What’s your life purpose?
Have you ever found yourself wondering what it’s all about? You get up and go to work, come home, eat, sleep. Rinse and repeat.
Everyone’s experience is unique, and yet there are common patterns and experiences that we can recognise in ourselves and others. This is what researchers are looking for when they measure certain attitudes or behaviours. Our level of life satisfaction is one area that is positively impacted by having a sense of purpose.
Having Purpose
What do we mean by it, and how do we know if we have it?
The dictionary defines purpose as: ‘the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc. an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal.’
So, we may have a purpose that is small and transient, to get to the shop before it closes and buy a loaf of bread. And we have an expression, walking purposefully. We see in someone’s body language that they have a specific goal in mind from the way they are walking. It’s very different to strolling or meandering, without purpose.
On a larger scale, we might ask ourselves, ‘What is my purpose, the reason I exist?’ And this can be harder to answer. But finding the answer, and following it, might revolutionise your life in a very positive way.
Finding your purpose
People find their purpose in different ways. Some people seem to have always known it. They have a calling, a vocation from a very young age. But many other people flounder. They may wander from job to job, looking for ‘the thing’. They may drift from one relationship to another, looking for ‘the one’. They aren’t unhappy, but they are vaguely dissatisfied, always feeling as though there should be something more, but not knowing how to find it.
There are techniques and strategies to help people find their purpose. That may be a purpose relating to their work. It may be a larger, all-encompassing life purpose. The two things may be closely allied.
Just as a taster of what is possible, ask yourself the following questions about your work. This may be about your current job, but if you’re dissatisfied with it, then open your mind to a larger stage, and consider what applies in the world of limitless possibilities.
Who are you? What is your role? What impact does that have? What does that give people, or how does it help them? Then write it out as “I am the ____________ (role or metaphor) so that people / who helps people _____________ (what they get / achieve)”
Taking the next steps
Remember, that is only one small part of a larger process but is enough to start you thinking. Is this what you are actually doing in your life? If not, then what is standing in the way?
To achieve life satisfaction, we need to be creating the life that fits us. Not taking on the life that fits anyone else. And your purpose, while broadly similar to others, is unique to you, not just in the what, but also in the how of living it.
If you’re interested in finding out more about exploring your purpose and how you can start to live up to it then please contact me.
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