Five Blind Spots That Keep You From Seeing Your True Calling

I’ve dedicated the last ten years refining my true calling coaching process and it’s the most comprehensive and thorough career discovery process I’ve seen.

This process unveils who you are in startling, crystal clear detail. Most clients are able to leverage self-discovery to identify six or more true calling possibilities from which to choose. Yet for a few others, it’s not enough to simply know and understand who they are.

If you’re one of those folks I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. Realize that each of us processes inspirational information differently, so the same path of discovery, doesn’t work the same for everyone.

When you hit a wall you can either tunnel under it, climb over it, bust through it or walk around it. Sitting on the other side of the wall and moaning is ineffective. Just because a door of understanding opens for others, it doesn’t mean that it will for you.

We all suffer from experiential myopia. This creates a narrow-minded projection of our own personal experience, so that we believe the way that worked for us can work for all. This is especially dangerous for career coaches and authors who dispense true calling discovery advice.

We’ve been guilty of mindlessly spitting out oft-repeated, simple advice like. “Write down all the things you love to do.” Yet if you’ve been searching for your calling for years, without success, that suggestion makes you groan in despair. You’ve read it hundreds of times and tried to answer the question dozens of ways and still, you face the wall of not knowing your right career.

If you get this, maybe it’s time to consider the possibility of what you can’t see.

Some beliefs are so deeply lodged in our minds, that they become blind spots, blocking the opening to understanding. Just like the blind spot in a car mirror, you can be looking right at it and not see your calling because it just isn’t visible to you.

But if you’re willing to courageously consider the possibility of blind spots, by considering the root limiting belief, then you can inquire into it further. Inquiry may remove the block so you can climb over the wall and see your calling.

Warning! These beliefs may hit hard you hard, below the belt. You may not want to admit that something so simple has been blocking your vision. If you try one on and become defensive  – guaranteed there’s a personal truth there that you must investigate in order to be free.

1). Might you believe that a calling ought to reveal itself with certain attributes in a certain way? Perhaps you think that true callings are such a big deal, that if it were really your calling, it would come like a thunderbolt of clear profundity that rocks your soul. Not likely.

Perhaps our callings, the wisdom of our true natures, can only be hinted at, anyway – filtered through symbols, dreams, symptoms, happenstances, and synchronicities. Gregg Levoy

2). Might you believe that more time or more space will help you to figure out what you have not yet been able to figure out? My dear friend, please consider that it was your considerable ability to think that created the wall you face in the first place.

3). Might you believe that if you’d seen your true calling that you’d feel much more inspired, motivated or joyous than you do? This search for euphoric confirmation is most likely keeping you on the sidelines of true living. Like many of us you may not feel the delicious juice of deep satisfaction until after you engage your calling.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell

Campbell didn’t tell us to first feel our bliss for the doors to open. For you to follow your bliss you’ve got to first walk down the hall to see what doors will open.

4). Might you believe that something is wrong with the world, your upbringing, the economy or the process or guidance you’re using? If you persist in believing that the issue slowing or blocking you, is outside of you – then you might as well give up and build a life on the unfulfilling side of the wall.

5). Might you believe that you can’t really play the game until you know for sure that your calling is the right game? Hope you see the unsolvable trap in this one. Truth is you can never confirm you’re in the right game by sitting on the sidelines.

If one of these hurt you, then you might have to admit the need to swallow a radical antidote.

You might just have to discover your calling the hard way. Why should that surprise you? You’ve spent years not discovering it the hard way. Hard or easy is so relative to your situation that it may not matter. You just want to find a way over the damn wall.

Here’s a major realization that I’ve recently had by being blessed with clients who had one or more of the above beliefs.

True calling discovery is not the most valuable process for some. Usually the decision to act on a calling comes after discovery but if discovery isn’t coming then decision must come first. Some have to decide first before they can discover their calling.

It may work for you to disintegrate your beliefs but if it doesn’t, please don’t wait to see your calling. If you take that path you may die with your music still in you.

So what can you do? You can work a comprehensive true calling decision-making process that forces you to identify and act on your best, educated true calling guess.

Then your hard way will ease up because courageous engagement creates clarity. But please don’t think you’ll figure it out. You can’t – it’s your mind that got you where you are and it will keep you there unless you jump over the wall with some radical new thinking.

I’d love to show you the way. Surprisingly making the decision first is often a shortcut to prosperity and fulfillment. Call 724-823-0317, to discuss your true calling path or enroll in this eye-opening class: How To Decide On The Best Business For You: Make Your Right Work Decision Now While The Window Is Open.

Comments

  1. Fantastic motivation speack this, the 5 points are all true, I have recently started building my own business after 10 years of crap jobs and i always thought the problem wasn’t me. It was, so i got up off my bum and started doing, and i havent been this happy in years.

    read this post and believe you can do it and you may find you just might do it.

  2. John – Welcome! Congrats on getting your head screwed on right. You are very wise to look within and then act. Best of good fortune to you and yours. True callings are more easily created than found.

  3. Great article you have here, it made me think about what I’m doing with my life. the blidspot no. 5- “Might you believe that you can’t really play the game until you know for sure that your calling is the right game?”Oh so true you hit atender spot there. I’ve always played it safe and stood in the sidelines

  4. Hi Tom — I particularly liked the observation that the true calling won’t necessarily hit you like a thunderbolt — in fact, when I’m doing what I believe I’m here to do, I’m not that conscious of myself and how I’m feeling at all when I’m in the moment working on it. I’m too caught up in the flow to be paying attention to whether I’m having fun. 🙂

  5. Hi Tom,

    #5 is what had me stuck for the longest time, but your coaching helped immensely

    I also recently took you up on your advice to check out whether I am a “scanner” or not. Apparently I am! (All this time I thought everyone must have as many interests as I do…) I am a cyclical scanner. Knowing this has helped a LOT with my career/business foci (not singular focus, please!).

    What I do know is that a true calling or callings come out of life purpose – and there are MANY ways to participate in your life purpose! When I asked my Guides about true calling paths – trying to decide on which ONE to pick – to determine which ONE was my TRUE true calling, and fearing that I would make the wrong choice, they told me that ALL of them would work to fulfill life purpose. I just had to pick one and start.

    I then tortured myself by working on one, then one of the others would pique my interest again, and on and on. *sigh* The life of a scanner! (Though I prefer the term Renaissance Soul).

    For readers who are in the same boat as me, my advice is that the more general “umbrella” business/calling works well, if your interests are close enough – but the marketing is much trickier. If you are cyclical in your interests, as most scanners are, you CAN indulge many of your true callings. Remember though they don’t all have to be turned into businesses. You might at that point decide to go with the one or several that can provide you the best living.

    And I know that Tom can help you with that!

    Blessings,
    Keena

  6. Leila – Welcome! You can change a little and stick your toe in the water of playing it smart. Risky is not necessarily the opposite of safe. It’s actually very unsafe to stand pat and remain on the sidelines. I sincerely hope this inspires you to fresh action.

    Chris – Well we certainly can’t argue with being present in the flow. That’s more fun that having to check how much fun you’re having anyway. 🙂

    Keena – Thanks for your testimony to my coaching prowess; I appreciate it. I kind of thought you were a fellow Scanner. I agree with your guides. Action is always the wiser path. I get what you’re saying about marketing a true calling as well. It can be tricky. That’s why I recommend solidifying one stream of income before scanning over and starting another. That way we still get to play in multiple projects but we actually complete things enough to be paid for them.

  7. Yes Tom! It is what we think we know that’s absolutely wrong and what we are completely unaware of that continuously keeps us from discovering our true nature. I spent many years trying to figure things out because of my fear and a corresponding desire to control outcomes. True success comes to those who overcome their fear enough to take actions in directions that may be fruitful while course-correcting along the way. I spent years in self analysis waiting for a stark, blinding revelation that would be so clear and concrete that I would know exactly what to do for the rest of my life. Such was my delusion! Instead, I could have really figured some things out by taking action and paying attention to the effects. Thank you for helping me get over my false self so that I could step into my true self! It’s so much more fun on the other side, and so much easier than I ever imagined! Tom, you rock! Thanks a million!

  8. Bill – Your are welcome. You were actually a pleasure to coach because you were so ready to make your move. I like what you have to say about course-correcting. Most folks forget that vital advice. But a business in motion is so much easier to adjust for results than one that remains frozen in a delusional mind. and never starts up. Thanks for your inspiration!

  9. Tom, this is a hot-button issue for me, having been the one who was lost. I was in despair for years because I couldn’t figure out what my “thing” was (now called “life purpose”), which left me feeling deficient and depressed.

    I was told, “Find out what you love to do and get someone to pay you for it,” and I remember wondering if watching Oprah could be a job.

    After trying everything under the sun and grasping at straws every time I showed a little interest in anything – only to be disappointed again and again – I finally discovered my path by accident (or so I thought).

    I began studying astrology with a teacher and a class (trying to understand myself) and after about 4 months I discovered that astrology was my “thing!” All the healing work I had done was utilized in the way I read charts – and I was exhilarated to realize how much I knew.

    When I suddenly lost my job on 9/11 (I live in NYC), people started asking me for readings and my astrology career was born.

    I can see who someone came here to be when I look at their chart, but they still have to have their own experience and exploration of exactly how their career path will manifest.

    I have such compassion for those who don’t know what their life purpose/path is – and I am grateful to be a clear and compassionate guide for them – and to identify what’s blocking them from manifesting that.

    Then they can come to you and create their career! Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom.

  10. Lisa – Welcome. We share that feeling of deep compassion for those who struggle with career or business identity.. The struggle is so unnecessary but at the same time very necessary in order for folks to experience the contrast of what they don’t want. Thanks for sharing your story with us. It’s inspiring to see that often when we just keep moving the calling finds us.

  11. “courageous engagement creates clarity”

    That’s lovely, and yes, I fully believe that. And as for your five blind spots, I think they map out fairly well to the first five decades of my life. Now I’ve moved much more into a “Ready, Fire, Aim” phase, because the things I’ve learned along the way have me close enough to where I’m supposed to be that I *believe* can narrow down to the clarity through courageous engagement.

    Thanks for the excellent post, Tom.

  12. Karilee – Welcome. I’m out of blind spots and it sounds like your out of decades to grow through them. 🙂 I’m happy for you that you’ve chosen to engage often now. I’m a big fan of ready fire myself.

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