Vitamins for Your Soul, Part V

If you've been "taking your vitamins" for your soul, since I started these tips, you've probably noticed some lightening and some expansion in yourself. And lightening up as a trader will help you immensely. So far your recommended vitamins have included:

1. Focus on the Moment;
2. Make Yourself Laugh;
3. If Something Bothers You, Give It To God; and
4. Give Thanks Every Day for your Blessings.

This week we will add one of my favorites, Follow Your Bliss.

Follow Your Bliss

When I first went through A Course In Miracles, I made a commitment to follow my bliss. Joseph Campbell stated in his remarkable series The Power of Myth that following your bliss is essentially following God's path. And that seemed great to me: do what gives me joy, and my life would work better.

In 1986, I made a commitment to quit my part-time job. I was working one day a week on a job I hated, but that job was a security blanket. As long as I was part-time, I had medical benefits and the possibility of becoming full-time again. I quit the job and got rid of the security blanket. Two weeks later my wife unexpectedly lost her job and was not re-employed for about nine months. However, I made it through that year without even having to borrow much money.

By 1987 my own business was progressing. I decided that I needed to hire a secretary to keep up with the workload. However, I hadn't made that much money the prior year and a secretary's salary would take up most of that. Nevertheless, I took the plunge—another sign of commitment—and that year was the first year that I made a six-figure salary. My business really seemed to take off from there.

In each case, the decisions were difficult. I was giving up security and the status quo for something unknown. Even though I hated the known and loved what I was going into, it was very scary.

Along the way, through following this guidance of where joy seemed to be, I moved away from almost every attachment I had at the time—which included my marriage. It just wasn't working and we couldn't seem to fix it. Much of this was very scary, even though I was moving toward more joy. In the end, the results have been wonderful. It's a big step, but following your bliss is a very important vitamin for your soul.

What do you love to do? That's probably a sign that you should be doing more of that. What do you hate to do? That's probably a sign that you should be doing less of that. At one point, when my business was already quite successful, I made a note of all of the things I hated to do and all of the things I loved to do. Guess what? All of the things I loved to do were the things that probably made the most money for the business. They revolved around helping people, doing creative things, doing my workshop, developing new products, and trading. Those were all things that made money.

What I hated were the day to day routine of managing the business and all of the details I had to put up with by doing that. While I still have some of those tasks, I elected to find other people who do a much better job of doing those things than I could ever do. And now I totally concentrate on the things I love to do.

So this week's assignment is to make a list of what you love to do and what you dislike. If you love it, then decide how you can do more of it. If you dislike it, then determine how you can turn it over to someone else. You'll probably find that this simple act makes a tremendous difference in your life.