Entre-Talk: Courage and Purpose

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, Entre-Talk: Courage and Purpose.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master-certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Gee, that’s a mouthful. I kept fumbling over my words, Better Than Happy Entre Talk. I can say it, I promise. Okay my friends I’ve got some thoughts today so get ready. I want to talk about courage and I want to talk about purpose. And I’ll tell you why I’m lumping these two things together. And I especially want all my female listeners to listen up. Well, I actually want the men to listen up too. But I think that this topic of purpose and following your purpose, pursuing your purpose, living out your purpose is extremely gendered in not a useful way in terms of how we think about it.

And so I want to bring it to your awareness today because ultimately you get to think about this however you want to. And if the way you’re thinking about it serves you then I love it, keep it. But I want to bring to your awareness that as women we’ve been socialized and conditioned to believe that if we pursue our purpose it might be that we’re being selfish.

How many times have you heard a man say, “I have this little business that I started and it’s doing relatively well but I think I could do a lot more with it. I think it could be a lot bigger. I could be a lot more successful. I could make a lot more money but I’m worried that growing this business is me being selfish.” I’m not saying it hasn’t happened that men haven’t said that. I’m sure it has but I have not heard it very often.

Most of us would not say that. If you’re a woman and you have a husband and he were to say to you, “I think I want to really put a lot into this business and I want to grow it, I want to make more money.” You would go, “Okay honey, well I support you. What do we need to do to make that happen?”

Now, let’s look at the opposite gender. Let’s imagine a woman saying, “I have this business, it’s doing relatively well. It’s doing okay but I think I could do a lot more. I want to put a lot more into it. I think I could grow it, make a lot more money. And we don’t even need the money. I just think it might be cool to see what’s possible.” Might you wonder if she was being selfish? I wouldn’t. I would be like, “Yes, let’s go.” But I think a lot of you and a lot of you women who maybe are in that situation come to me and say to me all the time, “How do I know if I should do that or if I’m just being selfish?”

So I just want you to notice the difference, notice the discrepancy based on gender. Why does gender have anything to do with it? I am just curious. I just want to put it out there. And I want to tell you what I believe about purpose. I believe that every single one of us has purpose and I don’t mean that you have something you need to do to earn your worth. I don’t mean that you need to prove anything to the world or earn your right to be alive and be a human. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about something that drives you that you’re curious about, that you have the potential to be very good at, maybe you’re already even naturally kind of good at it. That, if you choose to pursue it, it will benefit you and it will benefit the world. It will benefit you because as you pursue your purposes, as you work to fulfill your purpose you will grow internally. You will connect more with yourself. You will become better at the things you want to be better at.

You will learn how to be there for yourself when you aren’t good at it, when you fall down. So it will serve you internally. It will serve you externally in that you can make money or achieve whatever kind of goals you want to achieve in the world. But it will also serve the world because in some way it will be you helping others, serving others, providing something for others that is useful for others as they go to fulfill their purpose. And so I think like I said, every single one of us has that.

Now, how we fulfill that purpose is very different for all of us and it might even be different for you at different times in your life. So I recently heard Jade Simmons who is a motivational speaker and brilliant, beautiful, amazing. I love you so much Jade Simmons. I’m a huge fan of yours. She recently said this about or I heard her say it recently about purpose. She said, “Purpose is not the thing that you do. Purpose is the thing that happens inside other people when you do what you do.” What?

Let me say that one more time. Your purpose is not the thing that you’re doing or that you’re meant to do. Your purpose is the change or transformation that happens inside other people when you do what you do. That’s pretty amazing. So what is your purpose? And then how are you going to execute that purpose, that is going to change. It’s going to change at various times in your life. Sometimes it’s going to be something you do at home with your own family. Sometimes it’s going to be something you do out in the world in your business.

Sometimes it’s going to be something you do in your church calling. It’s going to change but your purpose doesn’t change and I’ll tell you how you know if you’re not fulfilling your purpose, you’ll feel bored, you’ll feel stagnant, you’ll feel overwhelmed. I talked a little bit about this last week but you will feel like you’re not progressing, you’ll feel stagnant, you’ll feel dissatisfied, unfulfilled, all of those things.

And the reason I’m calling this episode, Courage and Purpose is because there is that end of the continuum where we’re not pursuing our purpose. And then there’s the other end where we go all in on our purpose, on fulfilling it, on pursuing it. And that requires courage, it requires courage, it does. It requires courage because it’s scary to go out and try new things and learn things and meet people and ask people for help and ask people if they’re interested in whatever it is that you do and learn about technology and be terrible at it.

All of that stuff requires courage but I think those are the most obvious ways in which pursuing your purpose is fearful. I want to point out some of the less obvious ways in which you still need to have courage. Here’s the main way. You’re going to have to say no to other opportunities or other asks. You’re going to have to say no to people who ask you to just do them a favor if it doesn’t align with you fulfilling your purpose.

You’re going to have to say no to what seem like kind of cool opportunities, something that might be kind of fun and kind of cool to do it and might bring in a lot of money but it doesn’t get you closer to your purpose. Then you’re going to have to say no to that. And ideally you’re not going to make up a lie. You’re just going to tell the honest truth which is, “Thanks so much for the opportunity but that just doesn’t align with my purpose right now.” That requires courage.

You might even have to say no to some things within your own family. You might have to speak up and be bold about what you want to do. You might have to take action towards something that other people think you’re foolish for doing. You’re going to have judgment even from people that you care about. So fulfilling your purpose requires courage, it really does. But I’ll tell you what, I just talk to so many of you, especially women who don’t usually come right out and say, “I don’t want to fulfill my purpose.” Nobody ever says that.

But what they say instead is either, “I don’t know what it is.” Or, “I’m just not ambitious. I’m just really satisfied with my life right now. I don’t really want anything more. I don’t mean anything more. I’m just really content with where I’m at.” Or, “I just don’t have the time or the mental capacity.” Or, “I just have too much on my plate to think about anything else.” And listen, those might be valid things. I’m not saying that for every person that says that, that this means they’re not fulfilling their purpose.

What I’m saying is that for some of you, you’re using those things as an excuse because you’re afraid to fulfill your purpose. You’re afraid to even know what your purpose is. And I want to encourage you to step outside of that fear because I notice that, and this is definitely a generalization but I notice that for the most part men don’t have this kind of fear. They want to go after things. They want to be ambitious and driven. They want to aim high. And they don’t tell themselves that it’s selfish to want to do that.

It’s seen as noble and admirable and courageous. And I want to offer that it’s just as noble and courageous regardless of whether you’re a male or a female, regardless of whether you’re married or single, regardless of whether you have children at home or not. You have purpose. And the more you go towards your purpose and give yourself permission to strive to fulfill your purpose, I’m not saying it will be easy and I’m not saying that it will make everything in your life go smoothly, it won’t.

But the alternative is worse. The alternative of abandoning yourself and your purpose is far worse and it catches up with you. Why do you think so many women have thyroid problems and ulcers and all these other problems? Because we abandon a part of ourselves. Please don’t do that.

Alright, told you I was going to be on a rant today. I love you. I’ll see you next time. Have a beautiful rest of your week, bye bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.