Are You Listening To The Song In Your Heart?

Published July 10th, 2007 by Adam Kayce | 13 Comments

sing your heart out, brotherI’m so curious when I see the kinds of businesses people are in. How did they get there? Why did they go into that line of work? Often times when I talk with someone for the first time, I make it a point to ask them how they got into whatever is they’re doing.

Of course, I know as well as the next person that for many of us, our careers are something we backed into, a step at a time, finding ourselves moving from decision to decision with guesswork and uncertainty, more than something we mapped out with precision at a younger age and then, blueprint in hand, just had to walk the steps we’d outlined.

For the most part, the “walking backwards into the future” method works just fine. Small steps lead you down long paths, just by reaching your toes backwards, feeling the next rock, and then shifting your weight onto it. You do this every day.

But what happens when you get to a big gap? To a place in your path where your toes can’t feel the next stone? A place where there is no easy answer, and looking backwards to your past doesn’t give you any help in knowing where to step next?

The Soul Search

I know I hit that point last fall, after being in the healing business for ten years. I knew I needed a change, I just didn’t know what it was going to be. I could feel the call in my heart to reach for more than what I’d known, I just didn’t know what it would look like.

It took a few months of soul searching, asking some tough questions, and trying to get clear on what I thought I should do, until I realized one day that I was going about it all wrong.

I was trying to answer my questions from the outside, using all the marketing-speak I’d learned: Who did I want to serve? What were their problems? What were my solutions? (You know, the standard target-audience/problem/solution routine.) But that was leaving me high and dry; after months of searching, I felt no closer to an answer than I had on Day One.

The Monk Was Born

What popped the bubble for me was when I went to a gathering of my spiritual community, and took some time after our group event to sit alone, again, with the questions in my heart and mind. I’d been asking the target/problem/solution questions for so long now, I didn’t really think I’d get any new answers, but I was feeling so heart-connected at the time, I figured I’d give it another shot.

Within a few minutes of sitting down, I felt all my questions get pushed aside. It was as if The One/my heart/the voice of Truth inside me said, “Forget about all that.” Then, pointing at my heart, the voice said, “Who are you, and what do you love?”

And with that question, I got somewhere. I sat with my heart deeply, and the answers started to flow.

Within three days, I was clear about where I wanted to go.
Two days after that, the name “Monk at Work” came into focus.
And within a week, my new business was up and running.

Months of nothing, and then — BOOM! — clarity. And from clarity, action. My toes were landing on solid rocks again, and I was off and running (backwards, that is).

The Keys To Clarity

I know a number of you are in a transition, of one kind or another. And others of you are feeling the effect of trying to walk backward along your path, but doing it without much of a feeling of certainty.

My suggestion, then, would be three-fold:

1. Ask the right questions.

If you’re looking for direction in your career, don’t worry at this point about target audience/problem/solution. It’s not that those aren’t good questions, they’re just not the ones to be asking yourself right now. Not yet.

First, ask yourself, “Who are you? What do you love?” Ask the kinds of questions that open you to the movements of your heart, more than how you’re supposed to fit into the world. (That comes later.)

2. Sit in your heart and see what comes.

Take the time to sit deeply with these questions. Explore. Probe. Experiment, and play around with what you get. The only “right” answers are the ones that go ‘clunk’ in your heart with the resounding thud of certainty. And that’s not something you can think your way to — you’ve got to arrive at it, with all that you are.

3. Get help listening to your heart, if you need it.

For some people, sitting with your heart’s impulses and having a conversation of the spirit is no big deal. For others of you, it may not be something you’ve had much experience in.

Tapping into your heart’s guidance is a fundamental skill in living and working from your soul, and something that obviously has captured my attention for many years. There are a number of posts here about intuition, so feel free to browse through them (using the tag cloud in the sidebar, or the search field, or the Archives at the top of the page are good ways to find them).

If you’re wanting more than articles, then I’d recommend checking out the Black Belt Business Intuition course. I’ve geared that course towards helping you find what’s alive in your heart, so you can find the kind of certainty you need. (There’s a new course starting in a couple of days, if you’re interested.)

Most of all, once you find some clarity, I recommend going for it, with both feet in. Life’s too short to muck around with inconsequential garbage. And because you spend so much of your time with your work, and because your work determines, more than anything else, the rest of what your life entails, why settle for anything less that what makes your heart sing?

Image by notsogoodphotography via Flickr, by Creative Commons license.

And thanks to all those who commented on the previous post so far: Edward Mills, Mark Silver, Judy Murdoch, tasnim, Joanna Young, Jocelyn, Jean Browman, Dylan Emrys, Kathy M., Jennifer Hofmann, Karin H., Ankesh Kothari, Phelan @ Imagium

13 Comments... Want To Jump In?

  • Joanna Young
    July 10, 2007, 4:40 pm

    Thanks for this Adam. It is great to hear your experience - and to find ways that we can learn from it.

    But you know you don’t have to write posts that are written just for me! Joanna

  • Jean Browman
    July 10, 2007, 9:01 pm

    Great post! It reminds me of a commencement address Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University a couple of years ago. One thing he talked about was a brush he had with death. So to these up-and-coming graduates he said, “…death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. …have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

    Or, as you put it so concisely, “Life’s too short to muck around with inconsequential garbage.” Amen to that!

  • Slade | Spiritual Blogging
    July 11, 2007, 1:07 pm

    Adam,

    Thanks for discussing the relationship between the old standard “market” speak and the more authentic sense of personal purpose.

    Actually, aligning who you are and what you love WITH the needs of others IS the recipe — but it may require a greater challenge — creating the unique career that only you can fulfill, as opposed to finding one.

    Identifying the right path, or discovering it, is not the same as chasing something outside yourself. Slade

  • Adam Kayce
    July 11, 2007, 1:19 pm

    Jean, that’s a great Steve Jobs quote — thanks for sharing that.

    Slade, I agree completely… and I like the way you put that. All of it.

    And welcome — I hope to see you around more. I’m checking out your site, too, as I write this…

  • dailytri
    July 11, 2007, 2:06 pm

    My career path:

    Summer 1985 following first year of college: My Aunt Dorothy commends me for writing a funny, heart-warming article remembering my Uncle Earl on his 80th birthday. She suggests that when I return to college, I major in journalism.

    Fall 1986: Enroll at a liberal arts college majoring in corporate communications. I obtain a workstudy in the college relations office writing news releases.

    Dec. 1988: I graduate and obtain a job at a PR agency

    March 1991: Move into a role as senior editor at a publishing company

    Jan. 1997: New job in employee communications at Gateway - the computer company

    Feb. 2006: Senior PR manager at Medtronic in Minneapolis

    I guess Aunt Dorothy’s recommendation was a good one. I can’t imagine doing anything else but what I do - unless I was a millionaire.

  • Slade | Shift Your Spirits
    July 11, 2007, 2:56 pm

    Thanks for the compliment, man!

    Monk at Work seems a great example of creating a career path entirely unique to what you have to offer. I’m digging it.

    : )

    You’ll definitely see more of me around here.

    I’d love it if you checked out Shift Your Spirits - my main project. (Left a different link this time…) Slade

  • Patricia - Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker
    July 11, 2007, 8:34 pm

    Adam, I happened to see your name on Slade Roberson’s site and am I glad I checked you out. Great words of encouragement for someone like you who has decided to do what they love — -writing to help myself and others. Slade has pushed me to take a step out of my comfort zone. I am blessed that he did. I look forward to reading more from your wisdom of the heart. Thanks.

  • Judy Murdoch : Highly Contagious Marketing
    July 12, 2007, 9:20 am

    I’m looking forward to asking myself those questions Adam and seeing what comes up for me.

    For myself, one of the biggest challenges is listening to the answers that bubble up and not dismissing them as too impractical.

    I started a new blog just for myself to record observations about what is fun, inspiring, or delighting me. It’s been rather neglected lately and I haven’t exactly been looking forward to my days this week. Hmmm. I wonder why that might be?

  • dailytri
    July 12, 2007, 1:45 pm

    Adam: I don’t know Christopher (Todd) Brahana and couldn’t find him the employee directory. Perhaps he’s a contractor?

    • Adam Kayce
      July 13, 2007, 4:10 pm

      Slade, you bet — I’m watching them both.

      Patricia, welcome; glad you came by. Feel free to jump in the conversation anytime!

      Judy, I understand; it’s easy to discount our inner knowing, especially when we’ve been taught to rely on ‘outside’ evidence rather than inside knowledge. Keep at it; it gets easier!

      dailytri, thanks for checking; Todd was an old college chum and roommate of mine… but last I saw him was years and years ago. He’s probably moved on by now.