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Don’t Be Afraid to Fail, Be Afraid Not to Try (Discovering Your Purpose and Passion)

I am grateful for? The fact that I'm still here, and for the most part healthy. Not knowing what will happen tomorrow and being okay with that. Liking myself more today than I did yesterday or maybe last month. Truly giving zero fucks about what others think of me. The ability to say, why not me? The tough times in my life because they've made me who I am today. We asked women about what's your purpose and that felt very big. It felt overwhelming. It felt, like wow, is this like an existential question of like why am I here on this earth and really does it have to be that and it's an important question to answer. Well, what we heard a lot from those women was like where I am right now in my life, is this it? Is this it? What's next? It feels very overwhelming to look at all that you've accomplished and then ask yourself like what's my purpose? And a lot of women kind of thought that maybe their purpose would just suddenly emerge or become apparent. And it would be this ...

grand legacy that they were leaving and in reality, our purpose isn't something that's this huge solving all the world's problems. Well, and that question too, I mean, for women we have these expectations and these laundry lists of things we do, they're like oh my gosh, okay purpose, wait do I have to have purpose too? When we put a box and check that too, but like oh one more thing to do. And it doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't and we tend to look around us and again with social media and with everything else we look around us and say well look at what's she's doing and look what they're doing. Oh my gosh, I'm just doing this. And you know what are the expectations that we're placing on ourselves to be at a certain level at a certain time in our lives and that really can sort of skew how we view what our purpose and passion looks like. Right, well expectations, as we know, kid of expand so huge that it kind of limits us because it doesn't allow us to get to things that we actually really love. It takes up so much space of the to dos. Well like when you and I met, you know, I was in PR, you were in advertising and as far as we knew at that time, I mean, everybody around us had carved a path out. You were on the advertising track. I was in PR. And yeah sure kids came along, but the fact that we announced quietly that we were writing a book was met with a lot of skepticism and we fought against that every step of the way. And we'd secretly meet at Starbuck's and everybody was like what are you guys doing? We're like writing a book, we think it's really important. It's like well that's really cute. That's good for you. And it was sort of amazing. Right and it was scary too at the same time because we were scared of what people would say or what people would presume or what people would, you know, and that was scary for us. So we totally understand that those are things that-- And the far of failure too. But in the end, you know, looking back, and we have lots more to do, don't know what it is yet, but now never in a million years thought we would be authors and we allowed that door to open and we allowed that to kind of be a reality for us. Right, and so it doesn't have to be overwhelming. So there's some questions that are really helpful to kind of start to ask yourself one, like what feeds your soul? And that's still a big question, but going back to just what makes me happy? What feeds me? What do I love to do? What do I love to wake up to? And if you bring it back to our example, it's funny, it's like you wouldn't look at our career paths and think this, but we always were that person for others that would try to listen and empathize and drill down, like why, is this an epidemic? Why are we all feeling this way? We always did that. And so now, just looking at it, it makes sense. Right, no it's true. But we go on that path. We love to discover and find out and search for-- Social anthropologists. What was happening with other women and it turned into a book, which was a complete surprise. And then asking yourself too like what brings you energy? Again, what kind of gets you excited? What makes you feel like you want to do something new and spend the time to kind of write that down. Again, that example of the woman who changed her career from publishing to organizing. She would hide it, but her eyes, she'd walk into a container store and her eyes would like light up. And she'd like walk around and quietly buy all these like organization-- And she probably doesn't think that could be a career for herself. She's like I love organizing. And until someone said to her, like hey open up your eyes there's a whole, you love that so much and you can create a path for yourself and actually make money and have financial freedom. And bring joy to people. Right. She loves it, it's amazing. And what would you do if you felt no judgment? Judgment, again, as we've talked about is so huge. We need to put that on a shelf during this time. I mean, you really have to. It doesn't matter what your husband thinks, your friends, or the judgment you have for yourself. Right, and that's when writing it down is so important because just thinking about it, it's hard to even get yourself in that position, but when you start to write down in a journal your dreams or like what you really would do if you took away all those boundaries that have been sort of limiting you in your life and kind of play around with that. Right, and we are pretty spiritual and we have always visualized our goals and if you get really specific, if you can figure out, and you can dream big, it's fine, but if you can get really specific with it, you know, the universe can help meet you, but you gotta put it out there. And maybe a vision board or a collage or write it down. Just write it down over and over again. Yeah, a vision board's great 'cause it really does help you remember on a day to day basis. You walk by it going to the kitchen. You walk by it going and it really allows you to remember like, oh those are my dreams. And remember our kids would like walk by in the kitchen and be like what is that? What is that collage? What is it now? That's great. Oh, Oprah's on it, oh alright. (laughing) Guess what? But it works. It works. Manifesting that and really having that vision is yeah. And then, you know, not looking at it for the rest of your life. It's just now. Like what brings me that energy, that soulfulness, that whatever it is to your life right now and maybe the next couple years. Not like the rest of your life. It doesn't have to be the purpose and your legacy for forever. It's just what makes you feel-- And it can change. It can shift. It might be just the conduit to opening the next door. We've seen that too. So yeah, just go with what feels right. And passion can be this really overwhelming word, but breaking through those fears, like really breaking through those fears can be so liberating. And start small. Really, really start small. It can be a hobby. For one woman it was gardening. And so for her, she didn't know where it was gonna go for her, but she knew that she needed to be in nature and so she followed that path and now is literally like her whole like yoga practice in nature is exactly where she should be. Yeah, and don't overthink it. Like we tend to be women who like think about it and cross it off and think about it again and write it down and cross it off. Is that really true? Is that really how I feel? Well the statistics aren't there. Right, there's no data. No one writes a book. Right. So really don't overthink it. Just jump in. Jump in and try something new. Again, not knowing, we heard this again and again, it almost paralyzed women when we would ask like what's your purpose or even a passion. They would almost get defensive, like well I don't know. Like how am I supposed to find that out? It feels very overwhelming. And so don't worry if you don't know. Again, invite friends over and wait, board it out and maybe it's enough to just start a different routine for yourself and go on a walk or enroll in a class. I mean, something that feels different to you that disrupts your monotony and the pattern that you're setting. And following your intuition. I mean, we have it. We all have this gut and sometimes we push it aside because it's not as practical as we want it to be or it doesn't make sense or again our fears. It sounds silly or childlike. Yeah, and maybe you wanna be a singer and go to karaoke night. Do little things that fulfill this-- Or sing in the choir at church. I mean, there's just ways to sort of like tap into those things. Follow it. Follow your guts. There for a reason. And rewinding to childhood, we love this. Like going back to how you were in kindergarten or where you were as a two year old or in elementary school, whether it was a gas station for you. I'm still trying to manifest that one. Or dancing or you know it gives us clues to what we can do now by going back to what we loved when there was no boundaries, there was no nos, no shoulds, it was all coulds. And we interviewed a shaman one of our favorite people that we've worked with over the years for the book and he talks a lot about seeing life through the lens of children or teenagers. Our kids can teach us so much. They're risk takers. They literally don't care what people think of them. They're very selfish. They're selfish, which can be good. And they're also able to pivot quickly. They're able to fail fast, which we can sometimes have a really hard time with. And so they sort of say why not me? Of course I'm gonna try this. Why wouldn't I? Why can't I? And so we really get jaded over the years and we are our own worst enemies. Yeah, and we don't know where it's gonna lead to. That little small playful moment might turn into your next career or it might turn into your next giveback. It might give back to your children in some way. You don't know how it's gonna manifest or how it's gonna, actually what the outcome is, but looking at it without being jaded on what the outcome should be, it's just let it happen. Yeah, we were just interviewed by a radio host who she, I think was like a history teacher, and then at age 53 decided to become a radio host and trained and she was the person interviewing us and she was fabulous. And she was just talking about how she opened this whole new door for herself. Well and she said she went to back to I love talking to people and I love hearing their stories and I love the research that goes behind it and I love being able to talk to different women everyday about their journey. And she wouldn't have done that. She went back to like what do I love? What makes me tick? And be generous with yourself. Like be generous. Allow yourself that time. It's not always easy, but it's super important too. And gentle with yourself. I mean, this might sound lofty, but it's just baby steps. Just anyone of these little exercises can sort of open your eyes to something new and that's maybe all it takes. And exciting. I mean, this is sad, it's such a wonderful time in our life to be able to push aside all of this expectation and really start to rebuild and reinvent what this next chapter looks for us, like looks for us, it's really, really exciting. It is an amazing time to be a woman now in this phase and we just can't lose sight of that and the bigger picture is, this truly can be the better half of our lives if we support each other, if we roll up our sleeves. In our book there are more exercises to do, more just thought processes to grapple with and that's the whole goal of the book is to sort of be the roadmap that our moms never had to give us. Right, and really changing that story in our head of it's not the end. It's the next. There's a huge opportunity for us to finally spend time on ourselves and figure out what makes us be the best that we can be. It's really exciting. And we do kind of wrap the book with a plea for gratitude because we do really believe that feeling gratitude on a daily basis for everything that's good, everything we have, everything we have manifested in the smallest of ways is what will propel us forward. Is what will give us the right perspective to gain every joy, everything we want moving forward. Yeah, and if we practice that gratitude daily even just for a few minutes, it changes the way that we feel about ourselves and our lives as well and gives us more opportunity to move forward. We would love to continue the conversation and you can visit us at weareperennials.co. It's an opportunity to really dig a little deeper and have more conversation about this topic. Come together as a community so that you don't feel as alone. We'll be posting different articles and topics and kind of hear our story and get the books and just continue to embrace what's sure to be the better half of our lives. Absolutely.