t right. We’ve all made and heard these excuses ourselves.

If we look truthfully at our resolutions (short- and long-term goals), it’s not these reasons that held us back from their successful completion. It’s the by-product of the possibility that we have been asking ourselves the wrong questions about our deepest desires and goals. We set our goals too high, enabling us to never have to achieve them, or too low, keeping us from doing things that would really fill us with a sense of happiness and accomplishment.

If you’re planning on making resolutions for 2008, consider the following questions as you contemplate your options:

Will the accomplishment of this goal make me happy? Is it something I’ve always wanted for myself, or is it something others want me to do?
Is this goal a short term goal or one that will affect the rest of my life?
Does the goal match up with who I am? Am I willing to change my essential values to accomplish it?
Is the goal realistic?
If the goal might take more than a year to accomplish, am I willing to break it down into smaller, achievable goals and work towards it anyway?

There are, of course, many other questions that you can and should ask yourself before setting goals. Please share yours in the your comments!

In the meantime, remember that goal setting is an important part of planning and achieving your dreams, whatever they are. Being honest with yourself about what you deeply want or don’t want in your life will make a huge difference in your likelihood of success.