Living On Purpose – Sheila Sutherland
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SUMMARY
In this episode with Sheila Sutherland, the host of the Reignite Your Purpose podcast, she shares her journey on reigniting purpose and how she overcame the struggles, which kept her from living life to the fullest.
It’s crucial that you give yourself time to discover what you want in life and who you want to become so you can discover what your purpose is. Remember, your purpose is who you are and what gets you excited to keep going.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
If you want something to change in your life, you have to change first.Spend time to reevaluate every single decision and thing you’ve done.
If you’re unsettled or unhappy where you’re at, it could be because you don’t even know who you are.
Give yourself time to discover what you want out of life and who you want to become.
The starting to point to know what your purpose is to figure out what your values are, what you want, and how you want to show up in the world.
Some people are trying to live up to a standard they unconsciously created.
Doing something without the right intention behind it could wear you down.
You can never measure up to others because you’re not them.
We cannot please everyone.
TRANSCRIPTION: LIVING ON PURPOSE – SHEILA SUTHERLAND
Luis Congdon
Hey, Thriving Launchers. Today, we’ve got an inspirational episode for you about living on purpose and reigniting it, finding your passion, and living your truth. And today’s guest is going to get vulnerable and share her story on how she did that.
Kamala Chambers
Today, we’re here with Sheila Sutherland, she was a client of ours, and she became a host of the Reignite Your Purpose podcast. She’s a relationship mastery coach and an author.
We’re thrilled and excited to be able to sit down with Sheila today to talk about living on purpose.
Luis Congdon
Hey there, Thriving Launchers. Let’s talk about reigniting and living on purpose.
We got a special guest for you today. Someone who I had the pleasure of hearing some of her story, not all of it, have the honor and pleasure as a coach for her, and understanding part of her story has made a significant impact in my own life and for me, reigniting my purpose.
So without further ado, Sheila, welcome to the show. Are you ready to launch?
Sheila Sutherland
I am ready, Luis, I can’t even tell you.
Luis Congdon
I love that.
I know you host a show called Reignite Your Purpose. You have a blog and some articles. You’re doing a lot of stuff helping people trying to understand how to reignite their purpose. I’m curious how living on purpose came to be that you chose this as your subject matter and as the passion of yours.
Sheila Sutherland
Well, it’s a very long story, but I’m going to try to give you the cliffsnotes version.
Struggles Experienced Before Living On Purpose
Sheila Sutherland
For me, it all started in December of 2010 when I went through a fire. I lost my home because a fire had started in the condo above mine, and at that time, I was already at maxed stress. I’d had a lot of things happen in the months previous that by the time the fire happened, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
My body said “That’s it. We’re done. We’re not doing this anymore, and it was time to check out.”
During this period, I had to leave work. I was off on a stress leave. I had to try to figure out how to put my house back together to get it rebuilt. I was trying to rebuild my life and had not a single clue as for how to do any of this, and it took me to a very dark place.
Having The Victim Mentality Stops You From Living On Purpose
Sheila Sutherland
I was doing the, “What did I do to deserve this? I’m a good person. Why is this happening?” and I was in full blown victim mode.
Probably about six months in, something just happened. It was like a switch got flipped in my head, and that’s how I always explain.
Living On Purpose – Change Yourself First
Sheila Sutherland
I call it a cosmic kick in the ass, is what I got and it was like all of a sudden, I knew what the problem was, and that problem was me. It was how I looked at the world and how I thought about things.
If anything was going to change in my life, I had to change first, and that started this journey that I’m on now.
Kamala Chambers
Yeah. It sounds like you were forced into the shift.
Sheila Sutherland
Yes.
Kamala Chambers
You were pushed into living on purpose whether you felt like you were ready for it or not.
What Living On Purpose Means
Kamala Chambers
I want to talk to you a little bit about reigniting your purpose, living on purpose, what that means, and how to find your purpose in life. I know this is a big question for people.
For me, I got lucky. I felt like I understood my purpose from a young age and just rode the wave as it evolved, but I know a lot of people struggle with this, so I want to hear that from you.
Sheila Sutherland
Definitely. I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that.
Something Had To Happen To Start Living On Purpose
Sheila Sutherland
From talking to a lot of people, it seems like we all have a very similar story in that we all had to have the rug pulled out from under us. Rather you want to call it the universe or whatever, something just had to happen that say, “You know what? You need to stop, and you need to listen.”
And being the very stubborn person that I am, it took something big for me to go, “Okay! Apparently, what I’m doing isn’t working, and I need to do something different, but what?”
Living On Purpose For Yourself
Sheila Sutherland
For me, when I started to figure out “Okay, what’s the lesson in this for me?” it gave time to sit down and reevaluate every single decision, every single thing I’ve done. And I concluded that I was living my life for everybody else, but I wasn’t living it for me.
Something just hit me that when I get to the end of my life, how do I want to feel about all the years I’ve had? It came to me that I was just like, “I’m doing this for everyone, and there’s nothing in this for me. I want to be proud of what I’ve done. I want to be proud of why I’m here. I need to find what that was for me.”
It didn’t happen overnight. I started going through this time of trying this and trying that and seeing what I love like I had to get to know me.
Living On Purpose – Know Who You Are At Your Core
Sheila Sutherland
If somebody asks me who I was, I was good at giving you all the roles I play, but I had no clue who I was at my core.
Sheila Sutherland
It’s trying to give yourself that gift of time to discover “What is it that I want out of life? Who do I want to become? What do I want to leave as a legacy?”
Luis Congdon
I love what you’re saying. Go ahead and continue. I’m just touched by your vulnerability here.
Sheila Sutherland
If you give me too much time, I’ll be here forever so you might have to jump in whenever you can.
The Starting Point To Living On Purpose
Sheila Sutherland
The starting point for me was just “Who am I?”
I realized for myself; I can’t say this is going to be for everybody, but for myself, I was always adopting everybody else’s beliefs and everybody else’s way of doing things. And it finally had that lightbulb moment where “That’s where the problem is.”
I’m doing all these things, and they’re not authentic to me, and that’s what I had to figure out “What are my values? What do I want? How do I want to show up in this world?” That is the starting point.
Luis Congdon
I love what you’re saying.
Hearing you share, I felt myself reflecting on some of my downfalls I’ve had in my life or breakdowns, and how those failures turn into big wins.
Thriving Launchers, you guys know my story where at around 28-29, I became homeless and ended a dream job, and was out of sorts.
Living Up To A Standard Is Not Living On Purpose
Luis Congdon
Now that I reflect back on those times, one of the things I acknowledge and recognize within myself is I spend a lot of time during my 20’s trying to live up to a standard. It’s a narrative that I’ve somehow, without even fully knowing it, had created and felt that I needed to live into.
Then, leaving the nonprofit world, and stopping all my pursuits of trying to be somebody in the eyes of other people, I had this breakdown because I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Sheila Sutherland
That’s so much like what it was for me.
When I look at how I was brought up, I grew up in a family that was full of alcoholism and drug abuse. There was some physical abuse that went along with that, and I had made a decision very early in my life that that was not what I wanted for myself.
Living On Purpose – Be Different
Sheila Sutherland
I always called myself the ‘white sheep’ of the family because I was different from all of my siblings, and I think it was in a way, a standard that I was trying to live up to just to prove how different I was. Because I was doing it in a way that didn’t have the right intention behind it, it started wearing me down.
I was trying to prove a point. I was trying to show how better I was than everybody else, and how I could take myself out of this seeming area that would be even difficult for me to go off to university.
Where I live with my family, post-secondary was never something that was encouraged. I was like, “I’m going to be different. I’m taking the education route. I’m going to get my degrees. I’m going to prove how smarter I am, and I’m going to show that I can get a good job, and I can be stable in society.”
Living On Purpose – Do Something With Right Intention
Sheila Sutherland
It was all about proving, and I think because I was doing it with kind of a little bit of anger behind it, that’s what started wearing me down.
Luis Congdon
And so, then, as we go through that process, Thriving Launchers, it’s an interesting place to wrap up and give you some closing thoughts here, but we’re reaching the end of our time here.
To me, it’s also a good place to close here Sheila, because it makes me think of my challenges in life, and the places where I get upset with people or get upset with myself and struggle.
Never Measure Up With Others When Living On Purpose
Luis Congdon
One of those places for me is when I’m trying to live up to other people’s standards, and their ideas of what I should be.
Then, I hold resentment because I don’t measure up. I can never measure up because I’m not them and I’m not other people. I’m me, and inherently within that, I just can’t please everyone. We cannot please everyone.
Living On Purpose Can’t Please Everyone
Luis Congdon
Thriving Launchers, that’s the thought I want to leave you with is you can’t please everyone. You need to find your purpose, your destiny, and come to that place for yourself, and forget about other people.
Kamala and I recently, we did an episode called Haters Gonna Hate. That episode was about there are going to be people that don’t like you for one reason or another. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, you name it. All great people have people that for some reason don’t like them.
It doesn’t matter how great you want to be. There are going be people that for one reason or another don’t like you. You might as well become okay with that, and I hope that that’s a good takeaway for you guys. That’s my takeaway.
Whatever you got out of this episode, I hope you got some powerful because Sheila shared some vulnerable knowledge and inspiration about living on purpose.
Sheila, thank you so much for joining us here on Thriving Launch.
Thriving Launchers, keep thriving.
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