The next key element in designing an authentic life is to explore the talents and skills that you have developed over the years, and to identify the talents and skills that you would like to develop over the next few years.

There is a bit of controversy surrounding talents and skills. On the one hand there are those who believe that we are born with natural talents and skills, and these are what we should be identifying and designing our authentic life around.

Source: Smithsonian, Flickr, Creative Commons

Supporters of this belief advocate that when individuals uncover their natural skills and talents then they should participate in activities that they are authentically passionate about. One way to know if the talent or skill is natural is to explore the activities that you used to enjoy as a child.  If you still enjoy doing these activities, then the skills and talents associated with these activities are natural.

The problem I find with this belief is that, as a child, I didn’t necessarily participate in many activities. To this day there are still activities that I am drawn to but that I have no experience with, like sailing or horseback riding. These are the activities that I will learn the skills for and, hopefully, develop some talent for over the next few years.

I tend to subscribe to the belief that talents and skills can be learned and developed as we age and have access to more experiences. My preferred method in dealing with my talents and skills is to be aware of what activities draw my attention and then try them out. I constantly monitor what activities, etc., draw my attention when I am out and about, when I am visiting with friends, when I am watching TV, or reading magazines, or wandering through book stores, etc. By making a list of these activities, etc., I can explore my interest in them. If I can maintain a fairly high level of interest for more than a fleeting second — well, maybe a month or two — then I decide whether I want to develop my skills in that area.

Maybe my interest is drawn and held by natural talents, I don’t know. What I do know is that for me, my interest needs to be there first otherwise I won’t make the effort to develop the skill.

Creating a list of our talents and skills doesn’t always provide us with insight into activities that that we would want to include in our authentic lives or develop into a business. Most people have skills and talents that they don’t necessarily want to use on a regular basis. For example, I might be have a great talent for washing dishes, or trapping dust bunnies, or catching and removing spiders from the livingroom,  but I wouldn’t want to spend my life doing any of those.

How do you know which talents and skills are ones you should be investing your time and effort into?

One exercise you can do is to the following:

• make a list of every thing you have done in the past that you have really enjoyed doing. Things that have made time disappear, where you lose track of the time, of your whereabouts, etc, while you are doing this activity. These are talents and skills that you already know you have.
• make another list of everything you have always wanted to do, or try, but have not yet managed to do so. You know the kinds of things — the “If I knew I could not fail I would .….….….….….….….” activities. Go to the local book store to see what kinds of how-to books draw your attention. Look through the continuing education classes offered in your area. Add anything and everything that you can think of that attracts your attention. Then eliminate anything that is impossible to do (like time-travel, etc). From what is left on the list. make a short list of the top ten easiest activities you would like to try, and then try them. See if you like like them. Discard any activity that you don’t like actually doing. Keep going through your list of possibilities until you have narrowed it down to your top ten activities.
• combine the two lists above and see if any patterns emerge. Are there certain types of things that you prefer over others (e.g. sports over crafts)?
• once you have identified patterns regarding the talents and skills that you have a preference for, identify several activities that use those talents and skills and begin incorporating them into our life.
• if there are activities that already have the talents and skills for, then begin incorporating them into your current lifestyle.
• if there are activities that you are keenly interested in, but you haven’t yet developed the skills and talents for them, then begin developing the skills and talents for these activities.

This short video from Barbara Sher provides her perspective on the connection between our natural talents and participating in activities that we really enjoy doing:

Barbara Sher Creating Your New Life:

Recent studies have shown that talents and skills in pretty much anything can be learned, regardless of a person’s age - as long as there are no physical or psychological problems that prevent the development of the specific skill or talent. Playing the piano, learning a second language, becoming computer literate, developing an enterprise, belly dancing — whatever you have an interest in you can develop a skill or a talent for. The only compromise that aging has is that it slows the speed at which talents and skills can be learned and developed.

What skills and talents do you have that you want to incorporate into your Authentic Life? What skills and talents would you like to develop so you can also incorporate them into your Authentic Life?

The next post will explore the 5th Key Element, Life and Work Experiences.

The second key element of the eight key life elements to consider when designing a new authentic lifestyle is Values.

Values guide us. They help determine what is important to us in our lives and the full compliment of our values is unique to each and every individual. They establish the degree of importance we place on people, behaviors, objects, locations, beliefs, etc.

Identifying your values provides you with important information that you can use to help design your authentic life.

There are any number of things that you could identify as having value to you. For example, how important are the following to you. Are they only slightly important? Fairly important? or Very important?:

• enjoyment (How important is having fun at what you do?)
• helping other people; children; animals; the environment
• friendships
• protecting heritage buildings
• freedom
• recognition
• creativity
• location
• achievement
• power and authority
• variety
• risk
• intellectual stimulation
• public contact
• security
• etc.

These are just a handful of the issues that could have great value to you. Using the above list as a starting point, take some quiet time when you can be undisturbed by other people, pets, phones, etc. Relax and identify your core or critical values. When you feel that you have identified all of your core or critical values, create the following three lists for yourself:

• I want the following out of life:
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..

• The most important criteria or standards for my relationships and activities are:
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..

• Your five most important critical or core values are:
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..
  • .….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…..

Keep this list handy, there are six more key elements to explore. In the next post, I will be providing some information on the third key element in designing an authentic life — Motivators and Interests.

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“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cheshire Cat.
“I don’t much care where —” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cheshire Cat.
“— so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

Lewis Carol, Alice in Wonderland.….

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The first element that needs to be explored when designing an authentic lifestyle is to figure out what your life’s purpose is, so that you don’t end up like Alice in the quote from Alice in Wonderland above — simply going somewhere!!

This is not an easy task!!

“If it’s not an easy task, then why bother trying to figure out my life’s purpose?” you might ask, and that’s a good question. One answer to this good question is, that finding and following your life’s purpose provides you with so many benefits. People who have taken the time to explore their life’s purpose experience more joy, more energy, more fulfillment and more successes in their life.

Life Coach Marcia Bench states emphatically that “You will experience success in your life to the extent that you are clear in your life’s purpose.” The clearer your life purpose is, the more successful your life will be. Not a bad outcome!!

What is a ‘Life’s Purpose’?

Your life’s purpose is the overarching theme or goal for your life; it is what you feel you were meant to do. Finding your life’s purpose gives you a more pleasurable, more abundant, more fulfilling life. Time seems to fly by with hours feeling like minutes when you are wrapped up in activities that are linked to your life’s purpose.

Activities are joyful, energizing, and tend to feel more like play than work. They are also completely unique to you. That’s not to say that no-one else is doing the activities that you are doing, it’s just that you bring your unique gift, your unique personality to these activities when you do them.

Source: florindasdesigns-flickr

It’s one thing to know all of this about one’s life purpose, but trying to find your own unique, personal life’s purpose is something completely different.

After a few months of research and study, I found several techniques that explored how to find my life’s purpose — that quality or passion that I wanted to center my life around. That ‘thing’ that I wanted to build a career on, or spend time studying, or spend time doing. That ‘thing’ would make me feel like I was accomplishing something with my life and not just going somewhere; anywhere!

OK, so I’m not the only person that is seeking to identify their life’s purpose. Seems that there are a few other baby boomers, and individuals from other age groups, who are currently searching to define their life’s purpose.

It turns out that there are numerous techniques that people use to explore and identify their life’s purpose. Many techniques involve answering questions, like the one’s below.

10 Questions That Can Help You Discover Your Life’s Purpose:

1. What do you love to do, whether in your spare time or at work?
2. What parts of your present job or life activities do you thoroughly enjoy?
3. What do you naturally do well?
4. What are your ten greatest successes to date (in your eyes)?
5. Is there a cause about which you feel passionate?
6. What are the ten most important lessons you have learned in your life?
7. Are there some issues or perceived problems that have occurred over and over again?
8. What do you daydream about doing?
9. Imagine you are writing your epitaph? What things do you want to be remembered for at the end of your life?
10. What would you do if you know you could not fail? What would it take to achieve that?

Go through the answers to these questions and look for any issues, activities, ideas, etc, that occur in several of your answers. Look also for similar types of activities, etc. Can you combine identified activities, etc., into one or two more general themes? These will point you in the direction of your life’s purpose.

There is another technique that I really enjoy using to identify topics that I am interested in that could also be tied to my life’s purpose, but that could be because I am more than just a little bit book obsessed:

• Try spending some time wandering around a large bookstore. What topics are attracting your attention? History? Architecture? Travel? Look for a pattern in what book topics you are strongly attracted to.

• You can also look at the books you own. What topics have interested you enough that you have actually bought books about the topic — and spent time reading?

• And you can look at what magazines you subscribe to. What are the topics of the articles that caught your attention and that you enjoyed reading?

Once you have all of this information collected, see what patterns you can identify, what topics keep popping up. These common interests and patterns will point towards your life’s purpose and will help you set life goals, help you design your lifestyle, and help you maneuver through major lifestyle transitions.

With your life’s purpose, a goal and a plan in place, you can begin building your best authentic life. What’s this? You don’t have a goal or a plan in place? In that case, stay tuned. I will be posting some information on how to create both a goal and plan over the next few weeks.

In the meantime — what topics spark your interests?? Can you find specific patterns??

In my next post, I will be looking at the second element in designing an Authentic Life — Identifying Your Values.

I’m sure that you have heard this before — in fact, I’m sure I’ve said this before and will say it again (and again and again): One of the most difficult aspects of creating a virtual business or trying to make enough money from blogging to enjoy an Ageless Nomadic lifestyle, is deciding what topic or subject to focus on and what niche to specialize in.

Sure, it’s possible to build a brilliant and successful virtual business based solely on what your past work or leisure experiences have been — but you have already been there and done that. For a lot of people making a change as significant as starting a mobile, virtual business provides an opportunity to explore something new — perhaps becoming a social entrepreneur, or developing a hobby. After all, if you are going to put your time and effort and money into developing a business from scratch it might as well be a business that  is based on you doing something that you really, really enjoy.

Over the next 8 weeks or so, I will be providing information that can help you explore the 8 Key Elements of Your Authentic Life. The objective is to (hopefully) help you determine what type of virtual business you would like to develop, and what topic and niche you would like to specialize in.

Enjoy

Greetings All

It’s been a while since we last connected — but Ageless Nomads is back and is gearing up to introduce some interesting and exciting material over the next little while.

If you have visited Ageless Nomads recently, you will have noticed that there have been a few changes made to the website recently. A new design, a tighter structure, some new articles — and this is just the beginning!!

If you haven’t visited Ageless Nomads recently, then please come and take a look.

Some of the new items that can be found at Ageless Nomads include:

Short videos, featuring:

1. Seth Godin speaking on the Value of Tribes, and on How the Publishing Industry is Changing;
2. Tim Ferriss discussing the 4 Hour Work Week and How to Start a Business;
3. Loic Le Meur from Seesmic speaking on Building Communities;
4. Laura Day on the Power of Intuition;
5. Words of Wisdom from Barbara Sher;
6. Martha Beck explaining how we can Unleash Our Inner Genius.

There is also an amazing vide0 called Crazy Little Thing Called Life by Garbandage — well worth watching

A couple of new articles have also been added to the Lifestyles Design Skills Section, and the Communication Skills Section.

New articles and videos focusing on helping you develop the skills needed to become an Ageless Nomad will be added to the Ageless Nomad website on a regular basis. So check us out and let me know what you think of the new Ageless Nomads site.

Cheers

Anne