What Is Your Extraordinary Life Statement?
Living My Dreams .. A Sample Statement
Ever wonder how to start living your dreams? Wonder if it is worth taking the time to discover and describe the extraordinary life you want to live?
Hard Work Does Pay Off ...
It can seem like a lot of work .. but here is where all your hard work starts to pay off. Putting into words the ideas of what a life spent living your dreams -- can be very empowering.
Suddenly, you can see opportunities where yesterday you only saw problems and headaches. Sick co-workers used to mean more work and late nights and a lot of grumbling ... and now they can mean gaining some valuable experience you can put in your resume and use in interviews for your dream job.
But the benefits don't stop when quitting time comes (pun intended). Once you have a life story that inspires you to live your dreams -- you can understand how your work, your weekends and your life start to weave together into an extraordinary life.
The surly mocha chino barista teaches you about customer service when you start your own business. The guy sitting next to you on the plane transforms (sometimes) into a fount of knowledge about your future career instead of the guy who keeps trampling your toes and hogging the middle tray table.
The benefits spill over into all aspects of your life ... from who you are attracted to (and who is attracted to you), to the people that become fast friends because you share similar dreams and values -- as opposed to a passing interest in the latest sports craze or TV show.
But the biggest impact is really in taking that big step Socrates advised when he said "Know Thyself". Examining your dreams and spending time seriously thinking about what you want your life to become -- and leapfrog your life and take you in unexpected but very welcome directions.
Seeing The Difference A Few Words Make
Seeing is a very powerful tool ... so take a look at this before and after statement.
Take a moment and imagine, if your before is somewhat like the one below, what impact on your life it would have if you could have an after statement that gave you clarity about your life and showed you how to start transform it to make your dreams come true. (More about that below)
Before Statement
My Extraordinary Life Is ...
I guess I want what everybody else does. To get a good career, earn enough to do more than just get by and go as far as my skills and abilities will take me. I want to have a couple of kids and a close relationship with, hopefully, my soul mate. I want to be a good friend and have a close, loving relationship with my family. I would like to travel, maybe retire early. I really care about the homeless situation, so I would love to volunteer and make a difference in that area. We were poor growing up, and I would like to help others who have had a couple of bad breaks. I have always dreamed of traveling to Japan, so I would love to spend some time visiting the countryside and learning more about the culture. I like, oddly enough, strange, exotic vegetables -- and the Japanese have lots of those. I don't know what my life calling is, or my purpose is, for that matter. I guess, to live a good life and be a good parent and friend. That's about it.
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After Statement
My Extraordinary Life Is ...My Extraordinary Life is ... a life doing what I love and am great at, working in the places and with the people that inspire me, and being well paid to make an impact on the world and my community that fills my life with joy, meaning and financial security. Specifically, doing work that rewards me for using my innovative ideas for introducing new products, coming up with catchy marketing phrases, developing adventurous recipes, and using my personal, warm and engaging personality. I would like my work to be to find, introduce, market and champion new, exotic, strange and ethnic fruits and vegetables in the US produce market. By working with specialty produce importers, upscale markets, innovative and celebrity chefs, food stylists and media marketing outlets like Food TV, I can help develop and grow markets for the "strange fruits and veggies" that I love and which can transform ordinary dishes into delightful recipes by giving them an exotic or ethnic spin. I would love to create a vibrant demand for these products by giving preparation, cooking and serving tips, as well as by sharing interesting facts and assisting in inspiring chefs to develop recipes that include or showcase my products. I can develop my gift of making lasting contacts and lifelong relationships with growers, chefs, specialty importers and the media -- so that in person or on camera I can share my passion for these exotic and ethnic products, as well as the people who grow and harvest them around the world. I would love to travel around the world and specialize in the Orient as well as indigenous cultures to bring the finest ingredients to the US market. Then I can lend my voice, contacts and time to help fight worldwide hunger -- as well as champion indigenous growers who, with a growing market for their crops, can move above the poverty line and afford to buy health care, build adequate housing and send their children to school. My life would be filled with the moments that make life meaningful to me -- tramping through the fields of Japan to discover a new variety of fruit, tasting it for the first time and then sharing that moment with other chefs in the US (possibly Europe) as I see first the surprise on their face and then the wheels start to turn with possibilities. One of the amazing experiences will be spending hours in test kitchens -- riffing on new recipes and discussing new flavor combinations. I would also cherish helping my growers and importers succeed -- and being a part of the turning points in their lives, such as when a local farmer gets a contract that means he can repair his leaking roof, buy that extra goat, or send his oldest child to school. In my off time, I would explore the local culture and visit the Zen temples of the Orient and work on my collection of Zen koans. Do some mountain biking up Kilimanjaro and try to figure out why Tori gates fascinate me. Learn some Japanese and how to drink my interpreters under the table with green tea or whatever the local brew is. And sit in makeshift kitchens and have old women teach me the ins and outs of their local cuisine and family recipes. I can share my passion for food, strange produce, old spaghetti westerns and vintage delivery trucks with those I love and keep an eye out while traveling for my soul mate -- a person who shares my passions, champions my dreams, inspires me to keep growing and fills my nights with more laughter, love and intimacy than I ever thought possible. That laughter, respect and love will spill over into the kitchen, and into our kids lives, helping them to know they are deeply loved, appreciated, valued, listened to and respected for who they are, not for who we want them to be. I dream of making a difference by touching and improving individual lives. Working at a grassroots level in several corners of the world, I can change the face of poverty and hunger by connecting growers with buyers, buyers with importers, and importers with markets, chefs and consumers. By making a market in the US for locally grown, indigenous crops -- I can help everyone succeed at what they do best -- from growing and importing, to marketing and cooking. And when I get tired of traveling, who knows? Maybe open a restaurant, maybe become an organic grower myself, or even become an exotic food consultant to large commercial food companies that want to spice up their line of frozen foods. Whatever I end up doing, I know that food is at the center of it and my combined life path 2 (nurturer, advisor), 3 (creative recipe maker) and 5 (adventurer, world traveler) offers lots of livelihood possibilities. My calling is to help bring people together to promote trade that works at a grassroots level to end hunger at its root cause -- poverty. My purpose is to learn how to open up, experience and share love, laughter and intimacy with my friends, fellow chefs, the love of my life and my kids (once I have them). And my gift to the world is the enhancement of an international cuisine that embraces other cultures and promotes understanding and acceptance through the universal language of food.
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How To Start Using Your Statement To Transform Your Life
It isn't too hard to see how the statement above can transform a life.
For example, the choice of higher education -- whether to go and if so, which college to choose. Since food is now the center of his life, a culinary school with lots of ethnic cuisine classes would be a better choice than a traditional 4 year university or community college. Summer jobs in ethnic restaurants and building a network of international friends would be a better choice than working in the local burger joint or a restaurant serving standard American meals or traditional French dishes and hanging out with his local buddies.
Internships, apprenticeships, and first jobs are key here -- and taking a job on a cruise ship that visits lots of ORiental ports of call would be a good choice to get a feel for the local customs and food, as well as build up contacts and have time to explore local markets and work with local foods purchased by the cruise ship. It also is an opportunity to hone his relationship skills, since he would have the chance to interact and establish rapport with hundreds of new people each week.
A year or two on board would give him plenty of experience and be a good a reality check on his extraordinary life statement -- seeing if he loved to do more traveling or had had enough, was good at making enduring contacts in the produce markets, really loved trampling through fields as much as he thought he did, and was born to do the work or needed to revise and update his statement to reflect all he had learned about the world and himself.
If he still liked his plan, he might transition into a position where he was the lead liaison buying the food for the cruise ship at all its ports of call -- or setting up long term buying contracts for the entire cruise line. That would give him direct experience with both growers and local produce sellers, and deepen his network of contacts as well as his exposure to local cultures, trade practices and customs regulations.
And at each major decision, he could use his statement to guide his choices. When he met someone special, he could talk about his dreams for his future and see if their passions, values and futures were well matched. And his friends, family and co-workers could help him make contacts and recognize opportunities because they would know how serious he was about living his dreams and what his long term goals were.
So, What About You ...
Are you ready to get started figuring out what your extraordinary life is? Or would you like to read more before and after sample statements? Or explore another aspect of making your dreams come true?
The choice is up to you.
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inspiring quotes: living your dreams
