Living Life with Purpose, on Purpose!
Purpose is the intentional decision to focus your energy on a task for a reason that holds deep meaning for you. It can be small and personal or far-reaching. It can be positively constructive or unfortunately destructive. It is at the heart of our outlook of life and what we make of it.
In a positive form, your purpose could be:
Being a role-model of positivity and kindness in your daily interactions with others.
Comforting those who are suffering and improving their condition.
Empowering the self-esteem and confidence of others and encouraging their purpose.
Facilitating a team or providing for a group of people in the local community.
Fighting for the environment and/or the rights of animals to help ensure their future existence.
Improving or comforting the lives of people, physically and cognitively, through your support as a mentor, assistant, teacher, coach or trainer.
Making advancements in the quality of people’s health and lifestyles.
Presenting to or entertaining an audience for their learning and/or enjoyment.
Raising children or mentoring a young adult to be resilient, happy, independent and self-reliant.
When you serve a purpose in a positive way, you serve yourself and you serve others. People with purpose have an internal fire that keeps them at their tasks and often directly and indirectly inspire others as well.
Your Locus of Control
In order to have purpose you need a deep reason that moves you forward through the challenges that are found on any path. You need to stretch yourself and become more resilient through persistence and learning from real-life experiences and setbacks.
If you are attached to how you appear to others and how they regard you or attached to your possessions or are affected by world events, you hand your control over to external factors for which you have little control. When you allow your purpose to raise you above these external influences, you take control of your personal feelings and actions for the better.
Embrace Change and the Discomfort it Brings. It’s Worth It in the Long Run!
With any journey comes a measure of risk and discomfort. You are standing up from the comfortable sofa and putting yourself in an unpredictable place. When we look realistically at the world, we understand that everything in life is unpredictable and no permanency is guaranteed. Scientists aren’t sure when that next asteroid will hit and we don’t know what illnesses are around the corner for us.
We must embrace the chances we have and, in order to see these opportunities, we need a positive frame of mind. A negative frame of mind will see all the reasons to not take an opportunity leaving us back on that comfortable sofa.
To continue to accept and actively push our areas of discomfort is how we grow and learn. All feelings pass, including the uncomfortable feelings.
Finding Purpose on Purpose
It is likely that you are overwhelmed by all the commitments in your life and the many inputs from external sources such as family, friends, work, advertising and the news. This is made even more complicated by the constant feed from technology.
To gain clarity on what your purpose is or might be requires that your clear the physical and mental clutter. This can be as simple as sitting in a distraction-free room or picking up a pen and a sheet of paper rather than your phone and laptop and all its interrupting notifications.
Getting in touch with your inner-driving thoughts, desires and positive compulsions is the gateway to understanding your purpose.
To get in touch with your purpose, try the following:
Brainstorm everything you do in your life right now.
Which of these give you a sense of purpose and fulfilment?
Which don’t deliver a sense of purpose or fulfilment?
Which are just “Blah” and do nothing for you?
Brainstorm all the things you did in the past that gave you a sense of meaning and fulfilment, but you are no longer doing.
Brainstorm all your fantasies for your future that might give you a feeling of purpose.
Are there any links between what you do now and what you did in the past and what you dream of for the future?
List all the roles you play in life: partner, parent, brother, sister, daughter, son, manager, leader, worker, basketball player, team member, etc.
Where do these roles fit in with your brainstormed lists?
From your brainstormed ideas, choose up to 5 things that you feel most strongly for as having the potential for purpose. Can any of these ideas be combined?
Take a moment and use your gut feeling. Which of these feels like it should just be at the top of your list?
Do a logical comparison. Look at the first idea on your list and compare it to the second. Tick the idea that you feel more strongly for. Compare the first idea with the third and place a tick next to the item you feel most strongly for, and so on. Once you have compared the first idea with the rest, go to the second (not the first) and compare it to the third, then fourth. Move your way through the list by taking the third and comparing it to the fourth, then fifth, and so on. The idea with the most ticks will most likely be the idea to focus on for your purpose. Your purpose may not be completely clear yet; however, keep listening to your gut inner thoughts and feelings, and your logic, to guide you. Your purpose may come quickly, or it may take lots of work and re-work to refine your idea.
Living with Purpose, Purposefully
Once you have found even an inkling of purpose, here are some directions to get things moving:
What is the purpose of your purpose? What do you intend to happen by acting upon it?
Begin to write down which of your values match you purpose. Maybe you value achievement, adventure, courage, creativity, equality, independence, kindness and health. Elaborate on why they exactly support your purpose. If your purpose is to bring awareness to deforestation, then maybe you value personal courage when facing politicians and developers. You believe your opinion is of higher value for the preservation and future of the wilderness and that you have an equal right to express this. Write these insights down.
Plan backwards from the end point of your purpose (if there is one) and record each step and action to achieve it until you get to the very first action. Begin with that first action.
Each day, reflect on the progress of your purpose: What went well today? What could I improve in the actions I take to drive my purpose?
Regularly review your steps to see how you are getting on. As life is unpredictable, you have probably changed or adapted your course and will continue to do so in the future. What changes or challenges do you foresee and how might you prepare for them?
Connect with others who are serving a similar purpose. See who you can find in your local community or on the internet in terms of forums, blogs and websites. Maybe you can start your own forum if one doesn’t already exist.
Know that when you work from your purpose, you are satisfying a higher level of human need. Known as self-actualisation, you are experiencing or working toward experiencing the most you can be.
Having and acting on purpose may not be the easiest or simplest route through life, but any path you take will have its difficulties. Your reward comes from feeling a greater sense of meaning.
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.”
Rumi
If you would like to learn more about purpose, please consider reading my new book, “Be Happy more often” available here.