The 5 Stages of Connecting to a Life Calling – Stage 2

Continuing in our exploration of the 5 stages of connecting to a sense of calling…

Stage 2 – Alignment

The Alignment stage is where you begin to create congruency in your life.  It’s about putting your thoughts and actions together to ensure your success.  We have all heard the phrase “put your money where your mouth is”.  The Cambridge dictionary defines this phrase to mean “to show by your actions and not just your words that you support or believe in something”.  I couldn’t have said it better myself!

The something that your supporting or believing in is yourself – that vision you discovered about who you are, what you want and what you will give to others and the major, occupation, industry and even leisure activities you decided to pursue because you see that they are a great match to support you in doing what you can easily do for others.  So what’s next is to align your actions – to move towards securing the education or experience you decided to go after.  The 3 best indicators of whether or not you are on track to achieve your goal are:

1. how you spend your time
2. how you spend your money
3. who you hang out with

How you spend your time

How we spend our time is a key indicator of what we will manifest in our future.

If you are active in keeping a calendar, it will be easy to know how you have been spending your time, and therefore what kinds of opportunities will be likely to show up in your future.

Simply look back over the past few months and for each calendared event, and ask yourself the following key questions:

• “Did it bring me closer to securing work I would love to do, in a place I would love to do it?”
• “Did it energize and recharge me?”
• “Did it put me in front of people who inspire me or who are already doing what I would love to be doing?”
• “Do I understand how it supports me in achieving the life I want to live?”

If you are not keeping a calendar, I suggest you do so – not just accounting for your appointments, but also accounting for how you are spending your time.  Keep track of appointments and tasks that support both your career and personal life (i.e. going to the gym, food shopping, cleaning, fun time with friends or family, reading, watching TV, etc.).  Doing this even for only 1 week will give you a solid idea of how you will spend your time for the month because we often repeat many of our actions from week to week.  Tracking this for a full month will give you a crystal clear idea of how you are spending your time.  Then you can go back and ask yourself the key questions.

Consider if it makes sense to continue saying yes to invitations for the events you attended in the past.  If not, you will “make room” on your calendar for opportunities that will help you more easily manifest your ambitions to come into your life.

How you spend your money

Hand in hand with how we spend our time is how we spend our money.  It is pretty easy to get a handle on this – simply look at your banking statements and your credit card statements for the past few months.  For each item on your statements, ask yourself the same questions you asked yourself about how you are spending your time.

If you have debt, what expenditures are contributing to the debt?  If it is charges for things vital for your daily use (i.e. food, gas, etc.) – then “survival” is more likely in your future.  If it is charges for things that will appreciate in value or bring your closer to what you want to achieve in life (i.e. education – books, training, school, etc.) – then “accomplishment” is more likely in your future. How we spend our money is another key indicator of what we will manifest in our future.

Who you hang out with

The third key indicator of what we are likely to manifest in our future is in understanding who we hang out with.  To get a handle on this, go back to your calendar.  For each calendared event, list out names of people you crossed paths with and ask yourself the following questions:

• “Does time with them energize and recharge me?”
• “Do they support me in achieving my life ambitions?”
• “Do they lead a productive life that they seem to enjoy living?”
• “If they work, are they passionate about their work?”
• “Do they work in the field or industry I aspire to be working in?”
• “Are they a family member who supports you in making your own choices?”

It doesn’t matter if you are interested in what those you spend the most time with are interested in.  What matters, is that you are aligned with like-minded people – people who are as passionate and productive as you aspire to be.   It’s this mentality that you want to align with, understand and tap into.

You might be wondering, why does it matter if they are a family member or not?  Because studies show that if you are occupationally stuck – there are 2 things that can help get you unstuck.  One is to explore and learn how to link your interests and talents to occupational choices (which is the work of indigoforce) and the other is to get support from family members.

Family members are likely to play a significant role in helping you see the potential positive or negative consequences of career options.  Their support for you making your own choices while participating in activities to develop clarity, confidence and conviction for career and life choices can significantly tip the scales in your favor for manifesting your decisions.

Having people in your life who are supportive of you – people who you can share with them what you are getting from your work and who will give you honest feedback since they know you on a much more personal level, are a great support for you.  Plus, by sharing with them what you want to accomplish in your career and life, you not only provide them with the opportunity to have some breakthroughs of their own – but you also solidify for yourself the things you are exploring and learning.  We all learn best when we teach others what we are learning!

For those people who don’t “score high” for you – consider if it makes sense to continue to spend as much time as you do with them.  If it is possible to minimize your time with them – do so!  You will “make room” for someone who will score high to come into your life.

In summary, the alignment phase is all about creating congruency in your life – investing your time and money with people and opportunities that will bring you closer to what you want for your career and life.