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?
Yet, 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 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, such as Will Smith in the video below, 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.
What “Life Purpose” Really Is
So, what’s the purpose of your 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.
This is because everyone is different, and 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 of meaning, and that you are living with purpose rather than living without purpose.
Living with purpose, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to decide right now exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life. It’s much more than that.
A person who finds their purpose in life ultimately does so through finding purpose in their everyday activities. For example, if you wanted to lose weight then that would give your life purpose. You have set yourself a goal to do something, and so the actions you take are done with the aim of achieving it.
As a result, the more purpose that you find in the things which you normally do each day, the more those activities will bring you closer to achieving something of meaning and value in life. Something that you will feel good for achieving and feel satisfied for doing.
The trouble is, that when people think about what their purpose in life is, they often imagine some magical transformational event that will suddenly make them feel happy and content. This, however, is not an accurate reflection of reality, as it’s more the kind of stuff that would happen on TV.
The real reality is that finding one’s purpose in life involves having a large goal, and then breaking that goal down into smaller sub-goals.
It is the completion of these small goals that will bring your life purpose, and it is the completion of your large goal that will ultimately bring you life satisfaction.
So from now on, think about “life purpose” as a type of goal, something that you would like to have, do or achieve.
This helps to make your purpose much clearer and easier to define, as the term “life purpose” doesn’t really tell you much about what’s really important to you or how you will go about getting it.
By thinking in term of goals, you will now automatically be able to create purpose in many areas of your life. As once you start deciding upon the different goals that you would like to achieve, then all your actions from that point will be taken with purpose towards a common goal; a new and better self.
6 Ways to Find Your Purpose in Life
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 what you were put here to do.
So let’s now have a look at the six ways you can find your purpose in life:
1) Ask Your Dreams For Guidance
Most people are taught from a young age to ignore their dreams, after all, it was only a dream right? But for those who have ever had a precognitive dream, they know that dreams can sometimes provide valuable guidance that we can use to benefit and enrich our life with.
My interest in dreams came after listening to several shows on Coast to Coast AM about dreams, which discussed how dreams were often used by ancient cultures to alert them to potential dangers, such as natural disasters, in their upcoming future.
Research into this subject revealed to me just how influential dreams have been in shaping our modern day society, and how many famous people, such as Paul McCartney whoes famous song “yesterday” came to him in a dream, have used dreams to help them achieve things and guide their life.
When it comes to finding your life purpose, listening to your dreams may therefore help to provide you with the answer you’ve been searching for. The most effective way to use dreams for this purpose, or in fact any other question or problem you have, is to “incubate” a dream.
This basically means thinking about what you would like to dream about, and perhaps also giving yourself a mental command that you will have a particular type of dream, as you lay in bed shortly before falling asleep.
What you will often find is that you will have a dream related to your question or problem that night, or on one of the following nights. It is important, however, that you also write down your dream as soon as you wake up in the morning, as some dreams may not initially seem to make sense until you review them at a later date.
Overall, do not discount the importance and significance of your dreams. We dream for a reason, and as soon as you experience a precognitive dream, you will know that dreams can in fact be of great use in helping to guide us towards our hopes and goals.
Finally, it’s worth being aware of some of the different types of dreams. Briefly, these are: precognitive dreams (dreaming of future events), dreams relating to what you did during the day which may actually be of no significance, and warning dreams which are dreams that warn you about potential problems or dangers, such as to your health, that you may face.
2) What Did You Want to do as a Child?
It’s often said that people first discover their life purpose as a child, but because of their parents, or self-doubt, they give up on their dreams and choose a more traditional and “safe” way of living.
Unfortunately, because they end up doing something which they never really wanted to do, or doing it for the wrong reason, 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 achieved their ideal life straight away, but because of their persistence, they eventually succeeded in getting what they had dreamed 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, 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’s what you truly want in your heart.
3) What Would You do For Free?
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. Later, however, they then find that they don’t really enjoy what they’re 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 a bit of 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.
4) 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.
When you look at your list again 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.
5) 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, however, find their purpose and say that they really want it, but are then unwilling to work towards its 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.
6) What Are You Good At?
Identifying your strengths, and then exploiting them to your advantage, is something that we must all do in order to survive and make 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!
Reviewed – 23rd March 2016