When I started coaching, I heard somebody say, we set goals to feel an emotion.
That was ten years ago, and I'm certain it's true.
Think of any goal you've set recently. Straighten up your finances. Repair a relationship. Release 20 lbs. How would achieving it feel? That feeling, my friend, is your actual goal.
My current goal is to become a trail runner, but it's not trail running that matters; it's feeling fit, strong and capable as a midlife woman. While those are certainly physical states, they're feelings too.
What do you want to feel?
I also want to feel connected and joyful. Therefore, whatever I do with my life, it should dance with those two emotions. It's a cheat code for living with immense purpose.
How?
When people say they want to live on purpose — which is a goal — they're really saying, "I want to live with a particular feeling."
And listen, I know better than most that abstraction is not what we need right now, and "living on purpose" as a concept, is exhausted to tears. So let me break down exactly what I mean.
Life purpose has three levels:
- Level Three - What will I do next? Buy a house? Start a business? Change jobs? Go on safari?
- Level Two - Who will I be next? What satisfies me? What's my legacy? Who do I serve?
- Level One - What do I want my life to mean? How do I want to feel? What am I even about?
Trail running lives on level three, but level one informs it.
So using your brightest emotions — how you want to feel — to define your goals, will drive your level one purpose in an authentic way, which will then drive all the levels above it. The equation looks like this:
Bright Emotion → Goal Work = Purposeful Living
As an example.
Earlier this year, I created something called Firegirl Friend Camp. We did our first one in Taos, New Mexico in April. It's not a retreat exactly, it's a summer-camp weekend for women, that centers connection, joyfulness and the natural world, found off the beaten-path.
Our next one is August 7-10 in the Colorado Rockies and registration opens next week. Get on this list to be the first to know when it does.
See what I did there? (Besides invite you to come.) The level one purpose of my life is to connect deeply with myself, God and others, and to revel in the joy that results, while inspiring others to do the same.
That's Friend Camp in the abstract.
In the real world, Friend Camp just looks like women in their pajamas, chatting over coffee, or wandering through the woods to dinner, at a long table with friends, after a heavenly hammock-nap in the mountains.
Sounds good doesn't it? It is, and it's founded on my desire for connection and joyfulness.
Remember, the purpose of your life's second half can include lots of things. The emotion you want to feel is the thread that stitches them together.
Maybe you want this too.
Great, come with us to Colorado August 7-10 for a communal, glamping adventure at 8,500 feet in the Rocky Mountains. It's a rare experience and it's only open to about a dozen women, so it's intimate too.
We're going to work on your second-half purpose and the emotions that lie beneath, through some late-night coaching and daytime playtime.
By the way, every image here was taken in the neighborhood of this Friend Camp. I don't know of another valley more beautiful or a venue more comfy and stylish.
This is not your average retreat. We're going to show you what life out West feels like by immersing you in it, and surround you with fun, new friends.
So click here to hop on the interest list. Registration opens next week.
See you in Colorado in August!
xo
ps. The nearest airport to Firegirl Friend Camp #2 is Durango — DRO
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