Posts Tagged “How To Stand Out”

What Is A Life Purpose, Really?

Like many of the personal development terms that have become common in our vernacular, life purpose is something that many people talk about and feel they should have and often times wonder how they would know if they had it.

While some people might think of life purpose in terms of fate or destiny, I prefer to think of it in terms of the expression of your whole self. In other words it is less important that we know it and more important that we are it.

In truth that is a little bit of a stretch, there is no way for us not to be our purpose. However, we can feel more or less connection and pleasure from it. And, that is the reason for us to “find” our life purpose.

In my Make It Happen Guide, I write, “Whatever you want or dream of you can have it. It is in you. You are the one you have been waiting for.” One of the problems with life purpose is that people go looking for it. Then because they are looking for it they feel perpetually disconnected from it. It becomes something beyond themselves that they must find instead of a natural expression of who they are.

So, connecting with your life purpose is really about connecting the deeper and truer aspect of who you are and to do that you can do the following.

• Pay attention to where you feel connected, excited, passionate, of positive. These are clues to deeper truths about yourself and therefore your life purpose. Do more of what makes your feel good.
• What if bad things make you feel good? Sometimes people get stuck because what they feel they want to do is destructive or negative. If you feel this way, you might say, “if I did what I wanted to all the time then I would ____.” Fill in the blank with some negative outcome. But even your negative pleasure can lead you in the right direction if you approach it in the right way.
• Honor your dreams. They are with you for a reason. The hints that you get along the way from your fantasies can profoundly connect you to yourself and your purpose.
• Your purpose is not necessary a vocation. But, it may be able to be turned into one. Think less about what work you want to do in the world and more about what kind of impact you want to have or what kind of contribution you want to make.

I love this topic of life purpose and I look forward to talking with you about it more on my weekly radio show, Real Answers this week.

Going Deeper With Social Media

Social media is everywhere. If you’re like me you know you have to be engaging on it. I confess I’m not always on it and I do social media marketing and management for a living. Crazy Huh. I feel lately there is so much content out there on social media that what I have to say isn’t new. I want my content to be engaging and relevant and new. So I’m on a mission. My mission is to go deeper on my blog, with social media and in my life. So join me!

So how in the world am I going to do that in a culture that is on information overload. Heck, I feel like I’m an information junkie. Do you ever feel that way? I’m going to start with engaging. I’m going to ask you a point blank question; Are you engaging with your list and your various connections on the social media platforms? What are you doing to engage them? So here are my 3 steps for engaging.

1. Talk to them not at them! I’m learning this over and over again is that when I talk to them by adding a human element, I get a response. No one likes to be talked at. An example of what not to do, (and I’ve been guilty with this one) is don’t always write “Read my Blogpost” or “Attend my webinar”! It is essential to provide a safe place to nurture a two way conversation.

2. Provide valuable content and encourage your audience to give feedback. One of my favorite things to do is my video social media tip and I always ask things like “Does this work for you?” or “What are your thoughts on this?” This really starts the conversation rolling.

3. Look for ways to always start a conversation by focusing on them, and their needs. I love to ask questions to find out what my audience needs. I love to find out some of the things that they are doing in their business. One thing I did a couple of weeks is I posted a challenge on my video tip on a Friday to implement on Monday. I asked them to tell me how the implementation went. Had a great response.

The biggest thing for me with engaging more is to create relationships with the people I come into contact with, rather if it’s online or offline. What do you do to engage more on social media?

Read more by Lorraine on her website BizGoneSocial

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