As, Millennials, deal with, adulting, they ask themselves, What is my purpose? What is the reason for my existence?
Today on the “Transform your Mind with Coach Myrna Podcast”, I interview the Author of “The, Millennial's, Playbook to Adulting”, Arika L. Pierce
Steps to Adulting
- The first step is to find your passion. This is where you find that you can be in it all day long and you don't feel tired and you don't feel bored and you're just illuminated and just joyful and and it's a great way to live your life. You know when you live a passionless life just because you're making money does not mean that you are living with passion.
Let me share a personal story. My daughter Keshia Morris Desir always felt that she was supposed to be a Psychologist, getting her degree and everything. Along that journey she read Nelson's Mandela's book “A long walk to freedom” and decided that she needed to become a political advocate and she just switched right away. She applied and got into American University, the top political science university with no background in politics.
Today she's working for a company right next door to the White House, and doing some great great work at Common Cause.
I didn't even think about that until right now and that's what I like about the Holy Spirit or of my Higher Self
things pop into my head. It is also an example of leaning your ladder up against the wrong building!
- My next question is a follow-up to the first and it is do you agree that we're all meant to do a certain thing on this earth? And what is your advice to, Millennial, on finding their, purpose? How Can, Millennials, Find Their, Purpose?
Let's say using my daughter story that she didn't know what her, purpose, was as a, millennial. She went to school and maybe felt psychology was a job that can make her money that's where a lot of, Millennials, Park right? So what advice do you give them?
- To answer your first question in terms of do I think we're all here to do something, yes I definitely believe that we individually are all here to bring some value or offer something back to the world. I believe some of us it takes longer than others but; I do believe we are all here to accomplish something and I think we probably give different weight to what we accomplish. Just because what you believe it is something small it can be transformational to somebody else. In terms of what I believe, Millennials, can do in terms of finding their, purpose, I actually think it starts with a very simple concept and that is honestly taking time to think and to plan and I think. When we sit back and you when you look at your life if you plan it with the level of detail that you plan for example a vacation you'd be surprised about you know how much how differently you might view things.
I recommend taking one hour a week to evaluate where you are and where you want to go.
The timeline might be where I want to go this week, it might be where I want to go in the next year, in the next two years or five years from now. Whatever time period I feel I need to think about it and plan for at that time for example if you're thinking, I hate my job, it's not fulfilling this is not my, purpose. Then you know think about what would make you feel more purposeful? What are the types of positions or jobs that you would like to be in? And then what are the steps that you need to take to get there. Do you need to you know go back to school? Do you need to join a networking group?
My daughter came to me one day and said that she wants to become a politician and I look at her this sweet innocent person that had no politician skills or natural talents and I said to her
“How do you get there how do you get from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow?”
As her coach we planned it
- Toastmasters and learn how to speak in front of people,
- school for political science,
- volunteer so she can get some political experience and things like that so yeah and you got to make a
plan and the beautiful thing about it you know is that it might feel far-fetched but you never know if it's really your purpose the universe, God will step in and help you get there. That's why when my daughter applied to American University she said she only had a 30% chance of being accepted. She said I'll apply there's no hope that I'm gonna get in and guess what she got in because she's on, purpose, because God helps you if you are on, purpose!
Don't ever think that anything is too big for God.
Les Brown says reach for the the stars, you might fallback on the moon!
I agree. One of my favorite quotes is
If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.
You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's really I think when you accept that, it will help you in finding your, purpose.
Especially if you're not currently living what you believe to be your, purpose. I like that one I mean you talked.
about it before you must really live by that and it's very true you know when my daughter went to Washington she was incredibly uncomfortable, she was in a city that she didn't know anyone, she was going into something that she didn't
know anything about and it was uncomfortable and that's only way you grow.
Alright so and this is coming from your book, you've got a chapter in your book about your giving advice and strategies and how, Millennials, can achieve their goals in the workplace; but I like the word hustle that you used to describe this. You advise to hustle to get what you want in this world. I think when you hustle you have to you have to be hungry you have to really want it. You have to be motivated and so I think to your point earlier, when it's something that you truly want and you feel passionate about or you really wanted to achieve the hustle actually comes fairly easy at least in the
beginning because you know you most likely will accept that challenge and want to go after it. Where it becomes a challenging, I would say is consistently hustling, always having that thirst, that hunger to push yourself further and
that sometimes can be where we tend to fall off. That's human nature, you have to learn to hold yourself accountable and to make sure that you are you're hitting your own personal benchmarks and hitting your own personal goals. And so a good way to keep the hustle mentality I would say is to make sure that you have measurable things that you want to do and so that way you've got a way to check yourself.
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What do you have in your hand? God used the staff Moses had in his hand to help his achieve his purpose.
I use that analogy because when you're finding
your, purpose, you mentioned what are your interests and what excites you but
I'm going to add to that what are you good at. What's your natural ability?
What's your natural talent? Because that's what you have in your hand.
Ray Charles was born blind, and he just picked up a piano and played. But
but some of us has to do these stepping stones.
What is Adulting.
In your book, in fact your book is called “the, Millennial's, playbook, adulting” Can you explain
what you mean by, adulting, and how that relates to how to find your, purpose?
Adulting, is actually a it's a, millennial, term.
Social media usually uses funny hashtags like
I'm doing laundry hashtag #adulting pain pills #adulting. I'm over
#adulting. Adulting, is really just the idea of growing up frankly and taking on new
responsibilities and transitioning into an adult. I would say being more
independent and if in terms of how can a dull teen connect to her purpose? I
think that one of the things I you know in my coaching is what did I tell people
and tell the, Millennial, that I work with is when you are transitioning into an adult
you are now the owner of your life. I actually say you're the CEO of ME
Incorporated and part of that is determining what you want to do and so it's no longer what your
parents what you to do or what your teachers or grandparents want you to do.
All of these influencers who have really directed you for the majority of
your life so far this next phase of your life is really about running your own life
like a CEO. A CEO runs her company as she sees fit. and so you know I think often times there
are, Millennials, who are in professions because that's what their
parents wanted them to do or that's what was expected of them or that's what they
said they were going to do and they were embarrassed to change their
minds. Well if you want to change your mind, it is now up to you to do so. That's
part of being an adult. It's unlikely that someone is going to come
to you and to say I think that you need to change your
passion or your job. So I would just encourage, Millennials,
especially to think about what they want out of life.
Don't for others to direct your path, certainly others can help lead
you in the direction that you want to go to, and I am a firm believer of
leveraging a personal board of advisers and your mentors and people
around you to help you and to guide you and to get feedback. But it is
really up to you to do the exercises, to do the work, and to decide where you want
to go next or where you want to take your life professionally.
On the first page of your book you made
the humorous statement and I quote
“Dear Universe I miss the how to be an adult 101 class, send help and my mom and wine”
I thought that was humorous. So my question to you is which, adulting, class did you
think that you missed and have the most struggle with?
Probably for me it's the financial class. I
actually spoke to a group of, Millennials, yesterday as part
of a fellowship program and one of the questions they asked was can you tell me about managing my finances?
I admitted to them that managing my finances especially when I was younger
and like 20 was very difficult. I sort of used my debit card like a gift card, just
charge and see how much it is. So and that wasn't that wasn't smart
decision making and I think that as I've grown up I've been forced
to become much more financially literate. I just don't mean you know okay I
save money now that that's that's not being fighting totally financially
literate I mean really understanding you know what's coming in what's going out
I'm having that data point and now you know there's lots of apps that can help
you figure that out as well as understanding what's the best way to say
it's my money what are what are you know but ways that I can you know increase
increase my salary or my revenue streams besides just my day-to-day
nine-to-five job understanding the stock market understanding you know investments and
things like that especially being an entrepreneur really understanding those
types of things are really important and so I think that I came from a very
traditional family that was you put some money in a saving account you do that
every single week and you will likely not you know that's the best thing you
won't go poor that's how you do it but that but there's so much more to that
and so that was part of the I would say the, adulting, class that there I have I
had to say have one that I did not get that I probably you know still learning
but you know came to me much later in life that I think is very critical
um to proper adult thing yeah that's actually pretty good you know I helped
my daughter a lot with that but I'm just learning that now in my 50s so I
understand that because you know our parents certainly didn't sit down and
teach us because they didn't even know themselves so that was a perfect answer
I love it alright so tell our listeners how they can get in touch her to you if
they want any kind of coaching or to purchase a copy of your book sure you
can go to my website.
Additional Resources
http://blog.myhelps.us/how-transform-your-career-with-purpose/
http://blog.myhelps.us/the-millennial-playbook-unpacking-limiting-beliefs/
