When was the last time you felt the liberated, absolutely carefree joy of singing in the bathroom? or the pure kinesthetic delight of sketching or painting? or flying a kite with abandon? What was the feeling? Why are you not able to feel those moments in your present lives?

Your current lives are at such a frenetic pace that you seldom even pause to consider what you are doing and how you are doing it.  Would you be able to say for instance what you had for breakfast this morning? In most cases, you would have just gulped down some liquid (juice presumably), stuffed some food into your mouth (not sure what it was but it was solid) and then ran out of the house to catch a bus, train or even drive off if you happen to have a personal vehicle.  It is apparent that most of the time you are rushing to some place from some other place. There is no room or time for reflection in this mad race to earn a living.

Childhood - The wonder years

Everyone of us is born with certain talents and gifts and creative potential.  During your childhood you gave full expression to this in everything you did. For instance, if you remember back to your childhood days, you will find that you indulged in so many activities like sport, games, sketching, painting, singing, listening to music, and so on and many of them simultaneously.  You also found that you were able to learn new hobbies, activities and skills effortlessly.  You participated in these hobbies and activities with all your energy and more importantly with a carefree attitude. Nothing much bothered you, you were afraid of nothing and stress was non existent. These were your most creative moments, times, years. 

What then happened since those beautiful childhood years? Is it that you now do not possess those gifts, talents anymore?

It may console you to know that you definitely have not lost those gifts, talents, you have just stopped using them.

Discovering your Genius

Brain research has conclusively proved that every one of us are born with the same level of brain power as, say, Albert Einstein. However, during childhood almost all of us fully gave expression to and exercised our inherent talents and gifts and if we lacked in any area we simply learnt them along the way. The huge difference between that and our current lives is that we have "forgotten" to use most of our talents and gifts and in many instances we have started believing that we "never had those talents and gifts". This negative self talk just made the situation worse and we continued to lose more and more of our natural skills and abilities of childhood until we became pale shadows of our childhood versions.

Well, it is not too late even now. All that is needed is first for us to believe that we are endowed with these talents and gifts.

In the next episode of the Newsletter, we will talk about simple, practical exercises to begin "discovering your Genius."

Do you know what your "calling" in life is? You can consider yourself "blessed" if your job and career coincide with your calling. It is a marriage very few are lucky to have.

Recognizing signs of your calling

What are the signs then that tell you that you are close to your calling?

• It is about something more than just yourself
• It makes you happy and fulfilled
• You are focused on giving to others without any expectation
• You answer its summons almost without being conscious about it
• You look forward to it every waking moment in anticipation!

A calling is what fulfills your existence in and indeed the very purpose of being born on this earth.

A calling is something in the nature of your core beliefs that is wired into your thinking and mindset. It is something that ignites passion in you for what you stand for and nourishes the soul.

3 Simple Steps to your calling

Since a calling is something very close to your heart and core beliefs, the following 3 Step Process will help identify that:

On a piece of blank paper, draw a vertical line down the middle;

• To the left of the vertical line, List 10 items that you "love to do" or "enjoy doing"
• To the right of the vertical line, List 10 items that you are "good at" or "have an aptitude for"
• Find the common items from each of the above lists

You often spend a lot of time doing things that interests you and over time many of these become things that you "love to do". When you do those things many times over, you tend to become good at that.

What you are passionate about is thus at the intersection of "what you love to do" and "what you are good at".

Too often you find yourself trapped in work environments and work areas where your interest is just not there. This results in a not only loss of productivity but also a total lack of energy and enthusiasm. Instead of doing some quiet introspection, you tend to slip more and more into the listless way of life.

Take some time out to reflect on where you are headed. If you keep fire fighting all the time, you will never zero in over a long-term, on the energizing and uplifting priorities that will result in finding your calling and leading a meaningful life with internal peace of mind.