Episode 235: Finding Your Purpose Outside of Your 9-5 – The PURPOSE Framework

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Alright,, y’all. Before we jump into today’s episode, I want to invite you to our free workshop we have coming up in two weeks, teaching you the five Ps of becoming a successful and profitable virtual assistant. On Thursday, September 28th, I’m gonna be going live teaching you exactly what you need to do to become a virtual assistant. You’re gonna learn where to find paying clients, how to figure out what services you wanna offer, and the top three mistakes new virtual assistants make so you can avoid them. And this will literally help you get those foundational pieces figured out so you can become a virtual assistant. Start working from home with your babies. So go check that out at ariannavernier.com/free-workshop or find the link in the show notes, and I cannot wait to see you there.

[00:00:50] All right, mama. Are you called to quit your nine to five, but you’re just not really sure what else you’re supposed to do? In this episode, I wanna walk you through the PURPOSE framework to uncover your God-given purpose outside of your nine to five. So PURPOSE framework is a- what is it, acronym? So each letter stands for a different piece of the framework. So the first P of purpose is Pray. You need to be praying every day to ask God for guidance to just show you exactly where he wants you to be going. So three great ways to do this is one with a prayer journal. I really like prayer journals because if you just, you know, speak your prayers, you’re not likely to remember everything, but if you write it down, you can always go back later and reread your prayers and be like, oh yeah, God totally answered that one, and that one, and that one. So it’s just really cool to kind of keep track of how he’s working in your life that you may have forgotten if you didn’t write it down. Another really great tip when you’re praying is to ask questions, and you can even ask for signs. So if you’re wondering if God is steering you in a certain direction, one of my favorite things to do is just ask him for a sign. So I’ll be like, Hey, God, if you. Are pointing me in this direction. Can you show me a ladybug so that I know this is where you want me to go? And maybe I’ll start slowly working towards that thing anyway. ’cause you don’t wanna just like always be doing nothing in your waiting. You can take action, but then when you get that answer, you know, you can kind of redirect.

[00:02:31] So I might still do some things in the meantime while I’m waiting for the answer, but I always keep a lookout and if I ask for a sign, I keep my eyes open to different ways that I might not expect to see that sign. So usually I’ll ask about a bug. I don’t know why. That’s just kind of my thing. I always ask to see like a caterpillar or ladybug, butterfly, something. One of the times I asked to see a caterpillar. I took my kiddos to the childcare in our gym, and right next to the sign-in clipboard was a pile of little Caterpillar artwork, things that the kids had made in the class. So like, you’re not always gonna see the real actual, you know, caterpillar, but look for, you know, a screensaver on the, the background of your computer. Look for, I don’t know, a decal in somebody’s car. Look for those. Those signs that like God’s giving you, but he just wants you to be paying attention to see if you’re really listening to him. So that’s one really great way to just kind of see if God is guiding you is by asking him questions and asking him for different signs.

[00:03:39] You also wanna make sure that you are. Praying with gratitude and thanking God for all that he’s given you so far. Even if you’re trying to figure out where you’re going, you still wanna remain gracious and grateful for the things he’s already helped you figure out the things he’s already given you. So make sure you’re doing that as well. The you in the purpose framework is Uncover. So you wanna ask God to show you and to uncover exactly what your strengths are, what he’s made you to do. Ask him to start guiding you towards that. Once you’ve prayed to him about that, you wanna also ask others what they see your strengths are. Now, you don’t wanna ask everyone. You wanna keep this kind of tight knit to those people that you see as. Godly role models that really pour into you, and you just wanna be careful with who you ask. You don’t wanna ask every single person, but it is helpful to hear from others what they see that your strengths are and how you could utilize them elsewhere. So once you’ve asked others, then I want you to go and ask God for clarification again. ’cause we don’t wanna just go off what other humans tell us to do. We wanna ask God to make sure that is exactly what he’s telling us to do.

[00:04:55] All right. The R in the purpose framework is to Redefine. So you wanna clarify who you are in God’s eyes and redefine what your identity was. So for me, I was a teacher and I had to redefine my identity because being a teacher was a big part of my personal identity. So you have to change what you see yourself as. And one thing you can kind of help you with is seeing how you can use your previous skills that you had in your previous job in a different way. So with teaching, I had to learn my customer service skills, my ability to figure things out, my willingness to learn all of these things. Yes, they were part of my teacher identity, but they could a hundred percent be applied to other things in the area that God was searing me towards. So you have to start to redefine who you are in God’s eyes, but then also like your own personal identity.

[00:05:53] The next P in the purpose framework is to Prioritize. You need to prioritize your goals, and a big part of this is auditing your time to make sure you have time to dedicate to those goals. Time blocking and using a planner is so incredibly crucial for this. I go really in depth into time blocking and how to do it in episode 233. So go check that out if you haven’t already, that will give you more details on that. But it is really crucial to help you prioritize your goals in redefining your purpose, chasing a new dream outside of your nine to five and all that. You have to prioritize it. It’s not just gonna happen on its own.

[00:06:36] All right. The next letter in the Purpose framework is, O, Overcome your roadblocks. Again, I talk really, really in depth about this in episode 162, but we go over how to overcome guilt, any guilt that you might be facing, how to overcome imposter syndrome. Overcoming perfectionism and how to overcome distraction. So go check out episode 162 for more in depth about that. But those are the kind of the big four roadblocks you might face in your journey of discovering your purpose.

[00:07:10] All right? S is Set Goals. So you want to figure out what your goals are. A lot of people that’s just replacing their income, and then you wanna backwards design towards. Those goals. So if you’re in the teaching world, you probably know what backwards design is, but if you are not familiar, it’s just setting a goal. And then you have to figure out what steps do I need to take to reach that goal. So for our students, if we need them to master a new skill, We have to figure out what lessons we have to teach them and in what order we have to teach them to be able to help them achieve that new skill. So with your setting your income goal to replace your income, you wanna figure out a date that you want to have your income replaced by, and then figure out what do I need to do each month? How much do I need to make each month? How many new clients do I need to get to be able to hit that goal? Then you can also set 90 day goals. So if you have a certain goal, you want to write down all of the steps, you need to hit that goal. Every single thing, whether it’s big, little, whatever, write it down and then you want to, on a different piece of paper, create three columns. You’re gonna label each column month one, month two, and month three. So then all those tasks you wrote down that you’re gonna need to do to hit that goal, you wanna assign each task to a column. So the tasks that you need to do at first, you would put in month one. Then sometimes it’s almost easier to do the tasks. You know, you’re gonna have to do it in month three, and then put anything remaining in the middle. Then you can also assign weeks to each task. So what week are you going to get the certain tasks in that column done in that month? So if you have month one, the tasks in that column, you need to get completed in four weeks. So you wanna assign one week to a certain number of tasks in that column. I hope that makes sense.

[00:09:07] Alright, the final step of the purpose framework is E, which is Evaluate. You need to make sure that you are staying on track towards your goals. Towards figuring out your purpose towards chasing that dream of yours. And you can also always pivot if needed, if you feel like God has given you a clear answer that no, this is not the route you’re supposed to be taking. You can always pivot and that is totally okay.

[00:09:34] So I go through the PURPOSE framework a lot more in my book, Teacher Turned … And even if you’re not a teacher, I think this book still will totally apply to you. So you can check that out at ariannavernier.com/teacher-turned-book, or you can find that link in the show notes. But make sure you grab that because that will. Walk you through this PURPOSE framework a lot more in depth and help you a ton in pursuing your God-given purpose outside of your nine to five.

[00:10:05] All right, y’all. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Let me know if you have any questions about this. Come and drop them in our free Facebook community. That’s at facebook.com/groups/virtualassistantmama. I would love to hear from you and support you in your journey to uncovering your purpose.