In her book Pursuit of Passionate Purpose, Theresa Szczurek presents a process to help discover who you really are. It is impossible to define a purposeful life and work if you don’t know what is important to you. A list of priorities is essential to creating the mission statement that will guide you to success.

You may not realize it, but you make choices and decisions based on these three categories of self definition.

Values: These are your core beliefs, ideology, ethics, morals, attitudes and ideals that define who you are and what is meaningful to you. One way to identify your values is to look at the way you spend your two most valuable currencies – time and money.

Gifts: Your natural gifts are the sum of your talents, experience, abilities, aptitude, and education. These are not skills. Skills are taught. Gifts are either an innate part of you or are acquired through living. Ask others for input about what your unique gifts are. Think about your reactions to growing up experiences, adult life events and times of adversity. Everything in your past contributes to who you are today. Strengths are gained over the course of life especially during times of challenge.

Traits: These are the personal characteristics that allow you to effectively use your values and gifts. Traits are such things as confidence and self-esteem, curiosity, energy, integrity of effort, optimism, passion, regeneration and wholeness. (7)

Finding your mid-life passion can re-energize your life and bring rich rewards but only if it reflects who you truly are.

Determining your key priorities is an important first step and not one to be bypassed.

Mike Bellah, a columnist for many years at BestYears.com calls it taking inventory. “Before you decide what to change in midlife, you must decide what to keep.

Make a list of your values, strengths and interest.. …….Once you have decided what to keep at midlife, decide what you will change. What can be improved upon to make you even better at what you do?”

Pursuit of Passionate Purpose can be purchased in my bookstore, Web-site Link