How the 7 stages of purpose can help you create a roadmap for your life and career
Kat Byles, founder of The True Business School looks at how recognising and following the 7 stages of purposes, can help you create a roadmap for your life and career?
We are all born with a purpose. With your purpose placed at the heart of your life and work, you benefit from the clarity of focus and direction. Purpose empowers you and decisions become easier.
So how do you integrate your purpose into your life/career? Kat can share the 7 stages of purpose (calling, receiving, articulating, aligning, embodying, leading, and evolution), how to recognise them, and how to use them to create a roadmap. Kat can offer real-life examples of people who have followed their purpose to success.
RECOGNISE THE 7 STAGES OF PERSONAL PURPOSE
By Kat Byles, founder of The True Business School
Katharine Woodward Thomas is the best-selling author of Calling in the One: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life. A family and marriage counselor, Katherine developed a pioneering metaphysical process to call in your love match. She used this process to call in her life partner at 42 and they had a child together. A leader in her field she served thousands of people to create their love match and trained hundreds of ‘Calling in the One’ coaches, speaking at international symposiums with peers Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, and Neale Donald Walsh.
Then Katherine separated from her husband - Her One! She speaks candidly about the vulnerability of the separation from her husband and also the vulnerability of a business built around Calling in the One.
Led by her purpose, her north star, which she describes as ‘serving the thrust of love into the universe’, she was guided to separate with love, and Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After became her second book. ‘This wasn’t the book I wanted to write!’ she says. Conscious Uncoupling became a New York Times bestseller, helping thousands of couples to separate with love, made famous by Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin consciously uncoupling. While a traditional business may have folded with this development, Katherine, led by her purpose, her north star, stepped into a significant period of discovery, growth, and evolution.
We are all born with a purpose. As unique as your fingerprint, it is held within your heart, your reason for being, your north star. With your purpose placed at the heart of your life you benefit from the clarity of focus and direction. On the occasions self-doubt creeps in, purpose empowers you. Decisions become easier as you choose the path aligned with the fulfillment of your purpose.
Your purpose doesn’t arrive one day boom!’ fully formed, expressed, and embodied. There are recognisable stages to the growth and development of your purpose. These stages are not linear. You may experience more than one stage at a time, and some stages last longer than others. And when you become aware of the stage you are at, you have a map and can more easily participate in your purpose being fulfilled.
Here are the seven stages of purpose. Use these to create a roadmap. Which stage do you most resonate with? And which stage do you want to invest your focus, energy, and attention in next? Take a look and decide where you are, and this will help you define the next steps you need to take towards your true purpose and passion.
1. Calling
You sense you have a bigger purpose than what is currently being expressed. There may be a sense of ‘something’ missing, a frustration, a sensation pulling you towards ‘something’ you can’t quite understand, it is led by a desire for more – more meaning, contribution, and impact.
Simon Haas, yoga philosopher and author of The Book of Dharma and Yoga and Dark Night of the Soul shares that your purpose emerges naturally when you live your true nature.
This is echoed by Jill Ellis, former coach of the USA Women’s Soccer Team sharing the experience of opening up to her team that she was married to Betsy Stephenson, a woman. Fully supported, the US women’s team went on to campaign for equal pay for women using the World Cup as their global platform. Jill said: “When I became open in who I was, I found my purpose there.”
When you experience a calling, practice bringing more of your true nature into your life every day, and as you do, your purpose is revealed to you.
2. Receive
As you follow your true nature, you begin to receive a sense of your purpose, the more you receive the clearer it becomes. At this stage, stay curious. Don’t deny it or push it away. Embrace and begin to own your purpose.
3. Articulate
As you embrace your purpose, articulate it in a few simple words that inspire and resonate with your heart. The simpler the better. For example, The Teen Yoga Foundation has a purpose to empower young people through yoga so that there’s a generation of kids with self-esteem, resilience, and mental wellness. Maddy Cooper, the co-founder of Brilliant Noise, has the purpose of protecting the earth so that families have a bright future, with sustainable marketing for brands that really mean it.
4. Align
Now your purpose is clearly articulated the next step is to align your decisions, actions, behaviours, products, and services with your purpose. Let go of any aspects of your life that are not aligned with your purpose. This can take courage, but it is worth it.
5. Embody
As you make decisions aligned with your purpose, you shift from an intellectual understanding to your purpose becoming a tangible, living expression. The more you can appreciate the deep fulfillment, value, and impact embodying your purpose brings, the more you grow.
6. Lead
As you grow in the embodiment of your true nature and purpose you are now ‘walking your talk’. There is a noticeable dedication, integrity, and congruence and this inspires others. At this stage, as you communicate and share the wisdom of your experience openly and transparently, you become a recognised leader in your field.
7. Evolution
Your purpose, your north star, becomes an evolutionary force, both in your personal and business development taking you into the unknown, towards new frontiers. If you haven’t already, here you are invited to surrender more deeply, to let go of what wants to go and allow what wants to come.
ABOUT KAT BYLES
Kat Byles is the Founder of the True Business School, for creative leaders, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, and healers who want to do business differently. She works with people to find and align with their purpose and creativity to build a happy, healthy, wealthy business and world.
Web: www.KatByles.com & www.True-Business-School.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katbyles/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katbyles/