Balance

What Matters, What Counts

What Matters, What Counts

If it makes you come alive, it matters

By Minx Boren MCC

The poet Mary Oliver asks the provocative question, “Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” We face many challenges as informed and responsible women who want to find joy and meaning in our lives, no matter the circumstances or current conditions. Coaching can offer some bright ideas and possibilities that will make a difference. It offers provocative questions and useful tools and resources that can inspire you to tap into that inner awareness. This can help you get clear and courageous about whatever really matters to you, and then get into action to make this a reality.

“What’s alive in you right now?” Think about it. Maybe even pull out a piece of paper and journal about it. What arouses your passion and enthusiasm? Whatever it is, the world will surely benefit from that which makes you come alive.

If you’re not sure about the answer to this question, take the inquiry back a notch by first looking at your strengths and what you value most. As a place to begin, there is a worthwhile free assessment that can give you some clues. Go to authentichappiness.com and click the upper left hand corner Quick Link to VIA Signature Strengths and take the survey. You might want to ask a friend or two to do the same. Then share stories about your highest strengths and how you have used them in the world around you.

In her book Composing A Life, Mary Catherine Bateson observes that as women we often “compose” our lives from a number of seemingly disparate elements. These include things that we do along the way from graduating school to various jobs to finding our career path to the possible added dimensions of becoming wives and mothers. An example from her book is of the art student turned photographer who took a basket weaving class as a shared activity with her daughter. Eventually, this shared activity turned into a beautifully photographed book on the evolution and variations of basketry.

Think about what you are engaged in learning and exploring right now that might weave its way into the next steps of your life journey. Whatever your gifts and talents, focus on discovering and declaring them for yourself and then tapping into the energy of that awareness to make choices that count… for you.

what matters and what counts

are imagination and inspiration

a “Hail Yes!” attitude…

our heads held high…

and our knap sacks filled with

our gumption and our grit

our gifts and our gratitudes –

the building blocks of new

cornerstones of possibility

As women we are nourished and inspired by the communities in which we participate. As Vive expands its reach by developing its online magazine, I invite you to come blog with me and other likeminded women about your own thoughts and actions regarding your strengths and interests and how you are sharing them in the world. V

Check out Minx’s blog on vivemagazine.com for more coaching tips and to interact with other Vive readers about your own thoughts andactions regarding your strengths and interests.