Living your life with purpose is one of those self-affirming phrases that we come across all too often these days, but what does it really mean? Award-winning entrepreneur, Jessica Huie MBE, has written an inspirational book to help give its readers a blueprint to help them become who they are truly meant to be.
PURPOSE: Finding Your Truth and Embrace Your Calling, shares highlights from Jessica’s own moving backstory. Expelled from school at 15, a teenage mother at 17, and living in a hostel with her new baby daughter, Jessica knew she had to change her life. Throwing herself back into her studies, she soon carved herself a glittering career in PR, working with some of the world’s biggest stars from Samuel L Jackson and Simon Cowell to Meghan Markle and Mariah Carey. By the age of 27 she had set up Color Blind Cards, the UK’s first multicultural greetings cards company, which is when she first popped onto our radar in 2007.
In PURPOSE, Jessica shares the lessons she has learnt as an individual who was once purposeless and unhappy, to someone who recognizes her power to design and create a successful meaningful life, built from an authentic foundation.
We recently caught up with Jessica to delve deeper into what ‘living with purpose’ means to her.
How and when did you realize what your purpose is?
I have to start by saying that for me, purpose is less about something we should be doing and more about who at our deepest level we are supposed to be. It was my father’s death that became the catalyst to the realization that the life I had created, my career in media and the ‘all systems go’ lifestyle of constant goal setting, incessant activity and doing, which was no longer working for me. Having become present to care for my dad during the six months from his terminal cancer diagnosis to him passing on, out of the presence and pain emerged incredible clarity. It was during that life changing period that I began to write PURPOSE.
“Once we start being bold enough to show up as who we are and live in our truth, those that are not aligned with us fall away and new people and opportunities fill the space created. It makes for a life where we get to be our authentic selves and when we do that, we are most effective and able to most benefit those around us.”
Why do we need a purpose in life?
So many of us are caught up in living lives dictated by what external sources – others, say we should be doing and external outdated ideas about what a successful life is. This isn’t working for us as a society. That’s evident from the level of mental health issues, depression, suicide and angst in the next generation. Living from our personal purpose is a route out of all that. It doesn’t mean that life becomes a breeze, but it does mean that we create and live lives which honour what we need and what we want rather than subscribe to the conditioning which begins the moment we enter the world.
Can a person’s purpose change?
Absolutely. We evolve and as we do, so does our purpose.
Leading busy lives as women/mothers, often with no time for ourselves, many of us feel purposeless, what steps can we take to find our purpose?
It starts with recognizing that true self care is honouring what is true for us and what we need. Becoming honest with ourselves about whether we are happy and fulfilled and deciding to prioritize that. The beauty is that as we do this, we give our children and families the greatest lesson we can impart – permission to create and live lives which also bring them fulfillment and peace. Living on purpose isn’t about doing anything. We don’t need any more doing! It’s about finding time to become present. To get out of our heads and reconnect with who we are beneath our roles and responsibilities. I’ve been a single mother in survival mode so I know how challenging that can be at times.
What are some of the benefits in your life since you realized your purpose?
Congruency. Speaking personally, my life used to be compartmentalized, so I’d feel that I needed to be a different person in different environments. Once we start being bold enough to show up as who we are and live in our truth, those that are not aligned with us fall away and new people and opportunities fill the space created. It makes for a life where we get to be our authentic selves and when we do that, we are most effective and able to most benefit those around us. Life starts to flow…
How can we stay true to our purpose as individuals?
I think to know who we are (which is really what living our purpose is about) we must first know who we are not. That means examining the habits and belief systems and things we are doing and asking ourselves whether they are working for us. Are they bringing us peace, joy and fulfilment and if not then that is where the work of changing habits and ways of being, many of which have been inherited, begins.
What would you say to someone who is going through a lot and has lost her way a little?
I am humbled to have found that sharing our experiences can be incredibly empowering for others, which is why I think PURPOSE has been received so well. This is not the age of being given an instruction or traditional self-help book, tools are helpful but ultimately the experiences of others let us know that a) we aren’t alone and b) change is possible. So, reading my book and finding environments where people share authentically, women’s circles and authentic networking events like Hubdot, is a great place to start.
Buy PURPOSE: Find Your Truth and Embrace Your Calling here
