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Calling all small business owners

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Published: 1st June 2020

This Article was Written by: Nik Moore - The Mindset Ninja

There’s more to the word “calling” than meets the eye

What is your calling?

I love this question: “Why are you on this planet?”

When I ask it in a coaching session I nearly always get the same response……silence. Silence followed by either a powerful answer or, more often, a question from the client which is “gosh, I don’t know, what do you mean?”

As the famous saying goes, the quality of any question is not in its structure, but in the answer it elicits.

Put simply, a good question is one that causes people to think about the answer. Answers that come too readily don’t come from the unconscious mind and it’s in the unconscious brain where true change lies.

To prove this, here’s one of my favourite phrases: when we do what we’ve always done we get what we’ve always got. We do the things that we’ve always done because of habits. And change comes from changing those habits. No surprise there. But what you may not realise is that change has to come from deep within the unconscious.

The coaching process lets you “see”. And what you “see” you can change.

Coaching is a process by which the coach asks the client lots of questions about the client’s life. Great questions get great answers. Answers that cause the client to think and reflect on their own life. That’s the process of going into the unconscious mind. Once the question is answered, the process of self-reflection will have brought something from deep inside the client to their front-of-mind. Therefore they can now “see” it. It’s no longer hidden away in the unconscious mind……and what we “see” we can do something about.

So, back to the initial question. What is your calling?

In business so many of us don’t end up doing the job that we were supposed to be doing. We get forced into them through life circumstances. Perhaps you leave University. The clock is ticking. You need money. You take the first job that you think would interest you.

Perhaps you’re desperate to leave your firm because of a bullying boss. You can’t wait to get out. You leave and take one of the first jobs that comes your way because anything is better than your current job. Again, is it your dream job though?

But some people DO choose the right industry with the perfect job for them but sadly find out that there is a poor culture in their chosen company. And then it becomes easy to get stuck.

In both examples, unfortunately people find themselves in a job which doesn’t satisfy their calling in life. So here is a list of pros and cons when this happens:

Cons: what happens when you don’t connect with your calling at work

You go to work each day but you’re not committed to it because it’s work that you feel doesn’t nourish you and just makes all the money for your boss

You find yourself feeling like you’re not growing mentally, emotionally and on a skills level

You find your creativity stifled but can’t work out how this is happening

You start being late for work but don’t really know why

Other areas of your life start to suffer as well. You might lose the urge to want to go to the gym or socialise or you might start eating or drinking more etc.

But when you DO find your calling, this is what can happen:

You go to work with a spring in your step

You find yourself automatically wanting to volunteer for more work. You go beyond the call of duty

You find it easier to get on with other people because they are drawn to your positivity

You put in extra hours willingly. You get in early and might stay on after hours because you want to

You feel like you’re growing as a person. Developing, expanding, becoming a better version of yourself

You don’t feel the urge to self-soothe through excessive drinking, eating or whatever your guilty pleasure is

Other things become important to you such as health, relationships, hobbies etc.

The importance of “living your calling”

The list above isn’t fiction by the way. These things really do happen. In fact I experienced many of these myself when I retrained many years ago as a coach.

My story
I loved being a Conference and Video Producer but the work was becoming repetitive whereas coaching is a limitless vocation. By that I mean that you are working with a different client each time and their specific goals are unique to them. Thanks to their uniqueness they require a wholly different approach each time. But for me the “calling” that I get from coaching is that I can see people discover what their own calling is….. and then we work together for them to create new paths in their own life that lead to it.