Dealing With The Anxiety Of Finding Your Purpose
what is my purpose am I just meant to do one thing for the rest of my life like is this it like is it the female entrepreneur Association for the rest of my life the idea of just doing one thing forever freaks me out like I'm like I'm here I just I don't want it to just be one [Music] thing oh hello hello so I want to chat with you about something something that I've been really thinking on for the past few years and I really think this is like such an important conversation to have and I wonder how many other people have been struggling with the same kind of thoughts I've been struggling with to start off last night I went to see an evening with Elizabeth Gilbert and she talked on stage for an hour and a half and it was so amazing it was funny actually when I got home I got into bed and I checked my aing data for the day and then it was like nap 738 or something and I was like that's literally when she started speaking I was like I must have just relaxed so much when she side speaking that my aura ring thought I was having a nap I was not having a nap but it was really interesting so she stood on stage and what she talked about was something she called purpose anxiety and she talked about how we kind of live in this time where we feel so much pressure to figure out what our purpose in life is we feel like we're supposed to have it figured out we're supposed to know what like our unique gifts are to bring to this world she said there's so much pressure on all of us to to feel like we're supposed to leave our mark on the World to leave a legacy to be like living big and like achieving amazing things and if we're not we just feel like we're completely failing and if we don't know what our purposes then the idea of not having a purpose again makes you feel like you're failing and we're all trying to figure it out and get to this place where we know why we're here like what our purpose is and she has the amount of pressure that we put on ourselves causes so much anxiety and it creates so much misery and unhappiness and so many people struggle with this and I was like oh my gosh they do indeed it was fascinating listening to her because how many times have you felt lost in life like and when you feel lost you feel like you're not supposed to feel lost you feel like you shouldn't be feeling lost you shouldn't be feeling that way you should know what you meant to be doing you should have it all figured out and I think so many of us get to that place where we get like in a real spiral when it comes to knowing what we're meant to be doing I remember in my early 20s feeling like I was having a course life crisis and I'm sure many of us felt like we had quar life crisises for me it was cuz I was trying to figure out what am I meant to be doing what is my purpose what is the thing that I meant to do and I remember one time going to a ballet or something and I saw the people dancing and I was like oh but they're amazing they know what their purpose is in life that person's a dancer like why can't I be good at something like that so I know what I'm supposed to be doing and I kind of got all caught up in thinking that I was meant to have it all figured out and for a really long time like it drove me crazy like it drove me insane and then I went on this massive personal development journey and ended up obviously starting the female entrepreneur Association and just kind of allowing myself to kind of show up for what felt like was flowing through me and stop forcing everything stop pushing with everything and just kind of go with the flow and that kind of got me to a place where I did feel like fulfilled and content and happy but over the years like the questions have popped back up around like what is my purpose am I just meant to do one thing for the rest of my life like is this it like is it the female entrepreneur Association for the rest of my life and like I'm not going to lie like I have struggled with that idea the idea of just doing one thing forever freaks me out like I'm like I'm here I just I don't want it just be one thing I know for myself I have had so much anxiety I've battled with around these question and these thoughts and a couple of years ago I started to really struggle with it all and I struggled because of this and it it be interesting to know if you've experienced these thoughts and these feelings you know when You' you've achieved a goal that you've set yourself and then you kind of feel like Oh what now instead of feeling like euphoric you feel lost and I had set some really big goals to myself you know I wanted to build a really successful business I wanted to write a bestselling book and get it published I wanted to be able to buy a house and be able to build my own home and I wanted all these things I wanted to get married have kids blah blah blah blah blah and then I realized like oh my gosh like I've achieved all these goals and instead of feeling like that's amazing I kind of went into a bit of Despair and I started to think well I think one the fear of like can I keep all this stuff came kind of kicked in like what if I can't sustain this blah blah blah like what if I lose it all all those kinds of like worri is kind of crept up but I also just had this really unsettling feeling of like well what's next what am I meant to do moving forward like I've reached all these goals and so I would have conversations with people and they were like well what do you want and I'm like I don't know like and they were like thinking of like big goals but I'm like and I kept thinking but do I really want that so for example in business it might be like well you got to seven figures now why don't you get to eight figures and I'm like okay but then when you feel it's like a hollow goal that's empty you don't really feel fully connected to it you're just doing it cuz you feel like you're supposed to go bigger you're supposed to do all that but then you're like but am I really like is that really what I'm supposed to be doing I kind of got into this point where I was just actually feeling pretty miserable I was feeling really lost I was feeling really confused I felt confused about like what I was meant to be doing and around that time it's like well I've been doing this business now for like 10 years like I started FAA in 2011 so in like 2021 around that time like I was like it's 10 years like it's a long time to be doing one thing do I want to keep going with the same messaging is this what I'm just going to keep doing forever and I started to feel really lost and confused about everything and I remember one time speaking to somebody that I was in a mastermind with and he said to me Carrie why don't you just live the dream and I thought huh why don't I just live the dream and then I thought what does living the dream even mean and like what does it look like and so then I kind of had all these confusing ideas around what living the dream looked like cuz I think so much 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