A professional life coach shares his thoughts on how we can become more in tune with our authentic selves.
We recently talked to Brad Reed, founder of Repurpose You, an organization that offers life coaching, breathwork training, deep meditation programs, as well as mindfulness and somatic coaching services. With a focus on helping struggling professionals balance life happiness with job happiness, their ultimate goal is to aid everyone on their individual paths to finding meaning and purpose in life. In this post, Reed details the various ways Repurpose You is and has been able to help people master themselves from the inside-out, resulting in transformative changes into one’s most vibrant and honest self.
In the modern world, where it isn’t abnormal for the time we spend at the office to trump the time we spend at home, the relationship between career and life happiness is often one of direct influence. To put it plainly, if you’re dissatisfied with one, it’s likely you’re as dissatisfied with the other. Despite the importance then of maintaining a healthy marriage between the two, in most cases people struggle to strike the right balance. This is where Reed and Repurpose You come to the rescue. With an innate understanding of the struggles people face on a day-to-day basis, they’re able to guide them on a path that results in personal discoveries of meaning and purpose. Ultimately, however, the journey must begin with the individual.
In the following sections, we’ll take a look at what happens when the individual decides to take that first step. Before that though, let’s find out a bit about the impact Repurpose You has made so far.
The Impact Of Repurpose You
Experience teaching over 7000 leaders and professionals across 60 companies including Crayola, Bosch, and Intel.
Numerous accreditations such as those from The Mindfulness Center, the Canadian Mental Health Association, International Coach Federation, Yoga Alliance, and more.
Numerous testimonials available on Repurpose You’s homepage.
The Process Of Obtaining Job Happiness
As stated, in the modern world, many people find themselves spending more time at work than they do anywhere else. According to Gettysburg College, the average person spends 90,000 hours, or, one-third of their lifetime at work. To make matters worse, articles have been published like the one on CNBC in 2019, which, referencing a CareerCast survey, found that 78% of Americans feel unduly stressed at work. More recently, a 2022 report by Gallup found that 85% of individuals worldwide are dissatisfied with their jobs. The numbers are alarming and the situation seems dire considering how job happiness is not something that can be obtained by one of those quick-fix happiness hacks like smiling more. The reason it’s much trickier is because job happiness deals with matters at the corporate and team level, as opposed to solely the individual. As such, Reed proposes several solutions:
Corporate training and coaching around topics like mindful leadership, empowered leadership, and stress and performance management.
Implementing team bonding retreats and fostering a more collaborative culture inside the workplace.
Integrating mind-body modalities and therapies inside the workplace to create a more holistic experience of our lives at home and in the office.
By taking a more mindful approach to work life, the possibility of lowering stress and dissatisfaction in the workplace will become a more attainable prospect. This is an integral step in finding meaning and purpose in your life.
How Covid Affected Job Happiness
If obtaining job happiness wasn’t tricky enough, the Covid pandemic really shone a light on the matter and revealed the gravity of the issue. The fact is, a statistic like the one from Gallup likely rose as high as it did due to the pandemic.
As Reed explains, prior to the Covid outbreak, a majority of professionals were probably living a life of non-stop doing, where they’d become so desensitized to what was going on in their body as their whole experience was made up of the external world. Whenever they did feel stressed or dissatisfied, their reaction was to drown that voice in any distraction, whether that be alcohol, the internet, or even more work. What Covid incited with the sudden shutting down of the world was to give people more space to actually experience everything going on inside of them. The result? The realization that they weren’t living lives congruent with their most authentic selves.
Like all transformative experiences, this realization, though frightening, was necessary. By coming face-to-face with the issue and accepting it, people could now re-introduce what it was they were missing in their jobs and lives. For a lot of people, this meant pursuing more entrepreneurial roles, a position Reed says lines up with many key drivers of human happiness.
What Are The Key Drivers Of Human Happiness?
The three key drivers of human happiness are mastery, autonomy, and purpose. In the corporate world, it’s possible to get a sense of mastery, but the latter two are more often than not missing.
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Putting this once more in the context of the Covid pandemic, when people get a space to experience their reality, they might begin to realize that their workplace where they spend countless hours in isn’t actually fulfilling them in any meaningful way. This can explain the post-Covid movement known as The Great Resignation, where countless workers have left their jobs to pursue roles with greater senses of mastery, autonomy, and purpose. Among them, an entrepreneurial role ticks all the boxes.
There Is No Roadmap To Meaning & Purpose
One aspect Reed understands above all else in the pursuit of meaning and purpose is the fact that there is no roadmap. The truth is, there’s a fallacy about the idea that when one is looking for meaning and purpose, they’ve got to pull up their bootstraps and go out and find it. The reality, however, has little to do with going out and all to do with going in.
Through his personal journey and work with numerous clients over the years, Reed has come to the conclusion that fundamentally, a lack of meaning and purpose is the result of a lack of connection with oneself. As a simple thought experiment, consider any moment in your life when you made a decision backed by the utmost clarity and intention. Now, was that decision the right choice in the path of your life? Reed would hazard a guess and claim that it was. The reason he’s so confident is because of the fact that when we listen to the inner voice within, we’re in tune with our most authentic selves. Programs like Repurpose You’s signature 16-week AAA Coaching Program help clients reconnect with their inner voice, thereby allowing them to remain in total presence and awareness, and, in turn, live a life reflective of their authentic wants and needs.
Practical Tips For Accessing Meaning & Purpose
While an advocate for practices such as yoga and breathwork, Reed believes that to truly get to the core of what’s bothering you, you can’t rely on those efforts alone. As such, here are a few practical tips for the individual that wants to begin bettering themselves now.
Ask tough questions. One question Reed likes to explore a lot is, “What is true in your life that you wish you didn’t know?” This cuts to the nagging truth that is often swept under the rug. By asking such questions, one begins to start to understand how to live an emotionally fulfilled, meaningful, and purpose-driven life.
Consider your role models. Looking at your role models is a great way of getting a better idea of what it is you want and are missing in your life. Though envy and jealousy can be destructive, by acknowledging these feelings it’s possible to take ownership of your life circumstance and transform it for the better.
Keep learning. When people stop learning, their minds stagnate. As such, having an open mind and being curious about the world is one of the best ways to access meaning and purpose, as it ensures personal development never stops.
Spend time on your passions. Similar to how you should always continue learning, spending time on your passions is also crucial. While this is a hard sell for most working professionals considering how busy their lives are, it’s important to at least recognize what makes you feel alive.
While Reed believes these practical tips can help, ultimately, he knows there’s no quick and easy fix. The process is one of consistent discovery and refinement that requires intentionality, motivation, discipline, and devotion. On the plus side however, the more energy we put in, the more we end up getting out.
Connect with Brad on LinkedIn
Give Repurpose You a follow: https://www.repurpose-you.com/
Learn more about Repurpose You’s life coaching programs: https://www.repurpose-you.com/life-coaching
