How To Find Out What To Do In Life

Did you ever stop to think why you are here? I mean, what’s the point of living if you don’t have a purpose in life? Out of all the millions of sperm that could have beaten you to the egg, you made it, so surely you must be here for a reason? Surely there must be a purpose to your life?

Despite the amazing achievement of our existence, many people live with little or no idea as to what they are meant to do in life. You ask them, “What are you going to do tomorrow?” They say, “I don’t know“. You ask them, “What are you are going to do next year?” They say, “Whatever” or “Let’s see what comes up“.

The truth is, most people do not know what their purpose in life is and so their life is lived by chance, reacting to things that happen to them rather than making things happen for them. It’s almost as if someone is controlling their life by throwing some dice. 1, a chance encounter. 2, a chance phone call. 3, a chance event.

The trouble is, these people never know how the dice are going to land and so they live their life randomly and with very little personal control. As a result, their life often seems to lack any real meaning to it and is filled with a sense of uncertainty as to what the future may hold.

But not all people are like this. Some people will take the dice, put them on the floor and then stamp on them. They don’t want someone controlling their life with some stupid dice. No. They want to know what the purpose of life is and to control their own destiny.

Finding the purpose of life enables these people to make sure that the actions they take on a daily basis lead to the accomplishment of the things they want to do in life. This enables them to create their own life, rather than reacting to the lives of others or allowing others to dictate how their life turns out.

Living With Purpose

So what is the purpose of life? Don’t ask me! I don’t have a clue what your purpose is! Finding your life purpose is something that only you can do.

Everyone is different, so we each have a unique purpose to fulfil. But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter what you do. What really counts is that you are doing something and that you are living with purpose rather than living without purpose.

Finding your life purpose doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to decide right now exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life. It is much more than that. Sure, finding your life purpose is something that you can work towards as your overall goal. But life should also be filled with smaller goals that gives it purpose on a day-to-day basis.

For example, if you wanted to start exercising to lose weight, then that would give you a purpose. You have set yourself a goal to exercise and so the actions that you take in the future are taken with a purpose of working towards achieving your goal. However, it is extremely important for your goals to be specific. So just saying that you want to exercise isn’t enough.

Rather, it would be better to say that you want to exercise four times a week, for 30 minutes on the exercise bike. This tells you exactly what you should be doing and allows you to monitor your progress. By doing so, you can then see if what you are doing is consistent with what you wanted to do. This is important, because who you are as a person really comes down to what you do and not what you say.

By starting to live more purposefully in small areas of your life, such as by setting goals and working towards their achievement, you will automatically start bringing purpose to your life and living a life that has greater meaning to it.

This will then allow you to move on to bigger areas of your life and apply purposefulness there, until your whole life is lived purposefully. Once you are able to live purposefully, you will feel more in control of your life, and as a result, will be much happier with it because you will be taking it in the direction that you want it to go.

How To Find Your Life Purpose

Some people know exactly what they want to do very early on in their life, but for others, like myself, it can take many years to find out. Below are some exercises and things to think about that may help you to discover your true purpose in life.

This isn’t going to be easy and it will require a lot of time and effort on your behalf, but if you really commit yourself to it, then you will eventually find your life purpose. It might not be today, but if you persist, then eventually you will.

What Were Your Childhood Dreams?

It is often said that people first discover their life purpose as children, but because of their parents or self-doubt, they give up on their dreams and choose a more traditional and “safer” way of living.

Unfortunately, because they end up doing something which they never really wanted to do, or doing it for the wrong reasons, they end up lacking fulfilment in their life which then causes them to feel unhappy with how their life has turned out and the direction that it is going in.

The most successful people in our society knew what they wanted from an early age. They had a dream and went for it, no matter what anyone told them. They may not have got their ideal job straight away, but because of their persistence, they eventually succeeded in getting what they had dreamt about for so long.

What did you want to be as a child? What dreams did you have that you gave up on because of something which someone may have said? No matter how silly it may sound, or how impossible it may seem, would doing it make you happy? Could that be your life purpose?

Take some time to think about your childhood dreams and if there is something that you really wanted to do, then do it! Don’t think about how you are going to do it or what other people will say about it, just use it as your life purpose and the rest will sort itself out if that is what you truly want in your heart.

You Just Won The Lottery!

Ask yourself the following question: “If I won the lottery, what job would I do?”

This is an extremely important question to ask, because most people decide upon a job with money as their primary concern. However, later they may find that they do not enjoy what they are doing, and as a result, fail to become truly successful at it.

Money certainly can make a job you do not enjoy bearable, especially if you do not have much money to begin with. But you will often find, as many people do, that money isn’t everything.

Over time the job will become more and more unbearable and the money will seem less and less attractive. It is at this point when a person must decide whether they want to live their life doing something they enjoy, or continue living a miserable, stressful and unfulfilling life doing something which they absolutely hate.

If your ideal job doesn’t pay very well, then whether or not you choose to go after it now or sometime in the future when you have some money saved up, is up to you. The important thing is that you know what it is that you would like to do, because once you know, the only thing that will stop you from doing it is you.

Self Discovery Exercise

Get a sheet of paper and on the top of it write “What is my life purpose?” or “What am I meant to do in my life?”

Now, write down twenty answers to that question. Just write whatever comes into mind, no matter how silly it may seem. Relax whilst you do this, as ideas will flow from your subconscious much easier when you are in a relaxed state of mind.

You will probably find that the first few answers come very easily, but as you get past ten answers, it will become harder and harder. These latter answers will often be the most valuable, as they will be coming from your subconscious mind.

An important instruction to remember when doing this exercise, is that in order for it to be effective, it must be done in one sitting. So make sure that you set enough time aside so that you can come up with twenty answers to your question.

If you find twenty answers easy to come up with, increase the number to thirty. Ideally, you should find the last 5-10 answers difficult , so adjust your total amount accordingly.

After you have completed the exercise, do not look at what you have written. Put it away and then look at it the following day. Do you see anything that could be your purpose in life? Is there anything that if you knew you would definitely be successful at you would do? If not, keep on repeating this exercise until you do.

Eventually, because your mind has been thinking about and trying to answer this question for so long, the answer will at some point come to you. Often, it will be when you least expect it, as the mind is most productive when it is relaxed and not stressed with worry.

The law of inverse effort usually comes into play here. This law states that the more you trust your answer will come to you, the sooner it will come. But the more you try to force your answer, the harder and longer it will be before you to receive it.

An additional tip is to think about this question just before you fall asleep. The answer may come to you in a dream or the following morning. So be aware of any thoughts or ideas that you get during these periods of the day.

Commit To Excellence

You may already be familiar with the 80/20 rule, but in case you’re not, it states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities. In sales, this can be found as 80% of the sales coming from 20% of the sales people, or in business, as 80% of the market share belonging to 20% of all the competing companies.

The 80/20 rule shows that in order to become successful you must be extremely good at what you do, as it is only a small fraction of the total number of competitors who ultimately get the majority of the rewards.

People who reach the top 20% make a conscious effort to do so. They decide what they want to do and then commit themselves to achieving excellence in that field. Whatever it takes to be successful and whatever price they must pay to achieve it, they will do what they need to do, when they need to do it, whether they like it or not.

For those who do not consciously commit themselves to becoming excellent in their field, they automatically and subconsciously commit themselves to a life of mediocrity in the bottom 80%.

Simply put, without a commitment to becoming the best you will always perform at low levels and never achieve your true potential. As a result, your self-worth and self-esteem will likely fall, resulting in feelings of unhappiness, depression and a lack of fulfilment. Is that the kind of life you want to live?

Finding your life purpose is all about committing to something and then doing whatever it takes to get it. Many people may find their purpose and think that they really want it, but are then unwilling to work towards it achievement. This is an important lesson to learn, because finding your purpose is only half the battle, the other half is making it a reality.

So just remember, you will have to work towards your life purpose. It won’t just fall in your lap and magically happen to you. It will likely take many years of hard work and long hours, but if you are willing to pay that price, then eventually you will reap the rewards of your dedicated effort.

What Are You Good At?

Identifying your strengths and then exploiting them to your advantage is something that we all must do to give ourselves the best chance of surviving in this world and making something of ourselves.

If you are able to do the things which you are good at or have a natural skill for, you will find that your life purpose becomes a lot clearer to you. In fact, most people who become highly successful have become successful because they truly loved what they were doing and so became excellent at it as a result.

This might have involved a learned skill, a personality trait or a natural talent. Whatever is it was they were good at, they stuck with it and used it to their advantage to help bring them a life which they enjoy living in and not one that they constantly wanted to escape from.

So ask yourself, “What am I good at?” “What can I do better than someone else?” Once you are clear on your answer or answers, think about what possible career fields there are related to what you have just said. How could you make money from that? How could you support yourself doing that? Could other people benefit from it?

The answers that you come up with could very well lead you on the path to finding your purpose in life!