You Want MY Advice?

Just Sarah doing what Sarah does best: telling people what to do, including herself. 

IG: @sarahonpurpose

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Let me clear my throat. Well, it has come to my attention that some of you actually like listening to this weird little project of mine where I try to figure some shit out about myself in real time. Well, that's great, I think. So maybe you noticed that there was no episode last week, or maybe you didn't, which is totally fine too. But I want to explain why, and then I want to tell you what helped me come back to it this week. I hope it's useful to you if you're also trying to find your voice, your spark, or yourself, or even your purpose. This episode is called Do You Want My Advice? So let's get into it. Do you ever think your life would be way better if you could just take your own advice? Because I do. I give awesome advice. So much so that some people even pay me for it. But it turns out that I'm terrible at taking it. This was actually one of those rare times I did listen to myself, but it was not easy. Here's what happened. It's not that I let myself take a casual week off from the podcast. I wish, if I'm honest, this process so far has felt anything but casual. Nope, I recorded an entire episode that took me several hours to make. And right before it was time to hit publish, I scrapped the whole damn thing. Now I could have just posted it just to keep the momentum going because I don't know, optics. I mean, it was fine. I didn't toss it because it was bad. I tossed it because it wasn't true. There were technical facts, sure, but I was like, ew, what is this voice that I'm using? It sure as shit wasn't mine. Not my real one. Like, why are you trying so hard to convince everyone you're smart? Do you think you're dumb? No? Oh, okay then. What else? Okay, well, Sarah, why are you telling that story? Like, what's the intent? Oh, I see. You're trying to be cool? Yuck. Trying to be cool isn't cool. Oh, and while we're at it, what's the rush? Is there a fire? Do you really think you're forcing anyone to listen to this? Shut up. Just shut up, shut up, shut up. My internal monologue had me on blast. If this was your podcast and you were super frustrated with it, I would probably ask you the purpose of the project. Like if it's hard, but the purpose is guiding you, well, that's one thing. But if it's hard and it has no purpose, you gotta fucking scrap that shit. So I did. And that's when I remembered some very important things about myself. I actually know a thing or two about purpose. I mean, I go by Sarah on purpose after all. And prior to that, the purpose provocateur. And prior to that, purpose party for one. It's purpose on purpose over here. It's kind of my thing. Well, I have thoughts about a lot of things and don't say them out loud, but purpose, girl, hold my beer, because we could be here for a while. A lot of people have this kind of like existential angst about finding their purpose. Like life would be all fixed if they could just find it or figure it out. Like it's a puzzle that needs solving. Purpose, man. Okay, so anyway, for a long time, I was definitely one of those people. One of those people who thought there was a purpose somewhere out there meant just for me, only it was hiding. Only I was too dumb to figure out what it was. So what? Was I doomed to lead some mediocre life? Or maybe only other people were lucky enough to have purpose bestowed upon them. As if some cosmic spirit was out there, like, you get a purpose, you get a purpose, you get a purpose. And I wasn't in the audience that day. Purpose is rarely a job description. I mean it can be, but for most people, you have some skills that you happen to be pretty good at and get paid for, and that doesn't mean it's your purpose. In fact, it's probably not. That's just how you pay your bills. Purpose doesn't have to be something you monetize. That's called capitalism, baby, and that's not what purpose is all about. Okay, then what if we do find it? Are we beholden to our purpose once we discover it? What if we don't like our purpose? What if we want to change it? Can I just say this is a lot of pressure to put on purpose? What if it doesn't have to be like that? It doesn't have to mean it's your reason for getting out of bed every day, you know? Sometimes I just get out of bed because my dog has to pee. Or maybe I have brunch plans. My favorite philosopher, Alan Watts, said the meaning of life is just to be alive. So what if he's right? Doesn't it stand to reason then that your purpose is you? Then what does it mean to say I want to find my purpose? Or if we're worried that our purpose is passing us by. So I actually needed to go through that whole exercise of making a not quite right episode to realize all I had to do was come back to purpose. I just needed to come back to myself. What's really going on here, I think, is that we want to find meaning. We want to find what matters, which then ultimately means we matter. If we can figure out our special skills or our magic, if you will, there are millions of different ways to put purpose into action. The question is then, what do we do when we don't know what to do? How do we know when to keep going? Well, this is where the rubber meets the road. Because what we actually want to know what to do is how to deal with the in-between places. The place where we don't know, but we really want to know. This is where we freak out and worry we're behind and think we're gonna make all the wrong choices and think we're big failures and that it's all gonna explode. But this is a reminder that you can love your purpose and still burn out on the ways you choose to express it. Because purpose, remember, is a living, breathing, changing thing. So I'm reminded that I'm just over here being myself and trying to offer commentary on what that takes. It takes a little while to figure out who that person is. Not because you're doing it wrong, but because just when you think you got it, it shifts. It changes. Not because a part of you disappears, but because some new part of you comes in. And you got to let that happen. And then you got to try to reconcile with it. Like you have to keep meeting yourself in the moment. Those old ways of being and old behaviors and old stories that inform the way we show up in the present are sometimes really frustrating and they can keep us from feeling fulfilled today. This is where the most important questions come in that most people forget to ask. Why? Because they want purpose to show up and do the work when the purpose is right under their nose. We want the purpose to find us when the purpose is us. Who am I now? What do I want? How do I want to express that? How can I use my unique set of skills? Or an or another question would be what do I really hate that I think I could make better? But really, no other question helps you get to the heart of the matter. And what matters than this? What do I value? And that's what I love helping people figure out. I legit marvel at the work I do sometimes. Watching people learn to change and understand themselves and transform. It's dope. And I think about all the things I've done to try to understand myself too. And I've done a lot. I've done a lot of weird things and I've done a lot of hard things. Every time I catch myself trying to prove, push, or perform being myself in some way, that's when I know purpose has left the chat. Because I value authenticity the most. And we're not all the same, but that's me. Every client I've worked with over the last nearly 12 years has never picked the same top three values. But what I do forget is that I can utilize myself for my own purpose and just ask myself the damn questions. I'm not a therapist and I'm not a fortune teller, but I can call it like I see it. I'm including myself here when I say this. We're overcomplicating our purpose. You're alive, you're doing it. Some good shit happens, some bad shit's happened. But in those holy moments, those, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. Or, you know what, I'm really proud of myself, or the uh, well, I fucked that up. It's all part of the process. The struggle to learn to engage with yourself and the world around you is kind of the whole point. Purpose, you have to remember, has your back. And it's not going to let you find peace in some shit you settled in. Maybe this way of thinking seems extra to people. This is when they're like, man, get over yourself. That's when I have to say, oh no, sorry, Bob, or whatever your name is. I'm about to get real into myself. It's important for me to do that. But I want to remind you that you can do that. And maybe people think spending all this time on self-discovery is selfish. Well, to them I say, you're a fucking idiot, because any kind of real self-discovery is going to make you way better in every area of your life. A better partner, a better friend, better at work, a better mom, a better neighbor, whatever the case may be. But equally important, if not more, is that self-discovery is the thing that has you looking in the mirror and saying, I got you. I understand you. You can trust me. And that takes effort. So, anyway, to make a long story longer, the purpose of this podcast was to be authentic and real. Just to be myself, talking about the struggles I face with self-expression and to try something new. Sometimes I do worry that being myself isn't enough. Like maybe that's a lame purpose. But if being myself, being as authentic as I can be, serves to remind you that being yourself doesn't confine you, that it opens up a whole level of freedom you didn't even know you had, well, then all of a sudden, my purpose is pretty fucking great. So if you want my advice, just ask yourself and really listen this time. Alright, you guys, there's probably only a couple more episodes of these left. So thank you so much for listening so far. And a little rate and review would be real cute, too. Okay, bye. Oh my god.