The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose

Whatever your calling, it's already rooted within you, and those roots can be trampled or tugged at but never removed. They grow stronger only when tended, nurtured, and most important, shared with others.

No matter how far away from yourself you may have strayed, there is always a path back. You already know who you are and how to fulfill your destiny. And your ruby slippers are ready to carry you home.

From that day forward I resolved to continually ask myself, How am I making things more difficult than they need to be? Your answer to that same question is the next step in your path. It's that simple.

Every decision, setback, or triumph is an opportunity to identify the seeds of truth that make you the wondrous human being you are.

You are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities.

Your life is always speaking to you. It speaks in whispers, guiding you to your next right step.

As long as there is still breath there’s forward.

Your life isn't about a big break. It's about taking one significant life-transforming step at a time.

The true meaning of courage is to be afraid--and then, with your knees knocking and your heart racing, take the leap anyway.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON OPRAH: I think what’s really important is to understand that in the making of history it’s not the majority of people. Everybody’s waiting on the majority to all agree that we need to move in a certain direction. But you say that is not the case. MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: The majority of people didn’t wake up one day and go, “Let’s free the slaves.” The majority of people didn’t wake up one day and say, “Let’s give women the right to vote.” It’s because a small group of people usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their day had a better idea. That’s how evolution works.

The true meaning of courage is to be afraid—and then, with your knees knocking and your heart racing, take the leap anyway. Ready. Set. Go.

When you can really be who you are and find out where you fit and function from a place of comfort, then you stop working. You stop wrestling.

For every dream, there is automatically going to be resistance. But your sheer will and desire can be stronger than the shadow. You get to decide. You get to declare, I want this, and confront the fear head-on.

Your life isn’t about a big break. It’s about taking one significant life-transforming step at a time. —Oprah

Your life is not static. Every decision, setback, or triumph is an opportunity to identify the seeds of truth that make you the wondrous human being that you are. I’m not talking just about what you do for a living. When you pay attention to what feeds your energy, you move in the direction of the life for which you were intended. Trust that the Universe has a bigger, wider, deeper dream for you than you could ever imagine for yourself.

Know the joy of doing what you love and never stop pursuing it.

The more the loving parts of your personality are the ones you’re cultivating, the more opportunity

What follows 'I am' is what we're inviting into our life. Meaning when you use phrases like, "I am exhausted," or, "I am overwhelmed," you are inviting exactly that kind of energy into your life.

We only have twenty-four hours in a day. So you have a choice to walk with wise people and stack up more wisdom. Or you can become a companion of fools and your life will unravel.

Vice President JOE BIDEN I think the reason people abuse power is that they are seduced by the notion that they are so self-important. That they really matter. When, in fact, it is not usually the case. The leaders I’ve observed who are the best are the ones who have courage to take a chance and be willing to lose on principle. And they are self-aware. They understand their strengths and they understand their weaknesses. They play to their strengths, and they try to shore up their weaknesses. The people who don’t do that, who aren’t self-aware—that abuse of power ends up in their downfall.

If you are in a place where you're more powerful than the people around you, listen as much as you talk. And if you're less powerful, talk as much as you listen, Gloria Steinem

Mine is I’ve learned as much as I can learn doing this one thing. Now I need to move forward. And it happens when I’ve learned as much as I can learn at that thing. And then something else opens itself.

Bishop T. D. JAKES If we can get the clutter out of our mind, if we can get the guilt out of our mind, if we can get the shame out of our mind, if we can get the worry out of our mind, if we can get the busyness out of our mind, then all of a sudden we’re going to have ideas which are seeds. And the seed of an idea gets planted firmly in your mind when you believe in yourself and you believe in your potential.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

I think the greatest wound we’ve all experienced is somehow being rejected for being our authentic self.

Sometimes knowing what you don’t want is as valuable as knowing what you do.

It’s all what you do with suffering. If you don’t transform your suffering, Oprah, I always say, with 100 percent certitude, you will transmit your suffering to your family, your neighbors, even to your country.

We’re always living a life where we’re chasing a sense of self which feels, underneath it, inauthentic. And then life becomes a compensation for not knowing who we are. It is almost like a wound within us when we get disconnected from the truth of our being. We do feel that. And then we’re trying to fill it with love or approval or success or the million ways that we seek fulfillment from outside of ourselves. But no matter how much fulfillment we get, there’s that place inside that until we’ve realized the truth of our being, we will feel estranged from our own being. And from each other.

Your life is always speaking to you in whispers, guiding you to your next right step. And in many situations, the whisper is also the first warning. It’s a quiet nudge from deep within saying, Hmmm, something feels off. A small voice that tells you, This is no longer your place of belonging. It’s the pit in your stomach, or the pause before you speak. It’s the shiver, the goosebumps that raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Whatever form the whisper takes, it’s not a coincidence. Your life is trying to tell you something. Heeding these signs can open the doors to your personal evolution, pushing you toward your life’s purpose. Ignoring them or sleepwalking through your life, is an invitation to chaos.