What's going on, pursuers? My name is Thomas Carney and welcome to the Pursuit of Calling
podcast where my goal and purpose is to provide the strategies and tools needed to successfully
pursue and discover your God-given calling. Today, we're talking about how to discover
your calling faster. Let's dive in.
What's going on, pursuers? Okay, welcome to this episode of the podcast. So what are we
talking about today? I'm talking about what I've been working on. This is usually the
recap episode for the month and there's just been so much happening. In this last month,
I really just wanted to catch you up on what's been going on with my life, but mostly with
what the vision of the podcast and my coaching is going to be or is right now. So first thing
right off the bat, I mentioned it before, but pursuit of calling.com is live. It's ready
to go. Guys, there's some updates that are going to be rolling out to that website moving
forward. It's ready for you to check out and to let me know what you think. But more importantly,
you need to go and get your free gift. It's directly from me to you. It's called the discover
your calling planning guide. It's there to unlock your true calling with you can lock
it with a free guide designed to save you time, but providing focus actionable steps
to discover your calling or your purpose faster. So guys, it's free. You just have to provide
your name, your email, and you will get a link to send you to this planning guide. It's
there. Just, I put it together throughout the last few weeks so that I could give you
guys more value and help you guys. Like it said, discover your calling faster so then
you can pursue it well and with excellence. So what else has been going on this week?
I kind of just came out. It kind of just came out with that big thing. There's, you know,
I've already, I've already said the name is the discovery, your calling planning guide
and what I've done essentially, you know, it's a list of questions. Um, you know, it's
not test, but it's a list of questions and prompts and reflective practices designed
for the help you think about your call. You're calling in a way that you never have. It's
to give you the ability to guide yourself back through your life over the things that
you like to do, the things that you're good at and find that intersecting point. You know,
I believe I've talked about it on a previous episode, but I believe your purpose is that
the intersecting point between what you're good at and what you love to do. However,
there's still a little bit more to it, right? There, there is still a little bit more to
it between just what you're good at and what you love to do because you can find plenty
of things that people are good at and what they love to do, but it not necessarily be
the purpose that's on their lives. There's plenty of people that love playing video games.
I love playing video games. I don't much right now, but I love video games and that some
of them, I was pretty good. I don't think that that definitely wasn't the calling on
my life. Maybe it is for some people, but for me it's not right. It's definitely not
the calling on my life. There's more to it than that. And as I was preparing for this
episode, I was reminded of this Japanese saying or practice or word called Ikigai. I'm going
to say that again. It's Ikigai. And if I'm saying that wrong, if anybody thinks I'm saying
that wrong, you know, you're gonna check me. But Ikigai and you know, this is a Japanese,
I took this from an article I found online about Ikigai. You know, it's a Japanese concept
that unites the joy of life with a series of purpose, with a sense of purpose. My apologies.
The term is a combination of the Japanese words, Iki, to live and Gai, reason, which
together signify a reason to live. While there isn't a direct translation of Ikigai in English,
this concept encapsulates the idea of finding joy in life through purpose in a unique way.
Guided deeply in Japanese culture and history, Ikigai holds belief in the value of life and
the potential for happiness. When you're aligned with your purpose. This is exciting. This
philosophy has guided many toward a meaningful life with intention. Now, when you were talking
about Ikigai, that gives you kind of what Ikigai is and what they're talking about when
they say reason to live. But there's four sections that fall into this category that
make up the Ikigai. These sections are what you love, what you're good at, what the world
needs and what you can get paid for. There are the intersecting points of these four
things in the middle of that. That's your Ikigai. That's your reason to live. That's
your purpose. That's your calling. And I actually have, if I can find the tab real quick. Oh,
I guess I'm pretty sure I just exit out of it. Oh, nevermind. Where we go? So on my computer,
you can't see it right now, but there is, I have a diagram on my screen of Ikigai provided
by calm.com.com and it goes with what you love, what the world needs, what you can be
paid for and what you're good at. And now there's a few other intersecting points here
because this is like, you know, the circle Venn diagrams that you see. There's not just
the intersecting points in the middle, intersecting point one in the middle, but there's intersecting
points between what you're good at and what you get paid for. And that's your profession.
There's intersecting point of what you can get paid for, what the world needs. And that's
your vocation. There's an intersecting point between what the world needs and what you
love. That's your mission. And then there's what you love and what you're good at. And
that's your passion. That's your passion. And then when you intersect all of these,
you bring all of these together, that is your Ikigai. That is your reason to live. And that
was a lot. That was a lot of stuff. I want you to go back and re-listen to that because
I also want you to look up Ikigai. I'll provide a link to the, to the article I read to learn
a little bit more about it. So you guys can go back over Ikigai and learn more about it
yourself and incorporate this philosophy into your life. However, I also want you to go
and check out, like I referenced before that free resource, because that's going to help
you find your Ikigai, find your reason to live, discover that faster than you would
have without a tool like that. So as a quick, not quick, but as, but as I want to go over
a couple of the things that are going to be in that, in that guide, so you know what you
got, what you can expect. So there's a few sections, but three of the sections are, there's
a strength assessment, a purpose reflection and values in action. So the first thing in
the strength assessment is called, it says, write down three things that you're naturally
good at. See, we're kind of on the same lines of F at Ikigai. You know, me, for me, how
I would work that in, I would say, how I would write those things down and say, I'm good,
I'm working, I'm good with working with technology ever since I was little. I've loved tech.
I, even on my first laptop, I don't know why I was diving into the command prompt. And
that's what I remembered whenever I was in college and was, and I was going back on my
life. I was currently at my freshman year college. I was an education major and I was like, I
don't want to be a teacher. That's not for me. And I found that out pretty quick. And
I looked back at my life and like, man, what am I actually good at? And what do I, you know,
and what do I get out? What do I enjoy? What am I passionate about? And I was like, well,
I've always liked computers. I guess computer science sounds cool. I didn't know what programming
was. It just sounded cool. And now I love developing. So like it all kind of falls along
in that line. Like we have these purposes on our lives, these passions put on our hearts.
And I believe that passion comes from God. That passion goes in your heart and it's meant to
guide you and influence you towards your calling. Your passion is your calling,
but your, but your passion plays into your purpose.
Place into your icky guy. I love that word so much icky guy. So the next thing I would say,
right. All the things I'm naturally good at is that I love learning. I feel I'm naturally
good at learning. And I, I, like, I believe it was kind of, kind of formed in me from a young age,
but again, from a young age by my dad, like that's where a lot of these things are going to be in
you. It's going to be what was I doing when I was young? What things did I do that made me
think that I was naturally good at out of the womb? And I, even though I couldn't speak well,
I, my dad had me, had me reading books that I have talked about this before. I have talked about
reading all the time. Like you need to start reading books, but I, I was reading, my dad had
me reading books by people like Zig Ziglar and like, and these were like big, like influential
writers of their day. And I was reading books and I was, I was in like middle school. I didn't know,
honestly didn't know what I was reading, but it was planting seeds and like, and that seed planted.
And I'm just, you know, it just naturally, like, I think that's one of the reasons I'm sitting here
right now. I was talking to you through a podcast. It's because my dad had me reading books when I
was a kid. Dude, I'm talking so fast right now, but guys, like this is important.
So the next thing that this is where it gets difficult. You have to write down three things
that you're naturally good at. You have to actually think about how to, you have to,
you have to have to talk good about yourself for once. Man, that's kind of hard. I hope I'm not
calling anybody out, but yeah, guys, there's two and I want you guys, you know, I want you to have
two for me and I want you to think of three. Think of three things that you're naturally good at.
Next list examples of how you've used these strengths in various areas of life, really in
work, relationships, your projects. And I kind of already, I told some examples for myself,
like I love to learn, like I love reading books and I still read books now. I still love reading
books by like Aristotle and I can be slow at getting through the books. That's because I'm
like dissecting them, but and because there's other things to do, you know, sometimes and,
but like I love to learn out and that's not just from books, it's from people. I love learning
others, which makes me compassionate. Right? You can be, say I'm a naturally compassionate person.
There, there's my third thing. I'm naturally good at being compassionate. Like it sounds like
you're being arrogant when you write these things down, but you're not, you're just being honest
with yourself. What are you naturally good at? So then reflect on how these strengths align with
passions and talents you possess. So reflect on how these strengths align with the passions
and talents you possess. So remember your passion, what your passions are like with what you're,
what you love to do and what you're good at. So how do these strengths align with that? Think
it's reflective, write down anything that comes to mind whenever you get to, whenever you get,
whenever you get to that point and let's move into the next section. Purpose reflection.
For the fact on a time when you felt deeply fulfilled or had a sense of purpose. When was
a time whenever you just kind of had the aha moment where it was like, man, this feels right.
This is, it feels like something I was meant, I meant to be doing, or this is so like, I felt
extremely useful here. More, more, more useful than I usually feel. I felt I've done things before
and I felt useful. I'll help people out. But when I did this thing, when I did that thing,
I guess I couldn't, it's hard to put into words, but I'm asking you to, right?
Um, for me, it's when I put all those things in, I honestly think of leadership.
I said, and I honestly think of leadership for me. Like I love working with technology,
I love learning, I love being, and I, and I'm compassionate. And right now all of those three
things I wear into my leadership of the production team for our young adult group.
We work with technology. We have to learn about the, we have to learn about how to use
these pieces of technology and how to explain it to others. And then we, then we have to be,
then I have to be compassionate to the people that I lead whenever maybe they don't get,
maybe they don't get how to run it the first time or they mess up like,
and compassion in the way I explain it back to them and explain the, explain maybe how we do
it better the next time. All of those three things fall into that level of leadership in that role
of my life. So think about like, like how, yeah, reflect on a time when you felt deeply fulfilled
or had a sense of purpose. For me, that was, that was then, and all my strengths fall in line with
that. What are you doing? What were you doing doing at that time? Right. For me, it was, for me,
it was, it's leading the production team. And how can you use that experience to inform your future
decisions in next steps? Like for me, it's like, whenever you think about that, like think about,
like what about that did you like with all of it? Was it some of it? What parts of it,
what parts of it did you like and how can you use that to inform your next steps? Maybe it's in your
career path or entrepreneurial path. Think that it's important stuff guys. Next, we're going to
go to your values, values in action. You know, list three core values that you hold. For me,
my values fall under Christ, right? My values fall under God the Father. And one of the values is
that to love everyone, right? Regardless of what they have done, regardless of who they are,
is love everybody. Show everybody love because God loves, God loves me and I don't deserve it.
I'm going to love everybody else, whether they quote unquote deserve it or not. Wasn't, and like
think about your core values, the thing that influenced these core values. It means like the
things that influence the things that influence everything that you do. Now, next reflect on how
these values influence your decisions and how they can guide you towards your life's calling.
Reflect on how these values influence your decisions and how they can guide you towards your
life's calling. How do your values, like I said earlier, like whenever you go left, when you can
go left or you go right, and then you make, make the right turn. Why did you go right? What value
was causing you to go that way? What value made you, what that last time you were at a crossroads
with doing the right or the right or the wrong thing, whatever you believe those two things were,
why did you choose the right thing? Why did you feel bad whenever you did the wrong thing?
What values caused you to feel that way? And how can those values inform you about your calling?
All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed like me going through this quick rundown of the discover your
calling planning guide. Now there's way more in there. So you guys definitely go check that out.
I'm going to link to this episode. When this episode releases, I'm going to link to this episode
on the forum for anybody that didn't get a chance or hadn't listened to this episode yet. You can
get this explanation and a rundown of it, but there's, but yeah, I'm going to say it again,
go to that, go, I'm going to link to that link to the homepage of the website in the show notes of
this episode, or you can go to your browser and type pursuit of calling.com and get your free
planning guide. I'm really excited for you guys get this in your hands and, or I guess in your,
on your computers or phones or whatever, and experience for yourself. And if you like the
planning guide, let me know, shoot me a message on Instagram. If you think it sucks, let me know,
tell me what I can fix. If you want to tell me about this episode, you can leave comment
and Spotify, YouTube, Apple podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts, give it this episode or
this podcast overall five story view and share it out on all your social media platforms.
All right, guys, I'll see you next time.