Are you ready for a better pick-me-up than coffee, with zero negative side effects, that will costs you NOTHING? Then I have just the thing for you…

5am ready for a Friday morning run.

Whoa, Ann, are you going to talk about kale?

Nope, not today, but I WISH I could get kale for free!  Get ready for something that will be just as impactful on your health, without the slightly bitter taste:

While walking around the office this week, I heard individuals grumbling, “Ugg, I need more coffee.”   “I am so exhausted when I am at work, yet I cannot sleep at night…”

At lunch I started to think about people I encountered during the day.  We are half plugged in, half spaced out.  We have lost our zest, our excitement for life, our passion.

I have recently become obsessed with Simon Sinek’s work, and with great reason.

‘Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress: working hard for something we love is called passion.’ – Simon Sinek

What a profound and beautiful statement.  You may look at that quote and think, ‘well that is good, but I am a parent, I am a spouse, etc…  I cannot just quit my job and work on my passion.’

Here is my challenge – you don’t need to change ANYTHING about your external world to live with passion.  Eventually things might change on the outside, but it is truly an inside job that makes all the difference.

Have you really sat down to take inventory on things you care about?  To quote Simon Sinek again, ‘What is your WHY? ‘  Why do you get out of bed?  What makes your heart sing?  What makes you feel complete joy in the moment?

Write those things down!

 

Take a look at your list and dig deeper.  Ask yourself 4 or 5 whys behind items on your list (My Target team is laughing right now since I had them do this exercise every week.  It works, they can tell you!). Once your list with your ‘whys’ are complete, see if you can create a personal mission statement.

For an example, my initial list includes:

• I enjoy - Being with animals and close family/friends, running, yoga, teaching, music
  
• Why? – I enjoy being active and being connected to people and animals while still finding time to connect to myself.
  
• Why? I love to help and make a difference, and to feel love in return, and finding ways to love myself.
  
• Why? I have had difficult times where I have not felt ‘enough’ and I believe everyone deserves to have confidence, feel loved, and strong.  Yoga and running are tools that helped me find that confidence and I want to help others feel empowered as well.  I enjoy having a beautiful community around me that shares my passion.
  

My personal mission statement is: ‘I believe everybody deserves peace, health, and happiness.’

Personal mission statements take time, and always develop and change.  But when you find something that is true, when you say it, you will feel it head to toe.   

Using the word ‘believe’ is a good word to really show your ‘why’ and to see if this is your best mission statement.  For example, if I say ‘I believe hamburgers are good for your health’ it feels wrong.  You can tell this really isn’t my mission statement when you use the word believe.  

Using your finalized mission statement will help you re-ignite your passion.

With this mission statement, you need to do nothing other than think about your mission, and how you can make your words and actions match the statement you selected. 

I started this exercise every day, and it has helped me go from snoozing for 30 minutes and dreading stepping out of bed, to waking up with one alarm to run at 5 am when it is still less than 20 degrees outside:

• I only set one alarm – I used to set two, already setting myself up to fail assuming I wouldn’t wake up.
  
• The alarm goes off and I say ‘thank you’ in my head three times.
  
• I focus on my mission statement and I get ready for my run.
  
• On my morning run I start and end each one with my mission statement and a positive present tense mantra I need for the day: Side note, we will cover this in future blogs, but quickly – if you need courage that day your present tense mantra could be: ‘I am courageous, I have courage’
• Any break in my day (lunch/ driving) I think about my mission and my mantra for the day.
  
• During any difficult situation, I pause and reflect on my mission before reacting.  This clears my head, and guides my actions to line up with my life mission.
  
• Before I fall asleep I think ‘thank you’ in my head three times.
  

This is just an example of how I incorporate my ‘why’ and gratitude practice into every day.  It is free, it really doesn’t take much time, but it creates awareness in the moment. 

Why is this necessary?  We are constantly in the past or the future, which creates stress and anxiety.  Yoga is an amazing tool to bring us back to current awareness, but if we do not practice this off the mat, our ability to feel peace is diminished in our day-to-day life.  Also, I have realized that everyone wants a PURPOSE!  With digging deep, you find your passion and your purpose.  This creates more fulfillments in your every day activities, bringing joy in present moment.  And isn’t that what we all want in life?

Side note - Living with passion doesn’t mean waking up at the crack of dawn every day.  There are times when sleeping in and taking my weekend slow is exactly what I need.  When you connect more with your ‘why’ you will create actions that line up with the needs of your body as well as the needs of others. 

ONWARD!  Spend some time thinking about your ‘why’ and maybe create your own mission statement.  See if you can start finding more purpose in your life, and with that, more joy.

If you are interested in reading more – ‘Start with Why’ is a book by Simon Sinek.  It was created for business leaders to see how successful organizations start with why they do things, and line every action up from there.  Although this is geared towards businesses, I feel this was an interesting book to help me frame my own life in a ‘why’, plus it is an excellent read.

Good luck with your own journey, and please leave comments about your own mission statement, and how it changed, or didn’t change your sense of passion!

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