317 Holly Worton ~ Know Yourself: How to Answer the Question of “Where Am I Going?”

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Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! This is the third and final episode in a mini-series on what I call The Three Questions. I started two weeks ago with episode 315, where I helped you to answer the question “Who am I”? That’s a massive question to answer, and I believe it’s a life-long journey to self-knowledge. But we have to start somewhere, and I think it’s probably best done in stages.

Last week, we looked at “Where am I?”, which explores where we are in life…right now. This is all the stuff that’s temporary, that expresses what’s going on for us at a particular stage of our lives. These are the things that we can change, if we don’t like them. We looked at our mindset stuff, which makes up a part of the answer to this question: our fears, blocks, and limiting beliefs.

This is important stuff to dig up and look at so that we can answer the third question, which is the focus of this week’s episode: “Where am I going?” Each question builds on the previous one. I hope you find this useful!

Listen To This Episode

What You’ll Learn

Why it’s so important to know yourself + what you want in life
The risks that come from avoiding taking a good look at this stuff
Why it’s so important for us to look at this stuff
How to get clear on where you want to be headed
Why this is an important part of planning the life that you want for yourself

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 317. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today I am going to talk about the third, and final, topic of this mini-series on what I call the three questions which I started two weeks ago, with episode 315, where I helped you answer the question: who am I? Now, that’s a massive question to answer and I believe it is a life-long journey to self-knowledge, we have to start somewhere, and I think it is best done in stages. Starting the work and then revisiting it over and over and over again and I hope that this podcast episode has helped you to do that. Last week we looked at the question: where am I? Which explored where we are in life right now. So, this is all the stuff that is temporary, the stuff that expresses what is going on for us at a particular stage of our lives, now. These are the things that we can change if we don’t like them. We also looked at our mindset stuff last week which makes up a big part of the question: where we are, so we looked at our fears, our blocks, our limiting beliefs, because again that is all stuff that we can change.

So, this is all important stuff to dig up, and to look at, so that we can answer the third question which is what we are doing today: where am I going? Where am I headed in life? What path am I on? Where do I want to be headed?

Each question builds on previous weeks so, if you haven’t listened to the two previous weeks, I would recommend you do that before you start listening to this episode, or you can just keep going with this and then go back and go back and listen to the others.

So, what are you going to learn this week?

I am going to talk about why it is so important to know yourself, what you want in life, and where you want to be headed. I talk about the risks that come from avoiding taking a good look at this stuff. I talk about why it is so important and why it can be challenging for us to look at this stuff. I discuss how to get clear on where you want to be headed in your life, what you want to do, what you want to experience and, finally, why this is such an important part of planning the life that you want for yourself.

So let’s get started.

So, I really think that self-knowledge is one of the most important aspects of life and I really think that this is something that, you can avoid it, but that probably won’t get you to where you want to be in life. So if you are been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you probably know that I am really into the mindset stuff, I am really into knowing myself and getting clarity on who I am and what I want to be doing in my life. I am really, and this has changed drastically over the years, and I think this is an important thing, you are constantly refining and pivoting and adjusting your path so it is it is not like the answers that you come to today will be set in stone. On the contrary, that’s why I think it is so important to be revisiting these questions and revisiting this work because things are constantly changing, the goals that we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year may still be relevant or they may need to change. This year has not exactly turned out the way I wanted it, that’s not true, it has not exactly turned out the way I thought it would at the beginning of the year, my focus has been a little bit different, and that’s mainly because certain things that I had signed up for and certain things that I had planned have taken more of my time, and more of my headspace, so I spent more time on that and less time on other things that I used to spend time on.

So next year, what I need to do is get get clear again on what I want to be doing with my life, what I want to be focussing on. This is going to change constantly because as we grow and as we know ourselves better, our priorities change, our wants change, our desires change, and so we need to adjust our plan on our goals and our path. So this should absolutely always be flexible, but you still need to have a starting place, you still need to know where you want to be headed so you can walk in that direction, otherwise you will be wandering around with no end in sight, or no path. So I think it is really, really important to get clear on this even though it is meant to be flexible and it is meant for you to revisit it and update on a regular basis.

So, what are the risks from not looking at this? The risks are that you fall into the trap of just letting things happen to you, making decisions without really thinking about how they are going to effect your life in the long term, and ending up in places where you might not want to be. Have you ever thought in your life: how did I get to where am I? How did I end up in this? Well, it was all a result of decisions that you have made, of course, or decisions that you didn’t make, or neglected to make, or just let things kind of happen. So not making a decision of course is the same as making a decision, because you are making the decision to not take action. So it is all of our little decisions that have led us to where we are today and if you are not where you want to be, then figure out where you do want to be and start forging the path to get there. If it is that easy, of course, there are many kinds of sub-steps and actions and things that you need to take but it all starts with getting to know with where you want to be headed and this is all a part of taking responsibility for your life and taking charge of your life and making sure that you live the life that you want to live, rather than just living the life that you think you got stuck with. That’s not how it works.

So, I think it is really important for us to look at this stuff because otherwise, again, we end up in a place where we don’t know how we got here. So if you want to live a happy life, full of joy, full of the experiences that you want to be having, you have got to plan it, it doesn’t just happen on its own. Now I think this is such an interesting topic for me this week because unfortunately I have thrown away a lot of my old planners, actually all of them, and I am so sad about that because I have stated noticing. I used to do the Leonie Dawson planners, which I think mentioned last week but I used to do those every year, and as part of those planners they have 100 things that you want to do. And I didn’t always treat those as 100 things that I wanted to do in that year but more like a bucket list of 100 things that I wanted to do sometime. And, I never managed to achieve or do all those 100 things in each year, because that’s not really how I had planned it, but I am starting to notice things that I have written down two, three, years ago, I am now experiencing, but I am experiencing them because two, three, years ago I identified that I wanted these things, I wanted to do these things, I wanted to have these things. And now my life is at the point where I have got them, I am doing them, but I first had to identify that I wanted those things in order to get here. So, we have talked about manifesting, we have talked about achieving goals, it doesn’t always happen in the timeline that you want it to happen or that you think is going to happen but if it is something that you still really want, and you still continue to work for, it will happen. So, there you go, the important thing is to know what you want, which is what we are talking about today.

So how to get clear on where you want to be headed in life? So again, this is based on old notes and old blog posts, and I will link to those in the show notes here, of stuff that I wrote back in 2011 as a result of this talk that I gave that was based on the three questions. So, a lot of this stuff is kind of basic life-coach-y stuff, so you may have heard of this before, or you may not have, but I think this stuff is all still really useful. I was talking about the wheel of life last week, I still find it really useful to get kind of a visual representation of where I am in each aspect of my life, or each area of my life, so that I know what I want to focus on.

So, this week, where am I going? What can you do to figure that out? You may have heard of the vision board or vision list; it is that kind of collage thing where you go through old magazines and you cut out pictures and you glue them onto a big piece of paper, and you hang it on the wall. If you haven’t heard of this then I have a whole blog post that I will link to in the show notes that kind of walks you through the process of how to do this. I learned a very intuitive way of doing a vision board, it is not necessarily looking for specific images like: I want this car, I want that house, and then cutting them out. It is more like tapping into the feeling of what you want to be feeling in your life and then just cutting out pictures that resonate with you. So, again, I will link to that in the show notes but that can be a really clear way. Now the first time that I used this method of doing a vision board was back in I think 2011 when I was doing my spiritual coaching course and I did this vision board that was all water, and rivers, and streams, and forests and green, it was very green and blue. I remember finishing it and saying to someone in the class: I don’t know what that means, but it was all very nature focussed, and at the time I was living in London city, so later on that year I ended up moving to the place where I am living now in Surrey, it is not the same as the pictures but there is a creek and a river nearby and there are forests everywhere and it is the real life representation of that vision board that I created, so at some level my soul was craving nature, it was craving blues and greens, it was craving water and forests, and then I moved to a place where that was my reality.

So, sometimes, it doesn’t make sense when you do that, when you do the vision board the intuitive way, so do it whichever way works for you. Either find the specific stuff that you want or tap into the feeling of things that you want to experience or the feeling of the life that you want to experience. I find it very useful to do it either way, but I think the intuitive way is really useful because all this stuff: the car, the house, whatever it is that you want, really it is not necessarily those things that we want, but it is what we think they are going to give us, the feeling that they are going to give us, the lifestyle that we think they represent. So, vision boards can be absolutely useful and again I have linked to that in the show notes.

Another thing that is really related to this, which I just mentioned, is the bucket list, which is where you make 100, or 500, or 1000, things that you want to do in your life. This is kind of combined with another thing, where you can make a list of things that you want to be, do or have in your life. So, you could combine these two and make a bucket list of all the things that you want to be, do or have at some point in your life. I think this is really useful, and I haven’t done this in years, and actually, yesterday, I came across someone’s bucket list online and it inspired me to sit down and write a few things and I didn’t get beyond 25 or 30 things. But, it got me thinking, not only about things that used to be on my list when I did Leonie Dawson’s planners but how things have changed. So I think it is really useful to create a list like this and then of course refine it every year because it needs to be every year, or multiple times a year, because your interests are going to change. But I think it is really useful to just do a brain dump of all the things you want to experience at some point of your life, and this is the place where you can really dream big, so no one is going to see it, you don’t have to share it with anyone, you can just share anything that you want to experience. Anything that you want to be, do, or have, at some point in your life. And, this is just a good way to get stuff out of your head and really focus on: if there were no limits, what would you want for you life? What do you want to experience in your life? So, if you haven’t done this, or it has been a while since you have done it, I highly recommend that you do that, because it is really, really, useful. So if you have done a bucket list before, take it out, wherever it is, go over it and update it. So what things have you done that were on the list? What things are you no longer interested in? And, what things do you want to make happen?

Now, obviously, the first part of all of this is kind of downloading from your head onto paper, or onto a file on your computer, all the things that you want to experience, whether that is through our vision board, or your bucket list, or whatever, but you need to dump this stuff somewhere and get it to where you can see it. So, like I often talk about mindset stuff, you have got to dig it up out of your mind and get it into a place where you can do something with it. So, think about the big things, so we looked at the wheel of life: what are the different things that you want to be, do and have in each area of your life? In your spiritual life? In your career and business? In your personal life? In your relationships with friends, family, all those different areas: what do you want to experience in each of those areas? So get it all out of your head and into somewhere that you can see it. And then, it is about taking action to achieve those things, obviously if you create a bucket list with 100 things or more that can feel overwhelming but, again, you don’t have to do all these things in one year, you have got your life. which we don’t know how long that is going to last, but you have got your life to do this. So pick the one that seems easiest to attain or the most exciting to work towards or whatever, and start working towards it, start making plans, start saving money if it is something that requires money, or start learning the things that you need to learn to make it happen. But this is how you create the life that you want, you have first got to get clear on it and then you have got to set your goals, and make your plans, so that you can achieve the things that you want to achieve in life and be, do, and have, all the things that you want to experience in your life.

Now, sometimes, this path that we are on, requires us to step into a new identity and I have talked about new identities a lot on this podcast, because I feel like I keep shifting identities quite a bit. So sometimes we need to stop and figure out: who do we need to be in order to have this lifestyle that we want, or experience these things that we want? So I have mentioned my friend Cara Wilde has her new identity masterclass, and that can really help you get clear on who you need to be to achieve these things, but you can also spend the time just thinking about it. Ask yourself the question, once you have got your bucket list or vision board or whatever is your representation of the things that you want to do and the lifestyle that you want to live, ask yourself the question, journal on this: who do I need to be to achieve these things? Who do I need to be to live this life? And then journal about it and write it down and be really honest with yourself: Do you need to be more confident? Do you need to be more assertive? Do you need to have leaned something new? Do you need to have different skills? Get clear on who you need to be to achieve those things and then there is the step where you have to ask yourself: am I willing to become this? Am I willing to step into this new identity? Am I willing to learn these things that I need to learn or up-level my self-confidence, or whatever it is? Oftentimes it is just an issue of self-worth and self-confidence and believing in ourselves that can prevent us from stepping into this new identity or stepping into this new level of our lives. So, think about what it is that you need to make this shift from where you are, to what is lying on this path. Like I said, you need to set goals, prioritise, so I have talked about priorities a lot on this podcast, but you need to look at what is most important to you, what is most important in terms of what you want to experience. Pick those things, create a plan to achieve them, and then start taking the action, start walking the path, that is the only way that you are going to get from where you are to where you want to be, to where you want to be headed in life, to what you want to experience in life. And I see a lot of people online complaining about where they are, and I think I mentioned this the other week, somebody had said: how did you come to terms with the fact that you are never going to achieve the things that you thought you were going to. And it just made me really, really, sad, because if you are not dead yet and of course you are not if you are listening to this {laughing} and the person who asked the question obviously was also alive, you have still got time! Unless you are on your death bed you probably still have time to do the things that you want to do. Or change your plan and update the things that you want to do, the things that you want to achieve, and I really don’t believe, I think we are all capable of a lot more than we give ourselves credit for, and I think that most of our limitations come from within, most of our limitations are those that we set up for ourselves. And it is hard to get over those because oftentimes we don’t see them as self-imposed limitations, we think they are just the way it is, I can’t have this thing, I can’t do this thing, I am never going to be whatever and it can be really, really, hard to recognise that these limitations are made up, they don’t really exist.

So if you find yourself looking at your list, vision-board, bucket-list, whatever and you just think: I could never do this, I could never be this, I could never have this. Or, you find yourself stopping yourself from writing things down because you think it is not possible for you, make yourself write them down and then ask yourself why, what is going on? Why is this not possible for you? Why do you not believe that you can achieve this? And that is the mindset stuff that we need to work on. I have gotten to where I am today in terms of my inner landscape and my lifestyle because I have been willing to do the deep work, I have been willing to dig up my mind-crap, and I have been willing to transform it and make the changes that I need to make on an internal level so that I could make the changes that I wanted to make on an external level but you have got to do the work, you can’t expect people to hand things to you on a platter. And I think that most people that are living the lives that they want to live will tell you that they had to work to get there, and I don’t think that it is necessarily has to be hard work, or that you are necessarily have to suffer to get there, but there is work: you have got to take action, you have got to do stuff. I think also that the word “work” to some people has become a dirty word or a bad word or an unpleasant word. You see people use words like “playbook”, instead of workbook, and I can’t stand that word, but it has really become common on the Internet, I keep seeing the word playbook and it drives me crazy every time I see it, because what the hell is wrong with work? There is nothing wrong with work, work can be fun, it can be deeply satisfying, if we choose to make it that way. And I think this kind of inner work is deeply satisfying, once we start doing it we see results instantly and within days, within weeks, things start shifting, things start changing, things are different. When I created heart-centred energy work, it has the word work in it and I really debated about that, because I am aware of how some people react to the word work. And I thought, ‘do you know what? Screw it, I am just going to use the word work.’ It is work, it is work and I think work is good {laughing}. Again, I don’t think that you need to suffer, and I don’t think that it needs to be hard work, but you need to do the work, which is why I keep talking about mindset work so much.

So I am going to get off my rant here and I hope this episode has helped you give you some ideas that maybe you have probably heard of before, but have never taken action on, or maybe you did and haven’t revisited it.

So this is my invitation to you to take action. Go to the Show Notes: https://www.hollyworton.com/317 find my blog on my vision board, do a vision board, maybe you will like it or maybe you won’t but it is worth giving it a try if you haven’t done it before and do a bucket list, create your bucket list and dump everything out of your head onto a list, whether it is in your journal, on a piece of paper, on your computer. There are apps for bucket lists, if you are stuck for ideas just google: “bucket lists”, you will find people posting their online. I found some lists of 1000 things, 500, 100s of stuff: go through them and just see what other people want to experience in their lives and that might give you an idea of what you want to experience in yours. I think also sometimes if we get in the mindset: I never get what I want and life sucks and it is too bad, and we are not feeling that great about where we are, then it can be really hard to think about what’s possible, of what we could be experiencing instead of the crap that we are currently experiencing. So, give yourself permission to dream big on this, use other people’s lists as examples, but get it all out where you can see it and then do the work to achieve those things. Because, also taking steps towards achieving these things will also trigger your mind crap which means that it will bring up stuff for you to work on.

I hope you found this useful, as usual that is always my kind of hope! I hope you take the actions; I hope you give this a try, I hope you revisit your bucket list if you already have one or that you try a new one. And I hope that this helps you start making different decisions for your life, to get to the places you want to get, to experience the things that you want to experience.

I originally went into this episode thinking that I was going to give you a list of all these different things to do but, honestly, it is just about dumping them out of your head and into somewhere where you can see them, and then taking action.

So, I welcome your feedback as usual. if you have any questions or comments email me at: [email protected] or you can find me online and get in touch.

Thank you for listening I really appreciate it and I will be back next week with another solo episode, probably not on the three questions, I will definitely revisit these, might be revisiting them with Jo Casey, possibly Joanna Hennon, because I want to get other people’s take on this and I really think this is going to be the focus on my work in the future, we shall see.

So remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/317 for the show notes on this episode, thank you.