‘The world needs that special gift that only you have.’1
MARIE FORLEO
As it turned out, my quarter-life crisis decided to follow me across the pond and settle with me in the apartment I moved into after a few weeks of living in a hostel. Whether I was in Ohio or on the other side of the world, the reality was that I still had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.
Around the anniversary of my first year of living in London, my parents came to visit me. It wasn’t a planned trip, and I hadn’t known I was going to see them, so I hadn’t exactly been honest about my current situation. I’d had every intention of painting a rosy picture, but when they stepped into my studio flat, which was the size of a closet, it was obvious, and they knew.
(Oh, and I think the tears during every dinner were a good indication, too. As I said earlier, I’ve never been able to hide my emotions so I cried throughout our few days together.) I was 3,000+ miles from home, yet I still wasn’t happy, I still didn’t know what I was meant for, and I was still broke.
On the last day of the visit, I sat with my dad in front of a church on London’s Kensington High Street, mapping out my game plan for my future. Only there wasn’t much of a plan. And at that point, my student loan had run out, so I had to ask my dad to lend me $5,000 to get by.
Again, I felt like a failure. I felt like everything was do or die. And I didn’t know how to trust my intuition. I made myself wrong for my feelings, instead of accepting them. Of course I have compassion for that version of myself: she didn’t know how to tap into that wisdom or get the clarity she was craving.
This confusion and feeling lasted for nearly two more years (and three more apartment moves). I had jobs as a nanny, a personal assistant, and even as a matchmaker, as I tried desperately to find my purpose. But finally, I got the clarity I’d been craving since turning that car around.
In April 2013, while working from home on my laptop for the dating agency, I opened an email from my friend Haley that simply said: ‘I thought you’d like this.’ Below was a link to a website: www.marieforleo.com. As I explored the content, I immediately felt a huge ‘yes!’ in my body.
Here was a beautiful woman with great hair, gorgeous clothes, and such a fun brand making a living out of coaching. She was nothing like the coaches I’d encountered in the past: the stuffy men with suits who carried little three-ring binders and went from office to office each day; nothing like the men who’d come to our house to coach my dad when I was little.
And in that moment, I had that feeling again: the one I felt when I arrived in London for the first time and the fear similar to when I turned the car around. This was the second moment my whole life changed course, and in many ways, I felt like I was home. I followed that feeling, and later in 2013, I came up with the idea for I Heart My Life.
The company name came after I realized that I was my ideal client. Everything I’d been through – the evenings spent eating cookie dough and watching The Office because I was so bored and lonely; the weeks I spent feeling like a failure, or the moments I burst into tears because it wasn’t happening fast enough; the times when I was so confused and considered every career option – all of that could be used to help others in a similar place. I had finally found it: my purpose.
Purpose. In case it’s not obvious, there was a point along my journey when I started to hate that word. And clarity. Those two led to the dreaded ‘c’ word: choice. Frankly, all three words have the power to send a modern woman into a frenzy.
At times during my quarter-life crisis (and occasionally today) I longed for a simpler life. It was never about career for my grandma and my mom: they had options, but obviously nothing like what’s available today. Sometimes I wondered whether it made it easier for them: that lack of choice.
Of course when it came down to it, I preferred choice over no choice; but I spent so many days feeling overwhelmed by choice, and I knew that so many women felt the same. Maybe we haven’t yet learned how to navigate it as a sex, or maybe it’s a generational thing – we feel loads of pressure because we want to make the most of our choice. Either way, choice can be painful. Women today are overwhelmed by the choice they have when it comes to ‘something big.’
In his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz describes my generation as Maximisers: people who have a habit of comparing themselves to others, have a tendency for regret, and a constant fear of failure. For us, Schwartz says, ‘The availability of many attractive options means there is no longer any excuse for failure.’2 For that reason, sometimes, I find myself wondering: what’s a girl with choice to do?!
My answer, before I discovered my own intuition and learned to trust it, was to make a list. Growing up, I considered a wide (and I mean really wide!) range of career paths: ER doctor, marine biologist, actress, newscaster, business owner, relationship therapist, wedding planner. I settled on counseling for a while, but then started questioning my choice. When you think you’ve made a choice and then start to doubt it, you begin to feel like a crazy person. And then the pressure to re-finalize the choice sets in.
During that period when I first arrived in London, I did everything to try to figure it out. But I felt like I had nothing I wanted. Love. Career. Mansion. Kids. Nada. I envied my friends who ended up marrying their high-school sweetheart, becoming teachers, driving Volkswagen Jettas, buying condos, and having kids. It was so simple. Life in a box at 25.
I mean no disrespect by that: as I said, part of me was jealous of the simplicity. Was life meant to be simple? Prescriptive? Then I questioned my own desires: why didn’t I want that? What was wrong with me? Why was I making really weird decisions compared to the rest of my family? Why did I want so much more? Why did I believe I was meant for more?
Here’s the thing: life is different now. People aren’t the same. We don’t get excited about work that doesn’t light us up. We want more. As I heard the entrepreneur Noah Kagan state on a podcast at the beginning of my own journey: we are the generation of purpose, not just getting by.3
Our generation wants to create a
legacy and have an impact.
And that’s nothing to
be ashamed of.
In fact, I believe that now is the best time to be alive and be searching for clarity and following our purpose. But with this quest for purpose added to the mix, there’s even more pressure to do something and be great. As you know, I’ve felt this pressure firsthand, and so have the majority of the women I’ve worked with.
If you’re in that place today, I want to support you in getting clearer on the vision you have for your life and the purpose you were put on this planet to fulfill. Even if you already have clarity, you can use what I teach you to go to the next level. We’re all constantly reinventing ourselves and nothing we do is permanent. There’s always another level and deeper clarity to uncover, and that starts with getting on the frequency of what you desire.
During my quarter-life crisis, what I didn’t realize was that I was keeping myself in a perpetual state of confusion. Because I was focused on the fact that things weren’t happening for me, and that I lacked clarity, I was emotionally down in the dumps, which meant I was staying stuck and getting more of the same.
If you’re thinking about things not working and complaining about them not working, you’re going to feel really crappy, and you’re not going to take the action required to change your life or attract the opportunities you desire. Make sense?
We’re all on a frequency and are attracting opportunities that are also on that frequency, based on how we show up each day. So if you wake up depressed and focused on the fact that you didn’t get enough sleep, you’re dreading everything on your calendar that day, and hate your life – you’re going to get more of that and attract other people who are of the same mindset. There’s a reason why misery loves company!
Think about dating or even a marital relationship – you know as well as I do that we’re far more attracted to a partner who is positive, confident, and fun to be around; someone who is open to what life has to offer rather than one who’s down in the dumps.
If you show up on a date as your worst self, you’re going to repel that positive potential partner across from you at the dinner table because you’re on different wavelengths. They won’t be attracted to you, no matter what you’re wearing, how much time you spent on your hair, or the mask of happiness you’re trying to display. (And by the way, everything I’m teaching you works with dating too! I believe I was able to attract James – via a cheesy online dating site – in the same way I attracted success, through the tools in this book.)
Before we go any further, celebrate the fact that you’re about to get on the same frequency as your dreams. Do you know how huge that is? Go you!
It’s the same with your dreams: you’re a magnet in your own life so think about what it is that you’re actually attracting right now, based on how you’re showing up. This isn’t about being perfect – it’s about getting on a new, high-vibrational frequency that will attract the life you want instead of repelling it, and lead to the clarity you’re craving. Let’s take a look at four simple ways to do this:
The first step is to start paying attention to what makes you feel good. If you’re anything like I was in my first year of living in London, you may not be feeling good, but you don’t know how to move out of that place. So many of us are slaves to our emotions. We assume we can’t shift out of that emotional day, angry moment, or jealous experience. We figure it’s just what we have to bear, and that it’s the price we pay for being human. That’s an exhausting and very defeatist place to be. In the coaching industry, we call it victimhood.
But the truth is, you can take back your power. Our default state is actually meant to be joy. No one is naturally negative – it’s a learned behavior just like anything else, and it’s not a recipe for success. Feeling good puts you on the frequency of feeling good, and that’s where everything you want is.
Feeling good shifts everything
and transforms you into the
woman you want to be.
In her book The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle LaPorte says, ‘Knowing how you actually want to feel is the most potent form of clarity that you can have. Generating those feelings is the most powerfully creative thing you can do with your life.’4
So…
What if for one day, you followed what felt good?
What if you then did that for a week or even a year?
How would things shift for you?
I guarantee that everything would change.
The best thing you can do for your dreams is follow your bliss – especially in the beginning when you’re looking to transform your life or create massive change. So, take a second to think about how you want to feel. Which words come to mind? And then think about what you can do in this moment to feel that way.
There’s always an answer – even when it feels like nothing’s working and it seems impossible, there’s always something you can do to feel good. And therefore become the version of you who will attract clarity and opportunity.
Another thing I didn’t realize during my quarter-life crisis and quest for clarity is that you get what you focus on. By focusing on what’s not working or on being confused or stuck, we stunt our ability to attract what we do want into our lives. Think of it as like riding a bike – when you focus on where you’re going, you go there. But when your mind and eyes wander, you start to travel off the path in the direction in which you’re looking.
When we’re stuck in a personal crisis, period of depression or difficult time in our life, business or career, most of us naturally focus on what’s not working. After all, it’s right there in front of us, glaringly obvious. But because our mind is focused on the bad, we’re unable to see the good. We’re also unable to think about the good because our mind can only have one thought at any one time.
It’s crucial that you start to train your mind to focus on what’s working instead of the opposite. This can be really simple – for example, you could start to make a list every evening of all the things that went right that day (even if it’s just two small ones like someone holding a door open for you or receiving a card in the mail). Just like training an unruly puppy, you have to train your mind to start noticing what’s working instead of what’s not.
One of the ways you can shift your emotional state and frequency is to saturate your mind in as much positivity as possible – so it doesn’t have the time or the capacity to be occupied with the negative.
For example, there’s a school of thought that when you’re trying to lose weight, you shouldn’t remove things from your diet – or at least not think about it in that way. Instead, it’s better to think about adding in healthy food to your diet and as a consequence, you’ll be less hungry and forget about the bad food anyway.
Your addiction to junk food will start to subside, and you’ll start to crave the good stuff more and more. You’ll begin to enjoy new, healthy foods: avocado, green juice, veggie burgers, maybe even kale! You get the idea. It’s the same with your thoughts, and we’ll look at this in more depth in the next chapter.
Around the time of my parents’ visit, I started a gratitude practice. I’d been listening to Oprah go on and on about gratitude for decades, so I figured that if I was going to focus on what was currently working, I’d start with that. It seemed simple enough, so every day for a year or so, I wrote out everything I was grateful for in the Tumblr blog I’d created, and posted photos to represent it.
Looking back, it’s kind of painful to read it, but I’ve a lot of compassion for that girl declaring her gratitude for pumpkin spice lattes. Instead of hating the fact that I lived in a tiny studio apartment and loathing my current reality, gratitude enabled me to focus on what was going right – even if it was the coffee I was able to buy and enjoy that day.
There’s another thing I want you to know about gratitude, and I think it will be the breath of fresh air you’re looking for: you can be in gratitude and be driven and desire more, simultaneously. So many of us are raised to believe that we just need to be grateful for what we have, and that leaves us thinking that we can’t want more.
But that’s absolutely not true – I’m grateful every day and I still have plans to take our business to the next level, to build our dream mansion (even though our current home is beautiful), and much more. Drive and gratitude actually go hand in hand and both are essential to creating a life you love.
In addition to getting on the same frequency of what you want, you have to start engaging in your life in order to get the clarity you’re craving. Although you may be tempted to check out or allow fate to do its job, please, avoid that temptation. Your dream life is not going to be signed, sealed, and delivered to your doorstep without you showing up. The most important thing is that you start moving in the direction in which your intuition and heart is guiding you. Explore.
Multi-passionate entrepreneur Marie Forleo also advocates this way of thinking, saying that ‘Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.’5 In other words: you’ll only be able to tell how you really feel about something when you’re engaged with it. See how this is all coming together?
So what is engagement? It can be as simple as giving yourself permission to explore your options and ask yourself questions – just like I did when I felt the pull to live in London. Or like Meryl Streep’s character (the chef Julia Child) in the movie Julie and Julia, when her husband asks her what she really loves doing. Her first response is: ‘to eat.’
Ask yourself right now, ‘What do I love doing?’ And then listen for the answer. Start there. Don’t judge, just listen.
I promise, if you do everything I’m about to share, it will lead to your own ‘aha’ moment and massive clarity.
After working with thousands of women over the past few years, there’s one thing I know: we sell ourselves short when it comes to what we’re capable of. So when it comes to your purpose, focus on where you’re at right now and your current strengths. Maybe you’re wondering if you have what it takes to go for your dreams. You question whether you’re capable and wish you could be further along.
If so, I need you to practice flipping that way of thinking today. Yes, you may need to acquire a new skill, but you’ll get there, and I guarantee you already have so much to offer. Start with where you are now. For example, if you’re starting a business, where are you a step ahead of your ideal client? I guarantee you have knowledge that other people need.
When I started my business, I first helped other women who were in a quarter-life crisis, as I had been. Then, as my business grew, I started to help other entrepreneurs. Where are you a step or two, or five, ahead of your audience?
If you’re in a career, what’s the next level for you – even if it feels like a leap, where do you want to go? What’s the next chapter in your book? There are plenty of things that you are good at right now, in this moment. You have a unique list of experiences that you can use as you move forward. You have your own story – one that literally no one else has. Use it.
You can talk to, or ‘interview,’ people who are doing what you think you may want to do. For example, before I started my company, I explored different entrepreneurial ventures, one of which was yoga. But as soon as I realized I’d probably need to be qualified to teach yoga – in the event that one of the staff was sick – and that I’d be tied to one location, it was a ‘no’ for me. It didn’t feel right. (Remember, your ‘nos’ are just as important as your ‘yeses.’ They help you get clearer as to your feelings.)
Make a list of all the people you’d like to interview or shadow to help you get clearer on your purpose. And if you already know your purpose and are looking to go to the next level or create a new side to your business, this exercise is relevant to you, too!
For most of us, jealousy is a common component of our day-to-day lives. If, while scrolling through Instagram, you see someone you know taking an exciting trip, jealousy rears its head. Or you stumble upon an old boyfriend who somehow managed to get married before you did, and you make it mean something about you. (In case you didn’t realize it, jealousy is always about you!)
One of the biggest issues I see today is women not knowing how to handle jealousy. It’s another one of those key life lessons that we aren’t taught how to navigate. We like to check out and deny our jealousy. We’ve been taught that it’s wrong, and instead of using it to get more clarity about a situation, it stops us. We feel drained because we waste so much energy trying to push it down, and at the same time, it builds up and creates a lack of harmony in the body and detracts from our own power and confidence.
While all this is happening, we’re unaware that jealousy can actually give us massive clarity. For example, when you see on a social media post that your old best friend got a raise or started a company and that little feeling rises inside – you know the one I mean: the why her and not me feeling – you can use your jealousy for good and as a way to help you get clear on your purpose. All you have to do in that moment is make yourself the observer of your jealousy. Here’s how this works…
Imagine taking out your mind from your head, just as you would take off a helmet. Put it in your hand and hold it to the side of your body. Observe it from all angles. Now, while you’re observing, make every thought, emotion, and judgment neutral. Not right or wrong, good or evil, just neutral.
If it helps you to think in colors, imagine changing the emotion of jealousy from green to beige. It’s just there. It doesn’t have a charge – positive or negative – it just is. What is it saying to you? What clarity is it sending your way? Do you want a raise, or to make more money? Do you want to start that business? In jealous moments, make every emotion the right emotion. Everything you’re feeling is a clue.
Everything you’re feeling is
an indication or sign leading
you in the direction of your
dream life. Even jealousy.
As Esther and Jerry Hicks say in their book Money and the Law of Attraction: ‘Any time that you are feeling negative emotion, you are in a very good position to identify what it is that you are, in that moment, wanting – because never are you clearer about what you do want than when you are experiencing what you do not want.’6
What does the jealousy mean? What’s it telling you? How is it giving you a clue about what you desire in your life? What clarity can you draw from it? How can you turn it from a neutral into a positive? How can you allow it to show you what’s possible? How can it be a motivator for you? How can it be the kick in the pants you need to take action?
You can finally stop beating yourself up for all the jealousy you feel on a daily basis. It’s time to use it for good, not evil!
You’re selfish. There, I’ve said it. We’re all selfish. We care more about ourselves than anyone else when it comes down to it. In the past, our ancestors had to, in order to survive! Yet for some reason, these days there’s a stigma attached to being selfish, and it’s gotten a bad rap. I say bring back selfish – in a positive way! You need to have faith in yourself and your ability in order to move forward with your dreams and get the clarity you’re craving.
Remember, no one is going to do this for you. No one is going to care as much as you do about your life. And when you think about it, it’s not even about being selfish – it’s self-full. It’s the ‘full’ quality that puts you on the frequency of everything you want. Stop putting yourself and your dreams on the backburner. We get what we focus on, so make your dreams and clarity the focus!
Here’s the final method to help you get clear on your purpose. Ask yourself the following questions:
I highly recommend that you try very hard not to use your mind as you’re answering those questions. Instead, listen to your heart. It has the answers. And remember, you don’t have to know the exact path or route. You’re allowed to pivot and make changes along the journey, too. Just as Elizabeth Gilbert said in Eat Pray Love, you’re not getting a tattoo on your face. You can change it. (Okay, she was talking about having kids, but is purpose really that different?)
You need to give yourself a break and remind yourself that nothing is set in stone. You can always scale back or make a change if it doesn’t feel right. Think about living your purpose as like that coast-to-coast drive across the US: you can decide to stop off at Mount Rushmore or the Grand Canyon unexpectedly if you’d like. It’s just a reroute – people do it all the time!
The most important thing is that you show up. After all, isn’t that what purpose actually is? Us showing up for the unique role we were born to play in this one life. This is your time.
Ask yourself what shifts you need to make in order to start moving in the direction of your dreams and to get more clarity. Make sure to go through the prompts in this chapter, as they will support you in getting on the frequency of what you desire. Then practice engaging in your life and notice what ‘aha’ moments you begin to have and what opportunities are attracted to you.