How to Live in Hot-Pursuit of Your Purpose & Find True Fulfillment

00:02

Dr. Angela Aja

Welcome to Summoned to Soar Radio. This podcast was created for bold female leaders who are ready to rise above the hustle and create a life of purpose, impact and influence. If you've got a big vision and a deep desire to make your mark on the world and a hunger to step into your next season with clarity and confidence, then let me tell you're at the right place at the right time. Here's what we're all about. We're about helping women rediscover their authentic voice, reinvent themselves as powerful, influential leaders, and then reclaim their authority with a thought leadership book. With simple, actionable mindset strategies and the SOAR method, which is our proven framework for transformation, you'll discover how to turn your challenges into stepping stones, lead with authenticity and boldness, and share your message in a way that leaves a legacy.

01:03

Dr. Angela Aja

Join me and my inspiring guests as we share personal stories, practical tools and strategies to help you align your life with your purpose. Whether you're looking to shift the narrative around women and leadership or cement your legacy as a spirit led visionary, this podcast will give you the courage and clarity to soar. It's time to embrace your story, own your journey, and amplify your impact, even if life hasn't gone as planned. Transform, Breakthrough, Soar. Are you ready?

01:41

Dr. Angela Aja

Hey. I am so excited to be here with you today and I love this subject. So I found that many women who are in leadership, whether they're leading a home, a business, a ministry, or an organization, they're out there crushing their goals, but they've confused what they do with who they are. And so in this episode, I'm going to expose some myths about purpose and I'm going to really take a look. We're going to do a deep dive into what keeps women stuck feeling unfulfilled and getting to the brink of burnout. So, you know, I want to bring some clarity and courage for you so that you can walk away having a better understanding of what your purpose is and how to live with purpose so that you can find real fulfillment.

02:42

Dr. Angela Aja

So if you're ready to lead from your core instead of your calendar, then this one's for you. Have you ever asked yourself, what's my purpose? Or maybe you said, you know, if I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing? And I gotta tell you, that question used to terrify me. And I found that a lot of high achieving women unknowingly build their identity on the foundation of their roles and responsibilities and even their results, instead of who they are at their Core. The problem is if your roles change, your responsibilities change, or even your results change, then it leaves you with the question, you know, who am I now? And it can lead to an identity crisis, which is exactly what happened to me. I built my whole identity around what I did.

03:45

Dr. Angela Aja

And when what I did was swept away, then I felt like I had lost myself, and I had to go on a journey of rediscovering who I was apart from what I did. And that's what I want to help you do today. So I found that there are some myths that a lot of women believe about purpose. The first one is that I think that women, and probably men, too, they falsely believe that their purpose is what they do. But I want to set the record straight. Your purpose is not what you do. Your purpose is who you are at your core. Your purpose is not what you produce.

04:36

Dr. Angela Aja

The second myth that I find women believe is that they think I'll find my purpose once I've accomplished this, or if I am successful at this or I accomplish that, then that will prove that I'm purposeful. But that's a false belief, because purpose is the foundation of success, not the fruit of success. Here's the third one. Purpose is for creatives or spiritual people, not CEOs or leaders. But that also is false, because your purpose is your fuel. It fuels your assignment. So whether you're leading in the boardroom or the living room, your purpose is going to fuel your assignment. Now, here's another myth. If I lose my title or my role or my job, then I'll lose my value. And that belief right there leads to an identity crisis when your season shift.

05:49

Dr. Angela Aja

But again, your purpose is not linked to a season in your life. Your purpose is who you've always been. And I believe your purpose does not change. You're probably living with purpose every single day. But if you haven't taken time to identify it, then you're living haphazardly. But once you identify your purpose, then you can be more intentional about your purpose. Here's another myth. If I'm doing good work, it must be purpose, and that's not necessarily true. So you can do good things that are not your thing, and that's how burnout begins. I also like to say that chronic busyness is not proof of your purpose, but an avoidance of your purpose. So let's talk about what is purpose. Well, number one, I believe that purpose is in your spiritual DNA. I believe that you were born with purpose. It's not something you create.

07:05

Dr. Angela Aja

It's Something you uncover. And I believe that God encoded your purpose into you and your essence before you ever performed a task. So you were born with purpose, not hired into it. Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 5, it says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. So you know, I always like to say, jokingly that, you know, when you were born, God did not put you on a conveyor belt and stamp your head. This one has no purpose. But sometimes we go through life living as if we don't have purpose until we accomplish something or until we have something or do something. And so, you know, many women, they don't trust their purpose because they were praised for their performance as a young girl. And so their focus has been more about performance rather than purpose.

08:09

Dr. Angela Aja

When women grow up being celebrated for what they're doing rather than who they're being, then they start to equate their purpose with output. When you slow down and step out of the spotlight, then if you've built your purpose on performance, that's when you feel worthless or you wonder, like, what's my value? But the truth is that purpose doesn't need applause to be powerful. I hope that you're letting that sink into your heart. Here's the other thing. Purpose gives you permission to release what no longer fits you. The more clear you are about your purpose, the easier it is to say no without guilt. So purpose becomes a filter. Not only that, but purpose informs your boundaries. It helps you recognize when a season is over before you hit burnout or even bitterness. Your purpose is like a tree.

09:25

Dr. Angela Aja

And sometimes the fruit on the tree changes, but the root stays grounded. And so your purpose is like the roots of your tree. And your role might shift. You know, you might be a pastor, a coach, author, a CEO, a mom, or a wife. And so your roles can change, but the essence of who you are and why you're here remains intact. So your purpose is not a title. It's the truth of who you are. Purpose prevents the cycle of reinvention that leads to identity fatigue. So here's what happens. When women lose their job and their titles, their marriage or their ministry, or when life falls apart, then they often have to redefine themselves. And sometimes you have to start over from scratch, like I did. But when your purpose is your anchor, then you can just realign and not have totally reinvent.

10:40

Dr. Angela Aja

Purpose protects you from the counterfeit. When you don't know your purpose, you settle for positions that might look good on paper, but they don't light your soul on fire. When you know what Your purpose is, it gives you discernment and it helps you to speak spot a misalignment before you even commit to something. So here's what I want to say to you, is that your purpose is not your platform. It's your pulse. Your purpose is your inner essence. It's who you are, why you're here and what you're here to do. It's what drives you and it's the gift that you're here to bring to the world. And it's who you are naturally.

11:33

Dr. Angela Aja

So when you build your purpose on what you do, then that's when you become performance driven or you tie your worth to your output or you experience an identity crisis anytime there's a transition because it just throws you out of whack. But if you build your purpose on who you are, then you become value driven and you're able to lead with clarity and peace. You're unshakable because even when your season shift, your purpose doesn't shift. And that's really important to understand. Now here's what happens. If you don't have clarity about your purpose. You actually pay some very high prices. You might experience emotional exhaustion. You might over commit and be distracted by doing things that don't fulfill you. You might have relationship friction because your yes is out of sync. Or you may have internal shame.

12:46

Dr. Angela Aja

And that little voice, I call her your inner mean queen. She says, well, you should just be happy, so why aren't you happy with the way things are? Or you might even experience anxiety and overthinking, second guessing yourself when you're not living with purpose. But I want to tell you that when you know what your purpose is and you are fueled by your purpose, and you're living in hot pursuit of your purpose, here's what becomes possible. Your energy becomes a magnet to the things that you are called to deposit on the earth. You get more focused. You stop self sabotaging, you start leading yourself. You set powerful boundaries without having guilt. You, you start being involved in legacy building activities. Your vision becomes clearer and your message becomes more compelling. And sometimes you're even able to monetize your message, which is great.

13:58

Dr. Angela Aja

So I want to talk to you about how to pursue your purpose because I think there's a lot of talk about finding your purpose. And there's some questions that you can ask yourself to help you define your purpose. But once you define it, how do you pursue it?

14:23

Dr. Angela Aja

So.

14:25

Dr. Angela Aja

Number one is you decide to stop hiding and you start owning your purpose. You don't wait for permission. And you become the kind of woman who lives from the inside out. So here's some questions you can ask yourself. What parts of my life feel like duty instead of desire? Where do I feel the most alive, the most aligned and the most me? What do I know about myself that I haven't given myself permission to own? What is the message that my life keeps repeating? What have I been avoiding that may be key to my assignment? Now, after you've asked yourself those questions, and I would encourage you to get out your journal and journal those questions, then you can begin to take powerful action.

15:34

Dr. Angela Aja

You can schedule some, what I like to call white space or some just quiet space or downtime and do some soul searching. Now, this is not strategy. This is soul searching. Write a purpose statement. And what I want you to do there is just get a piece of paper and say, what is my purpose? Why am I here on the earth? What drives me? What makes me feel fulfilled? And just start journaling about that right there. Then you can do an audit on your life. And you can ask yourself the question, once you've done an audit on your life and you list out all the parts of your life, this is the mom side of me. This is the businesswoman side of me. This is the ministry side of me. And list out all of the things that you do.

16:38

Dr. Angela Aja

And then you can ask yourself the questions. What stays, what goes and what grows? Here's another powerful action that you can take. Get in the room or get in a community that mirrors your brilliance. Pay attention to who you're hanging around with. Are the people that you're hanging around with draining you, or are they fueling your energy and fueling that sense of purpose. Or you can hire someone to help pull it out of you and make it real. And that's what I do as a life coach. So if that's what you're looking for, then we can connect and talk about that. I'll have a link below to where you can schedule a clarity call. I help women discover their purpose and really ignite that purpose and then come up with a strategy on how to live in hot pursuit of their purpose.

17:41

Dr. Angela Aja

Well, the name of today's podcast is how to live in hot pursuit of your purpose and find true fulfillment. So let's talk about fulfillment for a minute. Fulfillment is the deep internal sense of wholeness or satisfaction or meaning that you feel when your life is aligned with your true self or your authenticity. In other words, your values, your passions, your potential, your purpose, your mission, your vision. So fulfillment is not just happiness, but it's really that soul level contentment where you say to yourself, this is what I was made for. It's that feeling that you get when you're living on purpose. And your gifts, your passions, your experiences, everything is being used in a meaningful way. And that's a sign when you're not just existing, you feel like you're really living fully. So how does fulfillment relate to purpose?

18:48

Dr. Angela Aja

Well, your purpose is your why. But fulfillment is how you feel when you're living in your why. And so your purpose is the reason you exist. Your fulfillment is the result of honoring the reason you exist. Your purpose anchors your decisions. Fulfillment reflects how aligned your life is with your decisions. Purpose drives your mission and vision. But fulfillment shows up when your mission feels meaningful. Purpose comes from within. And fulfillment is expressed through your experiences. Purpose answers the question, why am I here? Fulfillment answers the feeling, am I living for what I'm here for? So when you live disconnected from your purpose, you feel empty and stuck and restless. But when you activate your purpose, even in small ways, that's when you begin to feel fulfilled and energized and aligned. And life just gets a lot more exciting.

20:10

Dr. Angela Aja

So here's a little word picture for you or metaphor. And your purpose is like the roots of a tree. They're. It's deep, it's grounded, and it's hidden. But fulfillment is like the fruit. It's visible, nourishing, and it's a natural result of rooted living. So if you're tired of performing, if you're tired of chronic busyness and you feel like you're living haphazard and you want to live more intentionally and you're ready to pursue your purpose, then I want to tell you it's time to rise. And if that's you, I've given you some powerful questions to ask here. I've given you some powerful things to think about, where you can begin to define that purpose for yourself and connect it to that sense of fulfillment. But if you're looking for help in doing that, then that's what I do. You can schedule a clarity call.

21:15

Dr. Angela Aja

I'll put the link in the show notes. And I'd love to chat with you and hear more about how I can help you in this season of your life. But here's what I want to leave you with. You don't pursue your purpose to prove yourself. You pursue your purpose to be yourself. Your purpose isn't something you find. It's something you remember. It's been inside of you all along. And the world needs the real you, not the role that you've mastered. So let this be a season of remembering. Let this be a season that you come back home to you. You were born for more. You have been summoned to soar. I love you. I'll see you in the next episode.

22:11

Dr. Angela Aja

Thank you for tuning in to Summoned to Soar Radio. This is where bold female leaders just like you embrace the call to rise above the ordinary and step into a life of greater purpose and impact. Hey, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so that you'll always know when the next episode drops. I want to remind you that you have everything you need to turn your challenges into stepping stones, amplify your message and leave a lasting legacy. Whether it's writing a thought leadership book or leading with more purpose, or designing a life that's fulfilling and meaningful, it is your time to soar right now. So go Boldly align your work with your calling and let your leadership inspire change, shift narratives, and make your mark on the world.

23:06

Dr. Angela Aja

If you're ready for the next step.

23:08

Dr. Angela Aja

Then head on over to Angelaja.com and join the Crown membership. It's a sisterhood of women who are reigning with grace, wisdom and purpose. Together, we'll transform your story, your leadership, and your legacy into a movement that lasts for generations. Until next time, keep rising. And remember, transformation begins the moment you answer the call to soar.