Finding Clarity: Discovering Purpose and Meaning

Let’s talk about clarity. With our hectic schedules and constant juggling of tasks, clarity is something we all crave but seldom find. For women like us, clarity can feel like that one email buried deep in your inbox that you just can’t seem to locate.

I KNOW it’s here, but why the hell can’t I find it??

Yet, having a clear sense of purpose and meaning is crucial for getting through the mess and coming out the other side with success and style. So, let’s dive into what clarity really means and how understanding larger systems can help us out.

What Is Clarity?

Clarity isn’t just having a clear mind; it’s about seeing your path and purpose with sharp focus. It’s knowing what you want, understanding your strengths and challenges, and figuring out the steps to get there. Clarity can be the difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling like we have it all together.

The Purpose Journey

Whoa, that’s a biggie. Finding purpose is a unique journey for each of us, and there’s simply no rule for how long it will take. It involves self-reflection, exploring your passions and innate gifts, and figuring out how you can contribute to the world. For many of us, this journey is intertwined with our careers (though not necessarily), and it also extends to personal growth and relationships. We all have this in common: everyone’s purpose in life is to discover their unique purpose in life and move into it. The way in which we do this, however, is as singular as each one of us.

Understanding Meaning

Meaning is about the significance we attach to our experiences and actions. It’s about seeing the bigger picture and understanding how our contributions fit into the grand scheme of things. This is important for the big movements we’ll take, and also for the small tasks we complete. Finding meaning can transform even mundane tasks into fulfilling activities.

 

The Revelation

It has only been in the past few years that I’ve actually recognized my own talent for understanding large systems, for seeing how the pieces of something fit together, sometimes in multiple ways. It was a revelation so surprising yet felt so much like coming home. This great epiphany actually occurred as I was talking with a friend of mine. It just sort of leaped out of my mouth. And suddenly, everything made sense. It was like the universe handed me a pair of 3D glasses, and I finally consciously recognized: I can see the MATRIX! 😆

The Systems Obsession

And all these memories came flooding back to me. Things I’d not considered in a long time.

• My 5-year-old self explaining how Creationism and Evolutionism aren’t mutually exclusive:
  Oh, it must be that the dinosaurs came wwaaayyy before people, because God’s day isn’t the same as our day.  
• Then came the trances with candles and tarot card readings and Wiccan spells in high school.
• Then comparative religion courses, philosophy classes, reading on psychology in my late teens and early 20s.
• Then the temping office work I actually enjoyed and the side-business I started while beginning my singing career: learning how the flow of the companies worked and designing tools, procedures, and systems that made that flow more efficient. In fact, my little business never really took off because I was much more interested in the systems than the sales, LOL.
• Then with marriage and a family, discovering “home management” systems, changing, tweaking to fit “us”, and at the same time finding the “self-help” industry…

Initially, it seemed like a fun, educational hobby. But truly, I was hooked. A self-professed freebie hound and course junkie, I consumed everything I could find. Myers–Briggs, Strengthsfinder, Lifebook, Human Design, the Enneagram, Chakras, basics of astrology – any system, any quiz that could potentially point me in a direction.  Picture this: a practical woman poring over birth charts and energy centers, laughing at the affirmation I felt in seeing my nature and gifts through the vocabulary of celestial bodies, ancient esoteric systems AND in seeing how again, these were not mutually exclusive and in fact, aligned with all I’d learned from modern, pragmatic systems.

So Angela, this post is about clarity, right?

Right!

 

Applying Systems to Gain Clarity

You already know it’s true, that gaining clarity around your purpose and finding meaning involves self-reflection. But this is a big job, we’re talking existential questions. And we live in an extraordinary time.

At no time in the history of the world has so much of the knowledge, insights and expertise of the human experience, in all its forms been available in 5 clicks of a mouse. Every generation stands on the shoulders of the one before. In our digital era, we can even stand on the shoulders of someone who is only a few steps ahead!

So go ahead, utilize external tools someone else built that can provide unique insights into your strengths and challenges. And go ahead, extrapolate meaning from it and how you can apply it to your life. After all, as long as you are coming at the process from a place of expanded awareness, whatever meaning you make of it, it’s the right one.

So while these large systems shouldn’t be your only guides, they can provide a complement to your own self-discovery and personal systems development.

Conclusion: Embrace the Journey to Clarity

Navigating the complexities of life can sometimes feel overwhelming – there are just so.many.details. Gaining clarity, especially about your purpose, and the greater meaning is within reach. By embracing self-reflection, setting clear goals, and exploring systems, we can begin to make invaluable insights into our strengths and challenges. This in turn can inform us in discovering how those strengths and challenges position us for a particular purpose, and has certain meaning.

Remember, the journey to clarity isn’t just about reaching a destination—it’s about enjoying the discoveries along the way. So, put on your 3D glasses, dive into the systems that resonate with you, and start seeing the hidden layers of your life. You might be surprised at what you find. After all, clarity is about making sense of the chaos and finding your way through it with confidence and grace. Keep exploring, keep reflecting, and most importantly, keep believing in your unique path.