Finding Your Calling: The Girlo Checklist

There’s never a simple or straightforward answer, but it’s worth pursuing. A sense of ‘true calling’ comes from being able to follow your instincts in a way that makes you aware that it’s all leading somewhere. It’s the inner knowledge of being on the right path or getting a feeling that things are lining up. It’s understanding what kind of things make you feel happy, make you want to keep doing them even when they may not seem to be going so well (a great test!). But if you can’t work out what it is, then a different approach to sort out any confusion is the only way forward.

For example, are you ‘match’ fit? By this we mean, are you in it for the long haul or do you just give up at the first hurdle? Giving up can be an indicator that you weren’t truly passionate about something in the first place. There are many unhappy people in the world who didn’t just persevere with something when they could have.  Which is why you need to have more than just a belief in something to truly accomplish a goal.  You need stamina to overcome and meet all of the obstructions and barriers that will present themselves along the way.  You need strength to enable you to press on when the going is rugged.

“Set yourself a challenge.  Develop your own expectations of yourself and measure yourself against yourself.”

You need rest and recovery so you can back up and do whatever is necessary, over and over again.  As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “keep yourself in peak physical condition because fatigue makes cowards of us all”.

A quick check-list

1. Know yourself well: understand the package that you are, the weaknesses, strengths, likes, dislikes, talents, and yes, your faults.
2. Get some good advice: what’s out there?
3. Experiment, experiment, experiment: keep on trying different things until you find what really feels right for you.
4. Develop a thicker skin so you can turn rejection into experience.
5. Find a mentor or role model.
6. Do what you love to do.  If you can’t, make what you’re doing a strategy to get you doing what you want to do.
7. Have a realistic game plan and stick to it, no matter who or what says you can’t.
8. Prioritize.
9. Be yourself.
10. You make your own luck.

If you can keep 1-10 in mind, the way forward, primarily, is this: you will have to be creative.  Seek different outlets for self-expression.  Set yourself a challenge.  Develop your own expectations of yourself and measure yourself against yourself.  Ignore other people’s agendas and stick to yours.  Decide to try new things even if it’s intimidating or makes you fearful. Stretch yourself, if only to see what you’re capable of. The person you find will be the one you created.  You.

Photographer: Anthea Paul