personal legend presentation

How to Unlock Your Personal Legend, Find Your Purpose and Discover Your Deepest Passions

Somebody should tell us at the start of our lives that we are dying then we might live to our limits. – Michael Landon

What is a Personal Legend?

A Personal Legend is your life’s spiritual purpose. It’s a spiritual calling that awakens a deep desire and passion to live with a sense of purpose for something greater than yourself. Some people might call it a mission or a vision statement, however, it’s more of a combination of the two that ultimately helps you leave a lasting legacy behind.

• A Vision Statement: Is your ultimate life’s purpose. It’s the contribution you make to the world, to society, to your community, to your industry and/or to your family.
• A Mission Statement: Is a code of conduct you live by. In other words, it’s a set of standards you have for living your life’s roles. These standards are built upon your personal values and they help shape the kind of person you seek to become through your daily choices, decisions, behaviors, and actions.

Let’s however not confuse a personal legend with the amount of success you can muster over a lifetime. This is not about success, accomplishment or about the longevity of life. It’s about working towards something that’s greater than yourself; it’s about working towards something that supports your highest spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical needs for living your life with purpose. It’s an ultimate goal that you have for your life that’s driven forward by “possibility”, not fear. You follow this path because it has a purpose, it serves a purpose, and it helps you live with purpose.

To live your life in pursuit of your personal legend is to live in accordance with your ultimate spiritual destiny. This means living “well” by living up to your highest potential as an extraordinary human being. You might, of course, need to develop certain skills, abilities, strengths and/or work on developing your talents in certain areas of your life. But that’s all part of the work you need to do to fulfill your personal legend.

All this basically comes down to building a compelling future and leaving a lasting legacy that stands the test of time. This, of course, requires you fully appreciate and understand what you must do and the kind of person you need to become as you move through this process.

Ultimately, to live in accordance with your personal legend means satisfying your six human needs to their highest level, while focusing on things that promote Class One behavior: feels good, is good for you, is good for others, and serves the greater good of all and everything concerned. That is essentially how a fulfilling life should be lived, and that is how a personal legend begins to manifest in your life.

For more information about the six human needs and about the four classes of behavior, please read Exploring Your Six Human Needs .

The Source of a Personal Legend

What follows is only speculation based on spiritual teachings that have been integrated into the MasterMind Matrix .

A personal legend is tied to your spirit. Your spirit exists outside of space and time. It’s connected to this world, however, it also has connections to other worlds. It is, therefore, a multi-dimensional entity existing on many different planes of existence all at the one time. And because your spirit exists beyond time itself, it therefore only exists in the present moment. As such, from a spiritual perspective, your past, present, and future all exist at the same time. Therefore your spirit is experiencing every moment of your physical existence in this world all at once.

You are the way you are “physically” and your life is how it is because of how your spirit has decided to shape this physical experience of reality. Your DNA is, therefore, nothing more than a physical manifestation of your spirit’s intentions (this includes your genetic predispositions). In other words, you are not really who you are physically, you are rather only one small part of a significantly larger consciousness that manifests from your spirit’s intentions. It’s very much akin to acting out a role in a movie.

Within a movie, you play a specific character who has their own beliefs, values, perspectives, fears, doubts, insecurities, etc. However, in real life you are not that character, you are a very different person who plays many roles outside of this movie. Therefore, the movie character is only one aspect of “you” that is part of a much larger and more complex personality that lives out many different roles of a parent, sibling, teacher, employee, lover, friend, colleague, teammate, etc. All of these roles create the “whole of you” in the same way that the many roles your spirit plays create the “whole of you”. However, because you exist within this physical world you are only aware of one of those roles, which is the person you recognize yourself to be.

Your spirit decided to express itself in physical form in this world because it wanted to experience life within this world. There were certain lessons that it needed to learn in order to grow and express itself to its fullest potential. It might, for instance, have come into this world to learn more about expressing love; to learn more about overcoming fear; to learn more about fighting through adversity and hardship; to learn more about nurturing and/or caring for others; to learn more about serving others, etc. And each of these lessons, of course, came with a plan that supports the growth and development of your spirit.

The plan that your spirit had when deciding to manifest physically in this world is linked back to all other manifestations it has made over many lifetimes (in this world and in many other worlds). Each life provided the spirit with valuable lessons that helped it grow and learn more about itself. Some of these lessons were, of course, full of hardship and despair, while other lessons were filled with love and hope. As such, some lives were very difficult on the physical body/psyche it manifested into this world, while other lives were more pleasant and satisfying. And yet from a spiritual perspective, there is no good or bad, right or wrong, weak or strong, etc. Everything is simply a lesson that helps the spirit grow to its fullest potential.

When you’re an actor, you will take on many roles in many different movies over the course of your career. Each role presents you with new learning experiences. Some of these roles will, of course, be difficult to work through. In fact, you might experience a lot of hardship playing certain roles. However, there will be other roles that will be much more pleasant, fulfilling and rewarding. And yet, when it comes to your overall growth and development as an actor, you will appreciate all the roles you played — no matter how difficult — because they helped you learn, grow and develop your acting skills. Without those hardships, you simply would not have learned the lessons you needed to learn to become a master of your craft. And it’s the same with your spiritual journey. Your spirit has all these lessons it needs to learn, and every lesson — whether painful or pleasurable — adds richness and allows for growth in every experience.

Your spirit, therefore, came with a plan to experience certain things within this physical reality. This plan the spirit had for the “physically manifested version” of itself is called a personal legend . This is a spiritual calling and/or purpose for living in this physical world that is greater than the physical body/psyche. It is “greater” because it is tied to not only this life but to the growth of the spirit as a whole. However, this isn’t necessarily about “doing” something specific in this world. It’s more about “experiencing” something specific in this world. That is really what a personal legend is all about.

It is, however, important to note that if the spirit moves through a lifetime and doesn’t end up learning the lessons that it intended to learn over this lifetime, then it will manifest in physical form again and again up until the moment that these lessons are learned and growth is successfully obtained. Only then will it move onto other lessons/experiences that will lead to further areas of growth and development.

All this is very important because when you are living in alignment with your spiritual purpose/personal legend, you experience a sense of euphoria where everything just seems right and makes absolutely perfect sense. That is when you know you are on the right path. And that is when you know that your spirit is learning the lessons it needs to learn to evolve to the next level of consciousness. Now, of course, some of these experiences you have might be painful and full of hardship, however, if you tune-in to your spiritual calling you may find that these are important experiences that you need to go through in order to grow and express yourself to the fullest of your ability over a lifetime. And that is when you will find peace, serenity and the self-assurance you need that tells you, you are on the right track.

All this can, of course, get extremely complex very quickly. Nothing here is clearly understood or proven. However, it just feels right. Doesn’t it feel as though there’s something here that makes sense? And even if it’s not right and completely out of left field, will it hurt you to think about life in this way? No, of course, it won’t. It won’t hurt you in the slightest. It will at the very least provide you with the hope, belief, and inspiration you need to keep plowing through all the challenges and the painful experiences in an effort to pursue something much greater than yourself that will eventually lead to a life of incredible fulfillment.

For more information about the role of the spirit and how it interacts with a collective consciousness, please have a read of The Science of Manifestation .

The Idea of a Personal Legend

The idea of a personal legend was taken from the classic best selling book written by Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist . This book tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and above all, following our dreams.

This book is highly recommended, and will undoubtedly provide further insights and ideas on how to go about finding your own personal legend.

Unlocking Your Personal Legend

Now that we have a clear understanding of what a personal legend is, let’s now work through a process that will help you discover your unique gift to the world. This process is broken down into two parts that include your mission and vision statement. Let’s work through each of these parts independently before merging them together to form your personal legend.

Your Personal Mission

Your personal mission is a code of conduct you live by. It’s a set of standards you have for living your life roles. These standards are built upon your personal values and they help shape the person you seek to become through your daily choices, decisions, behaviors, and actions.

In order to outline your personal mission, ask yourself the following questions:

Who am I? Who am I really? Who am I seeking to become? What does this person no longer accept in their life? What does this person no longer make any compromises about? What rules does this person live by? What kind of values does this person live by? How does this person think and talk to themselves? What beliefs govern this person’s thoughts and language patterns? How does this person emotionalize their experiences? What kinds of habits and behaviors does this person indulge in? How does this person work on satisfying their six human needs? How does this person live each of their life’s roles?

These questions will provide you with a good understanding of the kind of person your heart and soul is striving to become. However, there are three additional questions you should also be asking yourself that will help you bridge the gap between the “person” and the “legend”. Ask yourself:

What kind of person do I want to be known for? How would I like to be remembered by others? If I could become anyone, how would I spend my time?

Having answered all these questions, it’s now time to write out your personal mission statement, which is typically about a paragraph in length.

Here are some examples of personal mission statements . However, as great as these mission statements are, it’s important to use them only for guidance. Your mission statement must be unique and must come from the heart; it must come from the answers you formulated above.

Please, however, keep in mind that many of these examples don’t go into the depth of the kind of person that these people are seeking to become through their daily choices, decisions, and actions. In fact, many of these mission statements “border” on vision statements. And we certainly don’t want to get them confused. As such, it is recommended you focus your mission statement on the person you are seeking to become rather than on what you’re trying to do.

Next, you will work on formulating your personal vision. While going through this process it’s important to keep in mind that your personal mission and personal vision must align in every way. If for instance, they don’t align, then you will struggle to find the inspiration you need to follow through with your decisions and actions, because the person you seek to become cannot coexist with your life’s purpose. But more about that later.

Your Personal Vision

Your personal vision is your ultimate life’s purpose. It’s the contribution you make to the world, to society, to your community, to your industry and/or to your family. This contribution can, of course, be big or small.

Your purpose might transform the world in a significant way, or it might dramatically improve a single person’s life. It really doesn’t matter. It’s not the size of your life’s purpose, but rather the intention behind that purpose.

In order to outline your personal vision, ask yourself the following questions:

What are my core values and life priorities? What are my interests, hobbies, strengths and talents? When do I feel most alive and passionate? What specifically am I doing? What are some of my most inspiring moments? What’s my ultimate dream?

These are some of the foundational questions you should be asking yourself that will help you pinpoint the things that are of most importance to you. However, these questions might not be enough. You might need to dig a little deeper to discover your true life’s purpose.

There are three things you can do that will help you dig a little deeper. These things include:

• Unlocking your childhood experiences.
• Presenting “what if” scenarios.
• Working in imaginative ways.

Childhood is a very innocent period of our lives where we are often more in-tune with ourselves and with our purpose for living. And it’s this innocence that we want to tap into to help provide a little more perspective on our life’s purpose. Ask yourself:

What childhood dreams did I have? What’s significant about these dreams? Why didn’t I pursue these dreams? What would working towards these dreams today mean to me? Did I have any specific emotional longings as a child? What were they? Who did I look up to as a child? What role models and mentors did I have? Why did I look up to these people? What’s significant about all this? What insights does this provide me about my life’s purpose?

It’s important to never rule out your childhood dreams. Maybe on the surface they seem too far-fetched in the adult world, and yet there could be something in them that can open new doors of opportunity to help you discover your life’s purpose. Therefore never discount your childhood fantasies, because they might very well hold the seeds to the answers you are after.

Let’s now jump back into the present moment and play around with “what if” scenarios. Ask yourself:

What if I had one ultimate wish? What would I wish for? What if I had unlimited talent and potential? What would I do? What if I had an unlimited amount of money to spend on my dreams? What would I do? What if I had an unlimited amount of opportunities I could take advantage of? What would I do? What if success was assured? What would I do?

Many times we get stuck because we put all these limitations on ourselves. And yet the moment we release these limitations, a world full of possibilities opens up for us. And with these possibilities come new perspectives and ways of viewing our lives, the world, and circumstances. And that’s exactly what these questions help you do. They help you expand your mind while encouraging you to think about your life in very different ways.

So what if you don’t have enough money, talent, opportunities, etc. That’s irrelevant. Many people have achieved great things with far less money, talent and/or opportunities then you currently have at your disposal. They achieved these things and pursued their passions because they didn’t put any limitations on themselves. And this is exactly what you must do moving forward. That is really the only way you will discover your true life’s purpose.

Discovering your life’s purpose might, however, require you take on a different approach. Ask yourself:

What if I only had seven YEARS to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute? What if I only had seven MONTHS to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute? What if I only had seven WEEKS to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute? What if I only had seven DAYS to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute? What if I only had seven HOURS to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute? What if I only had seven MINUTES to live? What would I do? What would I experience? What would I contribute?

As you move down this list of questions you dig ever deeper into what’s most important in your life. With seven years to live you think about your life and circumstances on a surface level. However, as you move down to months, weeks, days, hours, and ultimately minutes, you begin to think about your life and circumstances in very different ways. The things that seemed important with seven years to live may no longer have any significance in your life when you get down to seven days. With less time, you think differently about your life, and as you think differently your priorities change, and the things that are of most significance in your life come to full view.

Take a note of the things that come to mind when you get down to weeks, days, hours and minutes to live. Hidden within these things could very well lie the key to your life’s purpose.

To further stimulate your imagination, you might also like to involve yourself in more creative pursuits that might help you discover your life’s purpose. For instance:

Write a Letter from the Future

Write a letter 20 years from the future to your present self about the life you are yet to live. Explain what you are doing, how you are living, and the things you are experiencing. Also, provide your present self with some guidance that will help them move in the right direction.

Create a Collage

Purchase some random magazines and a large piece of cardboard. Then go through the magazines and cut out any words and pictures that you are drawn to. Paste these on the large cardboard paper to create a collage. Then spend the next few days or weeks observing all the intricate details of this collage. Who knows, your life’s purpose might be hidden within? 🙂

Write a Eulogy

This might sound depressing, however, it can be a very worthwhile exercise because it will help you put your entire life in perspective as you reflect on how you lived, what you did, and the legacy that you left behind as a result of your choices, decisions, and actions.

Create a Coat of Arms

Creating a coat of arms or a symbol of some kind that represents your life can potentially help trigger some ideas that might provide you with relevant insights about your life’s purpose. And all you have to do is just take out a sheet of paper and start drawing whatever comes to mind. Just set your imagination free.

Draw a Mind Map

Mind maps are fantastic because they help create associations by connecting seemingly random ideas together. Just take out a piece of paper and some colored pens and start writing random words about your life. Then take those words and connect them through association using a mind map. For more information about mind mapping please read, How to Mind Map .

Having gone through all these exercises, you should now have a fairly good idea of your personal vision. In that case, ask yourself:

What is my life’s purpose? What is my ultimate goal? What is my ultimate destination? What is my life purpose not?

Stipulating what your life purpose is NOT is probably as important of a question as the other questions because it can help you narrow down what your life purpose actually IS. It’s therefore important not to skip over this question, as it can provide you with some valuable insights.

Having now gone through this entire process, it’s time to write out your personal vision. Vision statements are often not as long as mission statements and should ideally be no more than one or two sentences in length. In fact, the more succinct the vision statement the more effectively it will convey your life’s true purpose. Here are some examples .

Aligning Your Mission and Vision

As previously discussed, it’s important that your mission is aligned with your vision, or otherwise, conflicts will result and you will, therefore, struggle to fulfill your personal legend.

Alignment means that the person you are seeking to become (your mission) is the person required to fulfill your life’s purpose (your vision). In other words, you must become the person who is capable of fulfilling your life’s purpose. This ultimately comes down to your values and priorities for life. If the values and priorities of the person you are seeking to become are aligned with your life’s purpose, then you are unlikely to experience conflicts. However, if your values and priorities are not aligned with your vision, then working towards your purpose will not be fulfilling. And when something is not fulfilling you will easily get distracted and sidetracked onto different paths.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, it might be helpful to read How to Transform Your Values .

Making Room for Your Personal Legend

As you work towards fulfilling your personal legend, you will undoubtedly come across numerous roadblocks and setbacks that can potentially derail your efforts. You may even find that you simply don’t have enough resources, knowledge, skills, tools, or support on hand to follow through with your actions. There are in fact many obstacles you could potentially face. Let’s, therefore, take a look at them in a little more detail so that you can better prepare yourself for what’s to come.

External Obstacles

External obstacles may include people, your environment and/or certain circumstances that might throw you off course. Let’s specifically take a look at your peers and the negative influence they might have on your life.

Your peers might for instance not believe in what you’re doing and will, therefore, throw doubt on your chosen path. There is no reason to be surprised when this occurs. People always doubt anything new or different. In fact, they will often cast gloomy shadows over anything that doesn’t align with their own personal values, beliefs, and perspectives. This is simply a part of the social world we all live in, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you or the path you are on. Instead, it has everything to do with the other people in your life. Just follow your heart and don’t feel that you must change your path or yourself just because other people don’t approve of what you’re doing.

For more information about peer influences, have a read of How to Overcome Peer Influence .

Internal Obstacles

Internal obstacles are obstacles related to your psyche. For instance, a negative attitude, using limiting language, asking unhelpful questions, indulging in hurtful beliefs, overly emotionalizing your fears, etc. All of these obstacles can potentially derail your efforts as you work towards fulfilling your personal legend.

There is a very real reason why each one of these internal obstacles is prevalent in your life, and this reason often has to do with your inability to adapt to change. You might, for instance, fear moving forward because you have negative expectations of what might happen in the future. Furthermore, you might have a negative attitude because you use limiting language and ask unhelpful questions throughout the day. And all this comes full circle because of a set of limiting beliefs you hold onto that cast a shadow of doubt upon your life.

As a result of all these psychological limitations, you become less resourceful and therefore don’t follow through with the actions you know you need to take in order to fulfill your personal legend. In fact, the moment an external obstacle arises, you immediately sink right back into your comfort zone and deny yourself the opportunity to change your life for the better.

In order to overcome these internal roadblocks, you must, first of all, solidify your beliefs . Secondly, you must work on expanding your comfort zone in order to become more comfortable dealing with uncertainty and change . That is the only way you will overcome the internal roadblocks that are preventing you from fulfilling your personal legend.

For more information on how to overcome obstacles, please read How to Overcome Obstacles .

Making the Necessary Adjustments

Change often requires sacrifice, and sacrifice requires letting go of the things that are holding you back from making change possible in your life. Therefore, if ever you find yourself stagnating and struggling to move forward, then it’s very possible you are being held back in some way. Ask yourself:

Is there anything holding me back? What specifically? Fears? Habits? Why am I being held back in this way? What am I afraid to let go of? How is this hurting me? What do I feel will happen if I let go of this thing?

Other times, your life may simply be out of sync with your personal legend, which is why you struggle to make the necessary changes. You might, for instance, lack the time in your schedule to focus on the right kinds of things that will help bring your personal legend to life. Or you might simply have all your priorities out of order. No matter what it is, you need to get yourself right back on track. However, in order to get back on track, you need to figure out what adjustments need to be made. Ask yourself:

Why does my life seem out of sync with my personal legend? What am I doing that is causing this friction? What am I not doing that is causing this friction? What are my priorities like at the moment? Are they were they should be? Why are certain things a priority and other things are not? What can I do to re-prioritize my activities in such a way that can help me get back on track?

Finally, as you work on fulfilling your personal legend, you might find that you are lacking something. You might have clearly outlined the kind of person you want to become, however, this person doesn’t quite seem to be aligned with your life’s purpose. And as such, you feel kind of awkward and uncertain. In fact, you begin doubting yourself because you no longer believe that you can live up to the personal standards and expectations you set for yourself. And it’s at this time that you must clarify whether or not this person you are seeking to become is the right person for you. Ask yourself:

What am I lacking? What specifically am I struggling with when it comes to this idealized version of myself? What must I still do to become this person? What sacrifices must I potentially make? Is this person still aligned with my life’s purpose? Or could I make some adjustments? Given all the sacrifices I must make, do I still want to work on becoming this person?

You might very well come to the realization that maybe this personal legend isn’t right for you — at least not for right now. Sometimes we need to venture on numerous paths before we find that one ultimate path that takes us to our personal legend.

You might, in fact, need to spend more time developing yourself, growing your knowledge, and acquiring new skills, perspectives and experiences before you’re even ready to take that next step along your journey. And that is perfectly okay. This whole process isn’t a contest, and it, therefore, shouldn’t be rushed. It is instead something you must give your time and attention to, in due time. Only then will you have the necessary perspective and understanding you need to pursue your personal legend with purpose.

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If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I’m confident you will gain tremendous value from using the accompanying IQ Matrix for coaching or self-coaching purposes. This mind map provides you with a quick visual overview of the article you just read. The branches, interlinking ideas, and images model how the brain thinks and processes information. It’s kind of like implanting a thought into your brain – an upgrade of sorts that optimizes how you think about these concepts and ideas. 🙂

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If you’re new to mind mapping or just want to check things out, then register for the Free 12 Month Membership Program . There you will gain access to over 90 mind maps, visual tools, and resources valued at over $500. 

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Gain More Knowledge…

Here are some additional links and resources that will help you learn more about this topic:

• 6 Keys to Finding Your Purpose @ Psychology Today
• A Guide to Finding YOur Life Purpose @ Life Optimizer
• A Simple 3-Step Process to Finding Your Life Purpose Today @ Live Bold and Bloom
• Finding What You Want Means Realizing What You Don’t @ Tiny Buddha
• Have You Found Your Calling in Life? @ Dumb Little Man
• How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes @ Steve Pavlina
• How to Find Your Purpose @ Think Simple Now
• How to Know What You Really Want to do in Life @ Pick the Brain
• The 17 Habits of People Who Change the World @ Live Your Legend
• The Secret to Finding Your Life Purpose @ Wake Up Cloud
• What is the Purpose of Your Life? @ Myrko Thum

About The Author

Adam Sicinski

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How to Embrace and Follow Your Personal Legend

Last Updated: March 29, 2019

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 12 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 85,732 times.

In Paulo Coelho's novel, The Alchemist , the main character, Santiago, learns through a series of intricately planned lessons to the true meaning of life, as well as learning about the Soul and Language of the World. After following these steps, you should be able to fulfill your Personal Legends.

• When Santiago meets the old King of Salem, Melchizedek, he teaches the boy for the first time what a Personal Legend is. He says that a Personal Legend is "what you have always wanted to accomplish" (21).

• The language of the world will attempt to reveal your personal legend to you in many different ways, whether it be through omens, mentors or signs. Whichever way you come to know your personal legend it is important that you acknowledge it and take action to make your dreams a reality. After all, "when you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favour" (36). It is easiest for people to realize their legend when they are young because "at that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their life. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend" (21). This is why Santiago is the ideal candidate, because he has not become jaded over time. That being said, you are able to pursue your Personal Legend at ANY time in your life!

• Create for yourself a goal in which you will be able to realize when you have completed your Legend. Without a clear, explicit goal, or Personal Legend, it is impossible to ever achieve it. The King said that "you must always know what it is that you want" (56). Santiago's goal was to find the treasure awaiting him in Egypt.

• Coelho uses Santiago's sheep to illustrate a life of someone who has ignored the call to their Personal Legend. They live a mundane life, where "all they think about is food and water" (11). While these are important things, there is so much more to life than just the necessities. Money and greed corrupt some people so that all they think about is how to get more, which is similar to how the sheep are focused only on one thing at a time. The sheep "don't even realize that they're walking a new road every day," (11) very similar to the way some people get so caught up in the day-to-day that they forget to stop and smell the roses.

• The gypsy tells Santiago that "It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them" (15).

•  Sometime during your quest, you will feel as if the universe is not conspiring to help you achieve your Legend. At this point, the King will "always appear in one form or another. Sometimes [he] appears in the form of a solution, or a good idea. At other times, at a crucial moment, [he] makes it easier for things to happen" (23). He goes on to say that often times he does other little things, but people rarely notice them. Santiago experiences this when he first arrives in Tangiers and is robbed. He thinks to himself that he's "too insignificant to conquer the world" (39), and is really down on himself, but that is when he remembers the stones the King gave him. This omen tells him to continue on his journey! Remember the old proverb, "It is said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn"

• Santiago realizes after hearing about the baker's ignorance to his Personal Legend that "there [is] nothing to hold him back except himself" (28). The main reason why the average person, including the baker and the crystal merchant, will fail to seek out their Personal Legend is safety. People are more concerned with making a name for themselves and being comfortable that they choose to settle for an average life. When Santiago meets the camel driver, he reveals to Santiago that people "are always afraid of losing what [they] have, whether it's [their] life, or possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when [they] understand that [their] life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand" (76). By trusting in fate, you are able to free yourself from these fears. The alchemist teaches Santiago this as well when he says " Don't give into your fears... If you do, you won't be able to follow your heart... There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure" (141). Without fearing failure, you are free to pursue any path you like.

• The importance of this step cannot be stressed enough! Omens help guide Santiago in his quest and the King reiterates this lesson over again before he leaves, so that Santiago will not forget it, saying, "Don't forget the language of omens" (30). The crystal merchant asks Santiago at one point, "Why ask more out of life?" and Santiago replies, "Because we have to respond to omens" (52). It's clear that the merchant has not responded to the omens, and that is why he has a hard time understanding Santiago's constant quest for greatness.

• Like the old saying "You cannot change the direction of the wind, you can only adjust your sails," Santiago realizes that when he thinks positively about his situation he is much closer to his legend. After receiving the omen from the King in Tangiers, he thought to himself that "this wasn't a strange place, it was a new one" (41). Also, when facing the vast desert Santiago has to cross to reach Egypt, he recalls "[he's] learned things from the sheep, and [he's] learned things from crystal... [He] can learn something from the desert, too" (73). Even though Santiago is not thrilled with the long walk ahead of him, he knows that if he looks positively towards his obstacle, he'll be able to learn valuable lessons from it.

• "I can always go back to being a shepherd, the boy thought... But maybe I'll never have another chance to get to the Pyramids in Egypt.... The hills of Andalusia were only two hours away, but there was an entire desert between him and the Pyramids. Yet the boy felt that there was another way to regard his situation: he was actually two hours closer to his treasure" (64). Santiago knows that his old life is always waiting for him, but if he doesn't pursue his Personal Legend now, he may never be able to do it again. The camel driver also says to him, "If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man" (85). Since this is such an important message, it comes up again when the topic of the seer comes up. The seer says "The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better... Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity" (103). Seize the day, and don't be distracted by the past, or future.

• Santiago begins to understand that "intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life... where we are able to know everything" (74). Our heart knows how to interpret the omens, and therefore knows the right decision when our conscious mind is not able to decide on its own. Santiago later realizes that he "and his heart had become friends, and neither now was capable of betraying each other" (134). When you really get to know your heart, you are able to listen to the soul of the world. The Alchemist tells Santiago, "You already know what you need to know. I am only going to point you in the direction of your treasure" (115). This quote illustrates how the power to find your Personal Legend within you, otherwise it wouldn't be your Legend! Your mentors will only give you the nudge in the right direction that you may need from time to time.Trust that you and your heart can always make the right decision.

• Since you have defined a goal early on, you should be able to realize when you have completed your Personal Legend. After this, you may find that you discover another, and another yet. Whatever you do, whether you are content where you are, or you strive for more, do not forget the lessons you have learned in your journey. After all, it is not necessarily they goal you must pursue, instead savour the time it takes you to get there!

Community Q&A

• Don't lose the Oil in the Spoon, while enjoying the Marvels of the Castle Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• It is not necessary to follow these steps in exact order, each of us should find their Personal Legend in their own way. This is simply an outline that worked for Santiago.  Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Focus on the journey, not the destination! Don't forget to stop and smell the roses! Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• "Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure" Thanks Helpful 32 Not Helpful 3
• If you are able to effectively turn yourself into the wind, be very careful and do not damage anything.  Thanks Helpful 23 Not Helpful 9
• Be careful what you wish for. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist . New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

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8 Ways to Discover and Live Your Personal Legend

Hema Crockett

Recently, I started rereading Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist . On social media, I posted a picture of the book and numerous people mentioned how it’s one of their favorite books as well. It got me thinking about Santiago, the main character whose journey unfolds throughout the book, and his quest to find his Personal Legend, what he has always wanted to accomplish, his mission on earth.

How many of us read The Alchemist , thought about our Personal Legend, and then time went by, as it does, and we rarely gave it another thought? After reading The Alchemist, how many people actually set out to find and bring to reality their Personal Legend?

I consider myself extremely fortunate. I am living my Personal Legend, and then some, daily. The work I do is fulfilling. But it hasn’t always been that way. It took some trial and error to really figure out what my destiny was; how I wanted to spend my time in the singular pursuit of my dream.

Everyone can determine what their Personal Legend is and work towards living it every day. Below are some ways that you can discover your Personal Legend and make it a reality.

• Get clear about what excites you. If your Personal Legend is your destiny, you should love what you do! Make a list of the types of work that fuel you. This could be charity work, helping others overcome barriers, supporting entrepreneurs, and on and on.
• Get clear about what you don’t love to do. This can be even more important than finding what you do love. This list is for your eyes only, so be honest and don’t edit yourself.
• Discover your talents. Along the same lines as identifying what you love to do, what are you great at? What talents or skills can you tap into to help form your Personal Legend?
• Create a vision statement. What contribution do you want to make to the world? What legacy do you want to leave behind?
• Define Your WHY. Clear and concise, your WHY is ultimately what inspires you to take action. It’s your purpose. This statement is externally focused – “To…, so that…”
• Take a baby step. Once you have items 1-5 clearly defined, start taking baby steps to experience what you love and what you are passionate about. This could be taking a course on a subject you’re interested in or doing freelance work in an area you are passionate about. Take note of how you feel when you are experiencing these baby steps. What brings you joy?
• Choose a path. After gathering information and trying out various things, start to get clear about what excited you the most and where you felt like you were in flow – in alignment with your WHY. You don’t have to quit your job immediately to pursue this. But continue pursing baby steps in this narrowed and specific direction.
• Take risks. Living your Personal Legend is about doing whatever it takes. This doesn’t mean to act with reckless abandon. However, you should be willing to take risks and even fail along the way. This is part of the journey for each of us.

A Personal Legend isn’t about how much money you make or the level of success you can achieve. It’s about working towards something that is bigger than yourself and supporting your needs spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. You are driven forward by what is possible and not held back by fear. And just like in The Alchemist , read the signs. We may make plans and then something comes up (a sign) that tells us to change course. Be flexible and life will guide you to your Personal Legend.

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How to Follow Your Heart and Live Your Personal Legend

In the great fiction classic The Alchemist , author Paulo Coelho sends us on a journey of the heart in which a boy named Santiago attempts to find a special treasure.

It’s not revealed exactly what this treasure is until the end of the book, but what he discovers along the way is arguably far more valuable and the real point of the book. Or, rather, it was what he discovered that eventually brought him to his treasure.

Santiago’s journey is a journey of the heart . At times, he was focused and excited about the future. Other times he was drawn almost mystically towards the next step in his journey. And still, other times he had lost all motivation and given up, often settling somewhere and forgetting all about his special treasure.

However, no matter where he was, it was his heart which he let guide him (even when he had given up, it was his heart which tugged at him until he could no longer ignore it). It was this journey and what he accomplished along the way which defined his Personal Legend.

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. – Paulo Coelho

Your Personal Legend, a term made famous by Coelho in The Alchemist , is about your destiny . It’s about realizing your purpose and living it to the fullest each day of your life.

It’s this such journey to realize our Personal Legend which, like it did with Santiago, fills us with a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment that gives our life great meaning. But it can be difficult to know how to do this yourself, especially when the world around us seems to preach to us that we must settle and accept the cards we were dealt.

In fact, following one’s Personal Legend is something most of us won’t even consider (whether we admit this to others or not). This is because we’ve been so battered by messages of what “reality” and “life” are really like that we have come to wholly doubt the existence of such a Personal Legend for ourselves in the first place. That, or we’re afraid of what it means to follow it.

Having said that, I have one question for you...

Will you follow your heart or settle?

Before you put your device down and move on from reading this article to doing something else, it’s important to ask yourself this question:

What is at stake if I choose to not follow my heart, live my Personal Legend, and settle?

What will the rest of your life look like if you choose to settle into where you’re comfortable and never venture out to where your heart takes you? Are you willing to accept that if you take that route you’ll never be truly happy? Before living out another minute of your life, you better be prepared to answer that question wholeheartedly, one way or another.

Only you know what it will mean to follow your heart. I can’t nor can anyone else figure that out for you, but it means the same thing for all of us: our path to a deep sense of meaning, fulfillment, and greater happiness.

Can you see yourself sitting in a chair when you’re 70, looking out the window and wishing you had taken that chance, followed that path , or seen where that opportunity would have taken you? If you can stomach that, stop reading now. Feel free to go.

But if not, if you can’t stand the idea that you might live the rest of your life not having followed your dream , your heart, and where it all would have taken you, then read on. It’s time to draw your line in the sand and begin following your heart to realize the amazing adventure that life can be.

How to follow your heart

In The Alchemist , Coelho speaks about omens. It’s true that God has a large influence on the message of the book, especially when it comes to this point, so it depends both on your beliefs as well as on how you decide to interpret the message of these omens (as God isn’t the only way to interpret them, never is there one definition that must be followed).

However, no matter what you believe, I feel it’s unmistakable that life seems to send us messages, clues, at times that are so obvious it leads us to wonder if it was intentional (even intelligent ). Whatever the reason, paying attention to these clues is critical if you want to follow your heart and realize your Personal Legend.

Ultimately, I believe the two main qualities required to notice these clues when they arise and follow your heart involves your:

• Intuition; and

And it’s the development of these two qualities that allow you to effectively follow your heart and realize your Personal Legend.

First, let’s talk about intuition . Innately, we have a better sense of what is right and wrong (both morally and otherwise) than we often give ourselves credit for. When we do something, if we’ve even attempted to be true to ourselves up until that point we can often notice immediately how it makes us feel, and by following that feeling I’ve found we’re rarely if ever led down the wrong path. This is our intuition. It can take a lot of work to hear this voice within ourselves, but following your heart is like anything else in life – it takes work to get good at it .

Then there’s belief . Belief is important because it’s the very thing which drives us to action in the first place (a topic Tony Robbins is a master of). If the proper beliefs aren’t in place, we’ll never take action. However, more than that, it’s inevitable that we’ll be challenged along our path. If we don’t believe in ourselves and what we’re doing we’ll have very little to stand on when the winds begin to pick up.

I know, it’s easy to talk about belief, but it’s another thing to act on it . However, this again, like intuition, works like everything else in life. If you begin flexing the muscle, then over time your ability will strengthen and your resolve will become like steel -- unwavering in your belief and the direction your heart is taking you.

Following your heart isn’t like learning how to ride a bike. Sure, it’s the same gradual process to learn, and requires the same characteristics and attitude that make you successful in anything,  but it’s not something you can easily identify or measure, leading it to be very difficult to know if you’re on the right path or not. However, like learning a new language, with time you can come to know by listening to your intuition when you’re on the right path or not.

This is your life and the best time to start the journey to realizing your dream is now in this very moment. Take the first step forward to follow your heart and discover the joy and fulfillment that can be found by living your Personal Legend.

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Little Girl's Video on Self-Love Shocks Dad and Goes Viral

Jhovan "Jay" Galberth is a single dad whose parenting style is making jaws drop. The dadfluencer posted a shocking video that his young daughter, Tatum, recorded alone — and her surprising words say everything about how she is being raised.

His no-judgment approach brought a smile to millions of faces, but it also left some questioning the impact of his "let-it-all-out" parenting style.

Her Dad Gave Her 20 Seconds To Say Anything

A new challenge on ParentTok (short for TikTok parent content) is taking the internet by storm, and it's as simple as it is enlightening.

The trend involves parents giving their children 20 seconds in a room alone to say whatever they want, with the parent promising not to get mad. Jay Galberth ( @dadsdoittoo ), tried this challenge with his daughter, Tatum, expecting some silly antics or even a few bad words. Instead, what he got was a heartwarming lesson in self-love and positivity.

After telling Tatum she had 20 seconds, Jay closed the bathroom door and let the camera roll. The toddler's confidence and positivity caught everyone off guard. Rather than using the opportunity to make mischief, Tatum declared herself a "queen," a "superstar," and expressed her love for herself and her intelligence. "I'm beautiful, I'm smart, and I love myself," she proclaimed. Her infectious energy left viewers feeling inspired and energized.

Watch Jay Galberth's Video:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hey yall Its Tatum (@dadsdoittoo)

Barbie Gives a Shout-Out: Dad's Viral Video Gets a Glamorous Endorsement

Tatum's self-love-filled monologue was not only an inspiration to viewers but also caught the attention of some significant names. Among them was the official Barbie Instagram account, which left a comment under Jay's video, saying, "And don't you forget it 😉💖."

"I was proud. Seeing the things I instilled into her and hearing her speak the words of affirmation felt good to see." Jay Galberth

This unexpected recognition from the iconic doll brand added a touch of glamour and validation to the already viral video. It also highlighted the broader impact of the message Tatum was sending, which resonated with audiences of all ages. Jay and Tatum's story is a reminder that positivity and confidence, no matter how small the voice, can echo far and wide.

She Learned Self Love From Her Dad

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jhovan Galberth (@movewitjay)

The powerful response to Tatum's words reflects the significant role parents play in shaping their children's self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Jay's dedication to instilling confidence and love in his daughter was evident in her positive words of self-affirmation.

In a world where self-doubt often takes center stage, Tatum's message of self-acceptance serves as a guiding light. Her father's positive influence is a testament to the impact that positive reinforcement and encouragement can have on a child's mindset. It’s not just about the words we say, but the actions we take to build our children's self-esteem and resilience.

"I try my best to motivate my daughter and build her up," he added. "This time she showcased her confidence and intelligence."

Jay Galberth's approach to parenting reminds us that nurturing a child's confidence can lead to a happier, more positive world. When parents shape their children's view of themselves with love and encouragement, they set the foundation for strong, self-assured adults. The viral video serves as a heartwarming reminder to always lift each other up and create a space for positivity and growth.

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Man Explains Why He Prioritizes Giving His Wife Alone Time

Being a parent is a wonderful crazy ride. But it's also physically, emotionally, and mentally draining. It's a continuous cycle of putting someone else's needs ahead of your own, and sometimes?

You just really need a break.

In a candid post that has gone viral on both TikTok and Instagram (racking up a staggering 31 million views combined), one husband explains why he prioritizes giving his wife alone time every single week, and honestly, we should all be taking notes.

Why a Husband Prioritizes Alone Time For His Wife

See on Instagram

Former NFL player and motivational speaker Cedric Thompson Jr. and his wife, Charlotte, share three young children, ages 6, 4, and 1.

To say their household is chaotic is an understatement. Life with littles is all-consuming and amidst the diapers, constant demands, and neverending loads of laundry, it's not just easy to lose sight of your own needs, it's easy to lose YOURSELF, particularly if you're the primary caregiver.

Cedric understands this first-hand.

He starts the now-viral video with a gentle reminder for all moms, saying, "You should not feel guilty for having alone time ."

And while this should be a given, the reality is that moms and guilt go together like peanut butter and jelly. Guilt doesn't come with a handy on-off switch and as any mom knows it's nearly impossible to let that guilt go.

Cedric explains that what his wife does with her alone time is "quite frankly, none of my business." What he does know is that when she's out, he doesn't want her to worry or feel rushed. He's got it handled.

"I don't want her to get lost in being a mother or a wife," he continues.

"I want her to take the time to remind herself who she is and the things that she wants to do."

Whether that's just getting away for a chance to chill and relax or meeting up with friends.

“At the end of the day, we’re a team,” he concludes. “My wife is my teammate. And sometimes your teammates need a break. When she comes back home and puts those hats back on, she can wear those hats in the way that she wants to after being rejuvenated from having that alone time.”

Important Conversation Around Needing Alone Time After Having Kids

Screenshots of a man holding a toddler

@ascedbyme/TikTok

Charlotte isn't the only one who gets uninterrupted alone time one evening a week, Cedric does too. It's taken a while for the couple to figure out how to do it consistently but now they make sure to give each other the space and time they need to recharge, blissfully alone.

"My biggest motto in life is that you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of those around you. That's the only way that you can really show up the best." Cedric Thompson Jr.

Turns out Cedric's 1-minute and 7-second video hit a nerve and opened up an important conversation about giving your partner "me-time." Nearly 20,000 people took to the comments to share their thoughts and not all of them were good.

Because, of course, there were some people who just didn't get it (*sigh*).

"Does anyone post these drippy videos about "daddy's alone time" no they don't. Says it all really (eye-roll emoji)."

"Beta vibes."

"This shouldn't be celebrated doing your duty as a father shouldn't feel like such a burden to the point where you have to tell everyone you do it."

Others praised Cedric for being a supportive partner.

"This is how grown, mature men successfully manage a marital relationship, especially one with young children. Kudos to you sir."

Some commenters legitimately wanted to know how to make it work for both partners, asking:

"honest question: how do you navigate this need for alone time for yourself as well?"

And others were downright heartbreaking.

"How do I send this to my husband w/o sending to my husband? He knows NOTHING about mom alone time. But he knows about dad alone time."

"And this is one of the reasons I'm leaving my partner of 7 years. He thinks I'm lazy for having alone time from our 3 kids."

"The reaction has been interesting," Cedric told Newsweek . "It's hard to explain all that goes on in my wife having alone time in 60 seconds, and when people don't have the full context, they can make assumptions, which is understandable."

The Importance of Quality Time Alone

Woman in black zip-up jacket leaning on large log at daytime

Needing alone time doesn't mean you're a bad parent, it means you're HUMAN.

Sometimes you need to stop, just so you can keep on going. Sometimes you need to leave the presence of your children so you can return and be more present with them.

According to experts, everyone needs some time on their own to rest and reflect. In fact, alone time is crucial for mental health and well-being and is a healthy way to recharge, destress, and recenter yourself.

Parenthood is amazing, yes. But it's also often overwhelming. Providing space and time for EACH partner to get away and take a break is essential, not just for the individual, but for the family as a whole.

Copyright © 2024 Goalcast

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5 Steps to Living Your Personal Legend

Derek Sivers said, “Don’t be on your deathbed someday having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.”

Those big dreams are what Paulo Coelho called “Personal Legends” in The Alchemist . It’s comparable to your life purpose.

When you live your Personal Legend, you tend to experience synchronicities, live life in flow and are well on your way to self-actualization. That’s the path to soul-level fulfillment.

Deep down, every human longs for a sense of purpose and meaning in life. The problem is that we often seek those in the wrong places. Fulfillment doesn’t come from grandiose accomplishments, prestige, or doing what others expect of us; it comes from living our Personal Legends.

When we ignore the inner call to pursue that particular path, we go through life with a nagging feeling that something is missing. We also risk ending up with regrets in the future. However, that’s totally avoidable; there’s still time to pursue your Personal Legend.

Here’s how you can do it.

1. Follow the Breadcrumbs

To live your Personal Legend, you must follow your heart—your heart-centered dreams and desires. Those are the things that make you feel alive, inspired, excited, and energized and that spark curiosity within you.

Too many people discard their dreams because they’ve convinced themselves that they aren’t “reasonable.” But your heart-centered desires aren’t just childish fantasies; they are breadcrumbs guiding you to your most authentic and fulfilling life.

Plus, as Paulo Coelho wrote, “You will never be able to escape from your heart, so it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”

2. Don’t Fall for the Ego’s “Wants” or the “Shoulds” of Society

One of the main difficulties in living our Personal Legends is differentiating our heart’s desires from the “wants” of our egos or the “shoulds” of conditioning.

The ego’s “wants” are rooted in fear, need, and feelings of lack. For example, when I was a teenager, I dreamed of becoming a famous actress and living in Hollywood. I was doing theater and enjoyed acting, but wanting to be famous wasn’t a heart-centered desire; it was just my ego. My ego craved recognition and praise. It wanted to feel important.

As for the desires that come from conditioning, those are the things our education and society taught us we “should” do. For example, I went to university because I was told growing up that intelligent people get college degrees (which, of course, is untrue). I wasn’t particularly excited about going to university, and it ended up being a waste of time and money.

To differentiate your heart-centered dreams and desires from those of your ego or conditioning, write down what you want. Next, for each thing, write down why you want it. Ask yourself “why” five times to go deeper. Then, look at the reasons you want each item on your list. Is it to receive praise, obtain a certain social status, or feel superior to others? That’s the ego. Is it because you were told it’s what you should do? That’s conditioning. Is it because it makes you feel alive, vibrant, and inspired? That’s your heart.

3. Commit to Pursuing Your Personal Legend

Pursuing our Personal Legends requires commitment, even devotion. If we keep putting our dreams on the back burner, we’re not committed and probably won’t achieve them.

To commit to your dreams, you can start by writing them down and reading them daily. You can also create a vision board and even visualize them. Most importantly, make room for them in your life. If you feel curious about salsa dancing, take a class. If you love animals, why not volunteer at a shelter once a week? If you feel drawn to deserts, plan a trip to visit one.

My mom has always felt drawn to deserts. She asked for a travel book with beautiful images of deserts around the world for Christmas, collects silk scarfs, and has photos of Northern Africa all over her office’s wall. But she never went on a trip to see one with her own eyes. “It’s too complicated,” she’d explain. “It’s too far.” A portion of her Personal Legend will die within her, and it’s a bit sad.

4. Rely On Your Inner Knowing

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “The quickest way to kill a dream is to tell a small-minded person about it.” Until you’re entirely confident in your ability to make your dream come true, it’s best to keep it to yourself or, at least, only share it with those you know will support you.

Especially don’t share your dream just to seek validation. When you seek validation, you aren’t entirely confident in yourself, and it’s in those moments that your vision is the most at risk of being crushed by “small-minded people” or people who don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish.

Plus, no one knows what your Personal Legend is better than you, so their opinion should hold very little value. Learn to trust your own inner knowing and not rely on external validation.

5. Feel the Fear and Go for It Anyway

Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist , “ Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to follow your heart. […] There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure .”

When you set out to live your Personal Legend, you inevitably encounter resistance—fears, doubts, and insecurities—that can sabotage your progress and success. That’s because living your Personal Legend requires you to step into the unknown, which your ego sees as risky. Your ego’s job is to keep you safe, meaning within the confines of what’s known and habitual. You need to be stronger than your ego. Feel the fear, take a deep breath, smile, and go for it.

Here’s an effective way to remove the resistance caused by fear: visualize yourself having achieved your goal. Because your subconscious mind doesn’t differentiate what’s real from what you vividly imagine, you’ll trick it into believing that you’ve already done it. And, since you’re still alive, your ego will also think that it’s safe for you to pursue that dream, and it won’t cause as much resistance.

Your heart-centered dreams aren’t childish fantasies; they are guiding you to living your Personal Legend, your life purpose. Dare to pursue them! You’ll thank yourself for it when you get to the end of your life.

Here’s How You Can Turn Tragedy Into Triumph

When Pursuing Your Passions You Can Discover Your Purpose

Emilie is a certified life coach, spiritual entrepreneur, and creator from Canada (currently living in Mexico). She specializes in helping people clarify their purpose and make a profit from it (on their terms). You can get her free guide, “ The Fastest Way to Uncover Your Purpose and Calling ” or connect with her through her website consciousoriginals.com .

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How to discover your personal legend and tap into your magic.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about person legend lately, thanks to some long conversations about this with my teens over the last couple weeks. It’s so great to have teenagers. I can honestly say that I dreaded this phase of motherhood when my kids were little because I worried about my children somehow becoming mean strangers, and frankly, the way most parents talk about having teenage kids, didn’t really help. But the truth is, having teenagers is kind of like the cherry on top of motherhood, and I think my favorite part about it, is walking next to them while they really, truly grow to understand who they are at their core.

There have been a lot of long talks lately with my three oldest kids about what their purpose and personal legend is, how to discover it, and why it’s so important for their lives. It’s been such a good reminder to me, so I thought it would be fun to talk about that today. Especially if you, like me have often fallen into the busy, weighed-down-by-life trap that has a tendency to make you forget who you are and what your personal legend is. There is so much power and joy in truly knowing yourself, in understanding your personal legend. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s first talk about what a personal legend is…

What is a personal legend?

A Personal Legend is just a fancy way of saying the means by which a person can regard life as fulfilling. In a nutshell, it’s your life’s purpose. It’s what lights you up, it’s the calling that awakens a deep desire and passion to live with a sense of purpose for something greater than yourself. Living your personal legend is about identifying your purpose and having the desire to become the greatest version of yourself.

We all have a personal legend, and we’re born with us. I’ve come to believe as I’ve gotten older and raised 4 kids that we all kind of intuitively know ourselves and our personal legend (though not in a way we can put into words) as small children. Our personality comes out devoid of self-consciousness, we don’t have to think about what we enjoy, we just enjoy it without judgement or meaning. We in essence kind of arrive on earth already knowing who we are and what we love. And then somewhere along the way life and people kind of get us all confused and we get lost and forget who we really are, what makes us tick and what our personal legend is.

We get busier the older we get and we forget to remember who we are and what really lights us up, and end up living what Thoreou called “lives of quiet desperation and die with a song still in our heart.” I don’t know about you, but living a life of quiet desperation and dying with my song still in my heart, is not what I am going for with my one magnificent life.

We all have a purpose and a personal legend and the world needs us to live it. Have you ever met someone who is just fully living their potential, tapped into their purpose, honed in on their magic. They make you feel like a million bucks, their light illuminates you, they make you feel like anything is possible. That’s the kind of life we want to be living, that’s the kind of magic the world needs. And you deserve to be living in that way.

So how do we get off our current train and back on the personal legend one when we are deeply rooted in our life habits? Here are a few things I have found helpful for finding my personal legend and tapping into my own magic, so I can get on with living the fullest and most magnificent version of my life. (And this is a constant work in progress for me. But luckily, it’s a joyful one.)

Give yourself quiet time.

Part of rediscovering what you intuitively knew as a kid is giving yourself time. Unstructured, quiet time is the key. And it’s harder and harder to come by these days with screens and stimulus in abundance. But you will never discover the truth of what you love if there’s always noise and distractions around you. Part of understanding your personal legend is asking yourself the question: “What do you think about when you don’t have to be thinking about anything.” If you are always putting things into your head: social media, TV, podcasts, audio books, etc. etc. you will never have the space and stillness to understand who you really are. (It works the same way with kids and boredom, see this post here .)

So give yourself 10-20 minutes a day to sit in purposeful silence. This is not the same as meditating. This is just sitting quietly and letting your mind drift. Not trying to force it to be clear, just giving it space to think about what it’s naturally drawn to, what it wants to think about. Then write those things down. If you don’t have any brilliant discoveries the first several times you do this. Be patient. If you’ve been over-stimluated for years, your head and heart need a little time to adjust. Keep doing it, eventually your intuition will start speaking.

Pay attention to what gives you a spark.

Is there something you love to do, that when you do it you forget about time and get completely wrapped up in it? When you are done you feel more energy, like your well was filled up, like you are living more, and better? These are the things that give you your spark. And they are clues that will help you discover your own unique personal legend. If nothing gives you a spark, go back to what you’re brain drifted to during your purposeful quiet. Try some of that. Write down the things that give you a spark, fill you with energy and make you feel happy.

Just say no.

I’ve noticed as an adult and especially as a woman, there are all these things we feel like we “should” be doing. And most of those things, I realized several years ago were just made up by people who are living lives I don’t actually want to live. I felt peer pressure to conform to a certain way of parenting because what did it mean about me if my kids weren’t in all the “typical” activities. Then I realized, I didn’t want to spend my children’s childhood taxiing them from extra curricular to extra curricular, and that they weren’t their happiest that way either. Who said it has to look like that? It doesn’t! And neither does your life. Be brave enough to say no to the things that just feel intuitively not right for your life. When you say no to those things, you’re really making room for all the better yes’s that are waiting for you.

A word on this: Something being “not right” for your life, doesn’t mean it’s “not right” for someone else’s, and visa-versa, so don’t worry about what other people are doing. It has nothing to do with your personal legend; everyone’s is different. Have the confidence to say no!

Try new things.

Be bold and try new things. All kinds of new things! Meet new people, take a class or a course, see if something speaks to you. Discovering what lights you up can take some trial and error, so don’t be afraid to try different things. Have fun with it. And always pay attention to what lights you up and gives you a spark. Follow the energy.

Be bold and brave.

Stepping into your fullest potential will often scare the crap out of your subconscious, because your subconscious is there to keep you safe and alive. Our instincts tell us to go with the flow, stay with the group, because that’s where we are safe and safe=alive. So when you are stepping into your personal legend, it’s going to feel (at least at first) like a huge step out of your comfort zone and your subconscious is going to want to throw a little fit about that. It’s okay, be brave and do it anyway. Push yourself and go for it. This is your one magnificent life, you were meant to live it fully! Every single awesome, amazing thing that has happened in my life that has helped me tap into my own personal legend, involved stepping scarily out of my comfort zone. Being new at something, risking looking stupid, or being misunderstood. But what my soul got was much, much better on the other side.

My personal legend.

If you are still sitting there scratching your head trying to understand what the heck your personal legend is, here’s an example, a snippet of mine:

I am a maker. I love creating and I love adventure. I love good music and food, and books and I love creating cozy around me. Seeing new places, and meeting new people is so important to me. I want to always leave things better than I found them. Homes, spaces, our earth, people… I find immense joy in motherhood and nurturing and connecting with my children is the most natural thing in the world to me. I believe in a higher power, and that it connects all of us, and gives us our spark, our own impulse to create. I love helping people find their spark. I want to be the biggest cheerleader for other people. I want them to feel and believe in their worth, their ability and their magic when they are around me, and I love helping them discover it. I love life and I want mine to be a magnificent adventure.

Do you know what your personal legend is? Share some of your magic with us in the comments!

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What is Your Personal Legend?

• November 18, 2018
• 2 minute read

This year we are asking people to write about their “Personal Legend.”

Each year I think everyone evaluates their life and their journey a little bit around the holidays and into the first part of the new year. What have you done, where are going and how long do you have to get there?

2018 is the 20th anniversary of Literary Traveler and this year we are evaluating where we are on that path. How can we be better and true to all things we aspire and should be? It’s an important question.

So where you are you on your path? Are you happy? Are you satisfied with what you done? Are you looking back without regrets? What is your “Personal Legend?”

It’s based on the idea in the book The Alchemist . In the book, Paulo Coelho defines the concept of your Personal Legend…

Your Personal Legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone when they are young knows what their personal legend is, at that point in their lives everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. 

But as time passes a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their personal legend.

To realize one’s personal legend is one’s only real obligation. When you really want something all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it. 

What is your personal Legend? And what will you make the universe conspire for you?

Please let us know either via email or social media.

Francis McGovern Founder, Literary Traveler

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Personal Legend. What Stops Us From Confronting Our own Dream?  We’re told that everything is impossible.  As children, we still believe that we can.

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