Joyce Dillon

Health, Wellness & Purpose Strategy Coach

Personal Growth

Is the Life or Business You Are Living The Life You Desire?

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Life desires

As I travel to engage in conferences or coach entrepreneurs, teach life purpose classes or facilitate painting retreats, people consistently ask me the same question: “Joyce, how do I discover my purpose in life?”

Right now, millions of people are experiencing a yearning and desire to awaken to their unique gifts and talents, offer them in service to the world, and to enjoy a life of abundance and fulfillment as a result.

So why is living a life of meaning and purpose so elusive? It is because our current social system does not support us to live “on purpose” but rather to live “in survival mode.”

This is why many people feel trapped in a dull, daily routine which drains their life energy. They may also be plagued by stress, and wracked with anxiety and fear. Others are frantically “chasing the buck” and/or consumed with their lust for power and possessions.

However, many others may already enjoy freedom, the fruit of their prosperity generated from their business, but even such freedom does not quench their thirst for true and rich meaning in their life.

One of life’s great fulfillments is achieving true inner and outer purpose.

As we know, it is not always easy to find and live your life purpose! While this reflection work cannot be fully accomplished during a single session or a weekend retreat, it is a great place to start this process.

So how and where do you start?

The process begins with becoming self-aware, then accepting a high level of responsibility for your life. Next, you can learn how to remove the blocks and beliefs that keep you from realizing your true potential.

Clear your Path
 
Getting Clear on a New Path

The first step is to get quiet and get connected to the present moment. You must release your concerns regarding your past and your future. Meditation and quiet reflection are essential tools you’ll use on this journey of self-discovery.

Sit with a journal or piece of paper. Ask yourself: “What is trying to come forth in my life? What is my inner purpose for my life? What is my greater calling?”

Keep meditating and asking these questions.

Pay attention! Over time, your purpose will be revealed through the type of information, events and opportunities which come into your life.

Sarah’s Search to Reveal Her Life Purpose

Sarah, a divorce attorney, consulted me to help her break through her unhappiness within her current legal career. She wanted to start a business that was in alignment with her desire to empower women to use their gifts to enjoy a more meaningful life.

We started by examining Sarah’s life for common threads and major themes. Together, we identified her core, lifelong strengths, values, and passions that energized her and brought her joy.

As a result of this work together, Sarah started a non-profit organization which empowers women around the world to build small businesses which support themselves and their families. Sarah is now enjoying a more meaningful and purposeful life!

Getting Support

Like Sarah, most people find this process challenging to do alone. That’s why I recommend you share this experience with a small group of like-minded individuals, or have a “Finding Your Life Purpose” session that I offer.

Take Action NOW!

Ready to find and live your life purpose? Then take the first step by signing up for a complimentary Find Your Life Purpose session. Together, we will take the next steps!

Awaken To Your Calling: Create the Life and Work You Love

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women_with_arms_outstretched

  • Are you yearning to make a life change but find it overwhelming?
  • Do you continue to work at a job that drains your very soul?
  • Are you fearful of doing what you most desire to do?

There is always a particular moment when you clearly know you need to make change in your life. That desire for change is a like a grain of sand in a shoe, imperceptible at first but grinding away until it becomes the only thing you notice. Your instinct is to dismiss the feelings. Saying, “I can tough this out “or “it could be worse”.

Often we find it easier to recognize the emotions and feeling of others but nearly impossible to recognize our own needs and yearnings. Why is this?

By midlife, after years of loss, comprise, denial, and fear we lose track of our “true self” and the dreams we had. We often struggle letting go of what does not serve our highest needs.

The ego has great difficulty letting go of anything and will defend itself with great intensity. The truth is we must let go of who we are in order to become who we want to be. Gregory Levoy, author of Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic life says, “Sometimes we hear the calling but fear what will be demanded of us if we respond to the “call”.

Our lives speak through our actions and reactions, our intuitions and instincts, our feelings and our words. If we can learn to listen, read our own responses, we will receive the guidance we need.

You must slow down to be able to hear the “calling”, as to why you need to reinvent yourself, change your mindset, change your career, go back to school, or start a business.

Moments of awareness come in many ways to point us toward action.
They include:

  • A dream that keeps coming back.
  • A symptom in your body that reoccurs
  • A call from someone you need to hear from
  • A book that falls into your lap
  • An emotional issue that keeps reappearing
  • A e-mail that excites you about doing volunteer work

These wake-up calls stimulate your intuition; encourage you to ask deeper questions and to seek the answers. This process is a gateway into the deepest layers of your “inner self”.

The time is now! All it takes is an idea, a discovery or a breakthrough that turns the fear of your unwanted situation into the hope of new possibilities.

Strategy Session:

StrategySession
To explore what your next step is request a complementary strategy session, where we’ll meet together for 30 minutes and uncover what you’d really like to create in your life, and I will show you how I can help you reach your dream.

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7 Great Reasons to Listen to Discover Your Calling

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rainbowWelcome to 2014 a New Year.

How is this year going to be different than last year? If you don’t make any changes in your beliefs, dreams or expectations for your life not much will change.

If you could live your life with more passion and purpose what would you be doing, what would you be feeling, how would your life change?

It is not that difficult to make simple life changes than can dramatically shift your life?

This is why Jennifer, my co-host and myself decided to make our own life changes this year and to offer the strategies and practices we are doing on a free teleconference: Discover Your Calling: 4 Power Steps to Activate Your Life Purpose; Wednesday, January 15th at 7:00pm EST.

We have so many people who are interested we had to get more telephone lines! If you can’t attend the complementary teleconference just go ahead and sign up and we will send you the link to download the call.

If you are struggling with feeling connected, passionate, in service and living your purpose here are 7 reasons you should listen to the teleconference.

  1. You have a sense that there is more you are here to be and do in this lifetime, but you are not clear how to tap into your brilliance.
  2. You know you’re supposed to be living a much bigger life than you are now, but don’t know how to make this change.
  3. You’re stuck in old emotions, memories and other unproductive life patterns
  4. You dread going to work or performing your current daily activities.
  5. You expend a lot of energy resisting change or trying to force things to happen or go your way.
  6. You don’t feel connected to your life anymore, or you don’t feel aligned to the natural flow of the universe.
  7. You are frustrated with your lack of progress and spend too much time with struggle, fear and doubt.

Seize this opportunity to explore 4 Power Steps to Activate Your Life Purpose. Sign up Now!

A Lesson in StillnessA Hike in the North Georgia Mountains

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Apple Capitol of Georgia
Photo: Art Meripol

About 80 miles north of Atlanta, the small town of Ellijay sits on the edge of the Chattahoochee National Forest. Renowned as the “Apple Capitol of Georgia.”

These poems by Mark Nepo reminds me of how much I love to hike in the fall in the North Georgia Mountains. It is magnificent!

Reduced to Joy

I was sipping coffee on the way to work,the back road under a canopy of maples turning orange. In the dip of woods, a small doe gently leaping. I pulled over, for there was nowhere else to go. She paused as if she knew I was watching. A few orange leaves fell around her like blessings no one can seem to find. I sipped some coffee, completely at peace, knowing it wouldn’t last. But that’s alright.

We never know when we will blossom into what we’re supposed to be. It might be early. It might be late. It might be after thirty years of failing at a misguided way. Or the very first time we dare to shed our mental skin and touch the world.

They say, if real enough, some see God at the moment of their death. But isn’t every fall and letting go a death? Isn’t God waiting right now in the chill between the small doe’s hoof and those fallen leaves? — Mark Nepo

Excerpted from Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo.

On the Ridge

We can grow by simply listening, the way the tree on that ridge listens its branches to the sky, the way blood listens its flow to the site of a wound, the way you listen like a basin when my head so full of grief can’t look you in the eye. We can listen our way out of anger, if we let the heart soften the wolf we keep inside. We can last by listening deeply, the way roots reach for the next inch of earth, the way an old turtle listens all he hears into the pattern of his shell. — Mark Nepo

Excerpted from Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo.

5 Steps to Get Unstuck and Make a Change

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5 Steps to Get Unstuck and Make a ChangeIt has been a hard year for a lot of us as we experience loss, grief, health issues and radical change, both personally and globally. Although you may not be able to make all the changes you want now, you can start to mentally and emotionally make changes for how you want your life to be.

It’s time to get unstuck and make a change! Do you know what changes you need to make? If you are like a lot of us, there is at least one area where you feel stagnant, blocked, or at a loss.

Should you try to breathe life back into a tired relationship–or say enough and stop throwing good years away? Have you had it with your ho-hum job that is leading you nowhere? Do you need to take better care of your body in a healthy way but don’t know where to start?

Are you yearning for change?
It is a time for deep introspection, and for exploring how you want to live this part of your life and how you want to become more authentically who you are.Yoga man

  • Step One: Schedule a quiet time to think about some of the questions you need to ask yourself to make change.

Do I want to spend the rest of my working life in my present career? What changes can I begin to make now to ensure better physical and psychological health for the rest of my life? Which relationships do I want to keep and which do I let go? Am I really happy and content with my daily life now?

  • Step Two: Get clear about what you want for your life.

Develop a personal profile that highlights several areas: Your passions, your dream job or career, your wish for where you want to live, and your overall health and wellness. Give yourself permission to get in touch with your suppressed vision of who you truly are and how you want your life to actually be.

  • Step Three: Identify obstacles and outdated beliefs.

Do you have limiting thoughts that are holding you back?

Your set of beliefs, thoughts and lifestyle habits, which include your food choices, your form of exercise, your sleep patterns and stress level, can be an obstacle for living a healthy lifestyle. What are your thoughts and limiting behaviors? It is essential that you learn how to recognize your unproductive thoughts, and how the thoughts make you feel. If you feel good you know you are in a positive or higher vibration.

  • Step Four: Take action to make permanent change.

It is not enough to just verbalize or visualize your goals. You must have a plan and take steps to create what you want!

Action Steps: Write down your goals and action steps to achieve them during the next 3 months. Identify your strengths and areas for improvement and following up with your plan.

  • Step Five: Get help to hold yourself accountable.

To help you manifest your goals and dreams, I recommend that you create accountability by finding a buddy, hiring a coach, or joining a mastermind group with like-minded people to help you reach your goals.

We are all coping in these turbulent times. It’s not abnormal or unusual to sometimes face the lesson or challenge, or to sometimes be in the dark either unaware or stuck. Relief is palpable when we discover that it’s okay to be where you are. Breathe, let go!