The 3 Life Lessons that Changed Me in 2015

One Question to Ponder as 2015 Comes to a Close

"Am I happier and more fulfilled than I was at the start of the year?"

If the answer for you is an immediate, resounding, "YES", then congrats!

If you had to take a second and talk yourself into an answer that makes you feel good ("Well, I mean, I guess I'm happy for the most part...."), then it's likely that there are areas of your life that aren't aligned with your higher self.

And that's perfectly fine! The beautiful thing about this journey is that it's all one giant "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, like you used to read in elementary school. If the choices we have made have not produced the desired results, we can always choose again.

For me, 2015 was a transformative year of personal growth. Now it required me to face some difficulties and challenges along the way, but it led me to transformative lesson #1

Every moment in our life is perfect.

Yes, even the ones that feel s****y at the time.

There can be perfection in what we perceive as disappointment, betrayal, fear, and failure. Those moments have appeared for a spiritual purpose, to serve as a divine lesson that will help us grow into becoming our best self.  So next time you face a challenge that seems overwhelming, stop, breathe, and repeat this mantra:

"I am willing to see things differently"

In time, the bigger plan will always reveal itself and you will see that the universe was just moving you in a different direction. A better direction.

I was reminded of this lesson when my year started in a job where I had achieved the biggest job title of my career, I felt like the title gave me some high level of status that made me "important", but within months I soon learned transformative lesson #2

"Climbing the ladder" means nothing when the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall

How often have we searched externally to find our happiness? We want that promotion at work, we want to make more money, we want to meet the person to "complete us".  When that person doesn't complete us, we think buying the dream home or having kids will make the marriage better. We buy that expensive car that we always wanted. We accumulate all of these things, only to find ourselves feeling empty and searching for the next thing to make us happy. This leads to lesson #3.

Joy comes when we lean the ladder into our soul's purpose.

But what is our purpose? Quite simply, it's when you take your unique gifts and talents and use them to serve other people. When you are aligned with providing value to others, you are acting from a place of love. Thus, a feeling of joy will expand to every cell of your body.

Perhaps the biggest problem in our culture is that we have placed a higher value on results rather than purpose. Failing corporations ask their employees to work more for less money in an effort to create shareholder value, only to see productivity and engagement go down. Meanwhile, go lookup the employee benefits at Google (in fact, you will probably use Google to do it)  and then you will see why their people have made it one of the highest valued brands on the planet.  

In our own life, we put results first when we ask "How can I make more money?" instead of "How can I serve?". The first question means we seek to find our meaning through external means. The second question puts our ego aside and asks to provide value to other, trusting that the universe will reward us for our effort.

So in 2016, my question is "How can I serve you?"

What are the questions in your life that are keeping you up night? What would you like me to write about? Please feel free to respond to this message with any feedback that you have. 

As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone who you feel will benefit from reading it and let them know they can sign up for weekly emails like this at creativesoulcoaching.net

This will be the last blog from me until 2016. I wish you all a happy and blessed holiday, and I look forward to us all making 2016 the best year of our life!

Dan