THE WORK YOU WERE BORN TO DO
The majority of people work for pay and believe that is their lot.
But I believe that each of us has a unique work, what I call “the work you were born to do”, which is born out of your deepest self rather than your personality.
I know you can be paid to do that work, but being paid is not your primary motivation for that work. Love and creative expression are. As Kahlil Gibran expressed so beautifully, “Your work is your love made visible.”
Sadly, most people experience a split, believing you can work for money doing something you don’t love, or you can work doing something you love, but you can’t or shouldn’t expect to be paid for it.
Many believe they can work for love or money, but not both. Too few people ever reach the blessed place of working for love and receiving an abundance of money for doing that. I think you can.
Your artistic, spiritual, creative side can happily co-exist with your business mind and your entrepreneurial skills. You can be in touch with Heaven and take that out to the marketplace.
Remember; the work you love is an act of love and generosity from the heart of you. You are inspired. You are a conduit to bring something precious from another realm into this earthly realm. William Blake once said, “Eternity is in love with the creations of time.” I believe this to mean that you are actively inspired and encouraged by angels, muses, guides, whatever you believe in, to show up in this life with your ideas, talents and gifts. This will bring you joy.
Then start to become intelligent and wise about how you can generate income from your talents. I believe that your talents in some way brighten and uplift the world, and are an act of generosity.
However – watch out! It’s easy to get in your own way:
1. Guilt – you feel guilty about asking for and taking money from people for doing what comes easily and naturally to you. The protestant work ethic promotes suffering in work, not joy. The work you love can be easy, it can just flow naturally from you, and you can be open to receive money from your gifts.
2. Righteousness – I meet many people who have an edge of righteousness and secretly feel superior because they don’t earn much money. “Look what a wonderful person I am because I don’t make much for myself.” I believe true spirituality doesn’t call for self-sacrifice, but is an invitation to open to true abundance. Release your judgments on money so you can receive it graciously.
3. A receiving block – to receive means valuing yourself, requiring you to show up and give your authentic best in return for being paid. Receiving completes the circle of giving, but calls you also to be competent and professional and to embody a level of maturity.
4. Lack of knowledge and skill – it is one thing to know that a great website can generate you interest and income, it is another to know how to create a successful website and how to generate traffic to visit it.
5. A fear of loss of integrity – that when you earn money from what you love, you will start making it all about the money and lose your heart and integrity. When you come from the intention of love, you will always have integrity.
6. An unwillingness to show up to being seen and known and to market yourself. Being under-known is one of the reasons most people don’t generate enough income from doing what they love. The people whom you can serve don’t know about you, you are invisible to them. Many people fear being rejected so they don’t show up. But you can find a professional centre within you, where you commit to showing and are less concerned with acceptance or rejection and more committed to showing up authentically to be of service.
Your own work and your own inspired business can be your highest spiritual understanding demonstrated. Indeed, never has there been more need and more opportunity to be successful through authentically sharing your own unique gifts with the people who can most benefit from them.
Download Available
To discover the work you were born to do and become an inspired entrepreneur, you can download your free copy of a nine-part programme now at: http://www.inspired-entrepreneur.com/
You can hear Nick Williams on PASSION for the PLANET radio, or listen to his interviews [and hundreds of other interviews] on demand at http://www.passionforfreshideas.com/.