Summertime has always been a popular time of the year for families to take a vacation because the kids are home from school. It’s a great time to kick back and relax.

I often encourage clients to make sure they take some “self” time while they are away from home. There will be plenty of time to be with your family and taking some self-time helps you to recharge. Remember, to be there for everyone else, we have to take great care of ourselves.

So whether you are going to the beach, the mountains or anywhere else, it is a perfect place to reflect on half the year that has gone by and think about what you would like to make happen for the second half of the year. Life is more than setting and accomplishing goals and doing, doing, doing! What about just “being?”

To get you started, here is a key question to ask:

What do you want? What do you really, really want?

Some people answer “to be happy” or to be “the best they can be,” but what does that really mean? How do you get there?

Others say they have no idea. To that response, I sometimes interject, well, if you had to guess what would it be?Some say they have never given that notion much if any thought, but they concluded they did not feel as fulfilled as they would like.

No matter where you fall on the continuum or what stage of life you are at exploring at the moment, discovering your life purpose can answer many of those unanswered questions you have about your life.

For example, when I am working with baby boomers, the process of helping them discover what they want and who they are is so exciting. Their faces light up with grins from ear to ear radiating child-like joy.

Many boomers went directly from school to work to mortgages, kids, car payments and other responsibilities and never really thought about what they wanted for themselves or what their true passion is. Being out in nature, away from all our electronic devices can give us the time and opportunity we need to reflect.

The first step on our journey to our calling in life is to listen to our internal voices, our self-talk. During the year we rarely have the luxury of a quiet moment to hear it…and to not push it away because we have to do this errand, or be on the go and “doing” something, or because some of our self-talk is saying, “Are you kidding? You have enough already, you don’t have to look deeper…stay the same, stay with the status quo…”

So many of us do this because that’s what our ego wants us to do.

Take that quiet time you’ve set aside and listen to your inner voice and to your gut, your intuition. The symptoms and anxieties that have haunted you will fade into the background and be replaced by opportunities and possibilities, both big and small.

You owe this to yourself. Everyone in your life will benefit, because they will have more of who you are. You will be opening the door to what you’re truly here to do and to what you truly want.