Join hundreds of thousands of people around the world increasing their personal and professional performance
Today’s topic is how to find your life’s purpose. We are going to look at ten things that can help you to discover or deepen that life’s purpose.
Today’s topic is how to find your life’s purpose. We are going to look at ten things that can help you to discover or deepen that life’s purpose.
1. List the 10 Most Important Things in Your Life
If you are craving more purpose in your life, if you are working long hours and it just feels kind of meaningless in the end, if you are working on projects that used to be exciting but kind of lost their zest and you don’t know why you are getting up every morning and you are kind of lost or meandering, then you need to take a pen and paper and write down your top ten values. Answer this question ten times. The question is, “What is most important in my life?” Keep answering that question until you have written down ten things that you value the most in your life.
Once you have that list of ten things, don’t relax thinking that you have found your life’s purpose. That list only contains the things that you regard as important at this point in your life, so keep it close and use it in the following steps.
2. Write Down Your Core Strengths
Turn everything off and write down your core strengths. Your core strengths are also things that you enjoy doing. Turn a timer on for 60 seconds and quickly write down these core strengths. What do you really like to do? What do you enjoy thinking about? What do you find yourself doing effortlessly? What is in your character that comes naturally to you? See if you can identify ten core strengths that define who you are.
Doing this exercise in just 60 seconds allows your brain to just flow. It allows you to just come up with ideas without pausing to analyze or judge them.
3. Identify Your Core Competencies
Now a strength is something you enjoy, it is a strength of who you are, it is a strength of your character. A competency on the other hand is something that you are skilled at. What do you deliver a high quality experience or service? List down all these competencies, regardless of whether you learned them on the job or undertook some training to acquire them.
4. When Do You Fall in Love with the Moment?
What makes time disappear in your life? Those moments when you are so into something that nothing else matters. Where do you just evaporate into the moment and realize hours have elapsed yet it seems like you just looked at your watch minutes ago as you got started on a project? Where or when does that happen in your life? Identify as many things as you can remember which put you in the flow state.
5. Who Do You Enjoy Spending Time With?
If you are looking for your purpose or vocation, you have got to think about who you spend a lot of time with. The people you enjoy spending time with while you work may have clues about what your purpose in life is. What types of people do you love spending time with? Funny people? Silly people? Serious people? Loud people? Quiet people? What type of people do you really like spending time with?
6. Are Those Things Good for All Concerned and the Universe at Large?
As you are looking at all these things (what you are good at, what you value most, what you enjoy doing, the types of people you want to spend time with), you want to put a filter and ask yourself whether the things that you are choosing are good for you. Are those things good for other people? Does it serve the greater good of the world or universe? Does it help everyone and everything to be better?
7. Would You Be Willing to Partake in Studying This Passion for 12-20 Years of Your Life?
Now there is a lot of things that might have been on your list but if you subject them to this test then you could rethink that particular aspect. For example, if you indicated that you were passionate about singing but are unwilling to spend 20 years studying the subject, then singing may not be your life’s purpose. What do you want to know everything about? What do you what to learn about, watch videos about, teach people about, or create videos about? What are you really passionate about to the extent that you want to totally immerse yourself in it?
RELATED: 9 Things That Will Steal Your Passion
8. Observe What Calls to You
For example, as you are flipping through a magazine, what pops before you, what grabs your attention? When you go to certain places or see certain things, what makes your heart skip a beat? Where do you feel most at home and can be yourself? What things would you feel like doing forever?
9. Take a Trip Somewhere
This may not necessarily be far, but drive around town, go to your neighbors, walk around the area where you live. If you can, travel to a distant place, such as another state or country. As you travel, pay attention to the things that you miss and the things that don’t seem to matter much in your life.
As you do this, a thread will begin to emerge of what matters to you and what isn’t that important.
10. Journal for 10 Minutes a Day
Ask yourself what your purpose in life is and just write everything that comes to mind. Do this for seven days. As you do this, you will begin to see a pattern of things that keep recurring again and again as you journal.
To sum it up, these are the ten things that can help you to deepen or discover your purpose in life. Enjoy this, have fun with this and come back and share with me in the comments section about what you discovered regarding the answers to your questions about your life’s purpose. What other things helped you to identify that purpose?
Please share those processes so that others can learn from your experience. So, have some fun with this, kick some butt and I will see you tomorrow!
To Your Success,
Jairek Robbins