Your whole life is about choices. And all the choices you make are within your control. Often times, these choices are divided between what you MUST do or what you SHOULD do. In other words, do you follow your head or do you follow your heart?

This can relate to any area in life, but in the book from Elle Luna “The Crossroads of should and must – follow your passion”, she talks about your MUST and SHOULD related to your “calling”.

SHOULD is how other people think we should live our life. Sometimes it’s the small things, the small recommendations or hints to do this, or try that. Sometimes is our parents that want us to pursue a certain career or go to that University instead of the other. Living our SHOULD life would mean putting us in second place and live a life someone else has planned or wished for us. We end up choosing to live our life for someone or something else. This road is usually easy and smooth, with clear rewards and plenty of options.

MUST is different. “MUST is who we are, what we believe and what we do when we are alone with our truest and most authentic self. It’s our convictions, our passions, our urges and desires. All that is unavoidable, undeniable and inexplicable”. MUST allows us to connect deeply with ourselves, cultivating our full potential as individuals. MUST is a road of hard work and constant effort with no guarantees. But in return you will gain “the experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive”.

Choosing MUST is the greatest thing we can do in our lives.

Does any of the above resonate? Are you in a job you hate that doesn’t fulfill you? That doesn’t set fire to your soul? That doesn’t make you feel accomplished? That doesn’t bring you joy?

Do you have a passion that you wish to cultivate but are to scared to explore professionally? Is there anything that you do in your life that makes you truly happy? Do you have a nagging feeling inside of you that you should be doing something totally different in life? This is your MUST talking to you.

“MUST eludes you because once you hear it speak, once you know what it is and what it wants, it is impossible to forget it. When you know what you were put on this earth to do, it is challenging to go back to life as you knew it and be satisfied. This is why we avoid admitting what we want”.

The above realization will scare you to death. You will have million questions, doubts and fears, and it will take time to take THE JUMP. Meaning leaving your life of SHOULD and start living your life of MUST. Abandoning your safety net and jump into the unknown. And the below summarizes well your inner conversation that you might have at some point with yourself, inside your own head.

“MUST is a choice you make every single day. Today, tomorrow, again and again”.

If you do not choose must, you will always feel like you are not fully and really living. There will always be a nagging voice inside your head that will make you feel unaccomplished. Like it’s not truly you.

I understand the fears that will attack your judgement. To help you feel more comfortable with your decision, you can decide to take it easy and one step of the time. You can start experimenting and exploring what your heart is telling you by developing further your passion on your free time, along with your daytime commitments. You can test the waters as a side hustle to see if what you really want to do, can be transformed in a profitable business. Even only pursuing your passion one way or the other, can lift your spirits in unimaginable ways, making your whole life better. When you dedicate at least some of your time on what you love the most, automatically everything seems less hard to accept.