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Last Updated on July 16, 2024
There is nothing easy about searching for your purpose in life. It’s something that’s deeply human, and each of us wants to find a way to feel valid and valuable in the lives that we lead. Some people do that with their career and other people do that with their children. The key is in finding something that matters most to you, that you feel like you are content with. And that’s not easy to do either. Humans are commonly known for changing their careers, changing their outlook, moving across the world to try and find that piece that they are seeking and never really finding it because they don’t know what that looks like.
The search for purpose is universal. It’s a journey that transcends life stages and cultures. And while the specific path for your purpose is a unique one, the desire for fulfillment is common. It’s actually the one thing that connects everybody across the world, no matter where they live or what they look like. We all want to find peace and fulfillment and meaning in our lives. But how on earth do you do that if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the first place?
Discovering what your purpose is gives you that sense of direction in your life. If you have a specific burning desire for something that you just can’t put down, everything you do is going to help you to find that desire and live it. Getting the right help to find that purpose, explore who you are and what you stand for, matter. So if you are working in recruitment but in the back of your mind you’ve always wanted to be a doctor from a very young age, but you didn’t articulate that to anybody because you don’t feel smart enough, that’s pretty much your purpose in life, and you have to figure out your own pathway to get there, no matter what anybody else tells you.
The key is in trying. If you don’t try, you will always regret it. But if you try, you might find exactly what you’re looking for. Having a purpose that is well defined has a very positive impact on those around you. So here are the steps that you need to discover what your life purpose really is.
- Take some time for reflection. One of the easiest ways to start discovering what your life purpose may be is to ask yourself what matters to you. What are you doing in your life right now and what are your values? What activities give you that feeling of being alive and fulfilled? What issues are you passionate about? Where do your talents lie? What would you like to achieve or be remembered for? The best thing that you can do is visualize yourself as an elderly person sitting in a rocking chair on the outside porch. In that moment of clarity in your senior years, would you regret the current life you are living? Would you feel happy with the life that you plan to have instead? What do you visualize this way? You have to think about what you’re not going to regret in life and what you are going to regret. Because nobody wants to be the 80 year old sitting on the porch thinking “I wish”.
- Start exploring your passions. One of the most unfortunate things in life is that from a young age we are pushed into choosing a career path by the time that we’re 18. We have kids in schools who need permission to go to the bathroom or permission to have a day off of school for mental health. While at the same time telling them that you need to pick what you want to do for the rest of your life. That is not an easy way to do things, and it’s not the way things should be done. At 18 years old, you should be in a period of discovery of who you are as a person, outside of your parents and outside of the confines of your teachers. Choosing a career path at that age feels very irresponsible. The good news is that whatever career path you’ve chosen or being pressured into choosing by the time you’re 18 doesn’t have to be the career that you have for the rest of your life if you don’t want it to be. What are you passionate about now? Have you found yourself in your 30s and wishing you had decided to work it with nature rather than in a hospital? Are you deciding now that after years of pressure, you don’t actually want to have children? You’d like to live a more solo existence with friends and feel fulfilled by animals and nature and purpose? Understanding what your passions are and where your values lie can help you to carve out the pathway you need to carve.
- Start knocking down those blockages. Identifying the subconscious blocks in your mind is a crucial step to unlocking your purpose and your potential. It’s an introspective journey that you need to take and it starts with self-awareness where you think about your thought patterns. It’s said that the first thing you think in a situation is what you’ve been conditioned to think, but the second thought that you have is who you truly are. You have to question your internalized narratives and the themes that you were brought up with by your parents. Parents have a huge influence on the way that we think now, but as you grow and you learn in life, those narratives in your mind change and shift. Start knocking down the things that are getting in your way when it comes to pursuing your passions and start thinking about the things that you want.
- Seek out inspiration. Read as many books as you can. Attend as many seminars and meetings and mentorships as you can. Seek out inspiring people who have already found their purpose and learned from them. When you do this, you can gain some insights into what you want for your path, and then you can learn from those experiences. Sometimes your purpose will evolve overtime through life experience, so embrace all of the challenges that you’ll face here, and embrace the failures and the successes along the way. Every plan you have for your life is in your hands, and you have the power to make it happen.There is no such thing as you can’t do it.
- Figure out why you want what you want. So you’ve managed to figure out what you want to do with your life. Why do you want to do that thing? What impact are you going to have on yourself first and foremost? It’s nice to consider the impact you’re going to have on the world and your community, but the biggest impact you could have is on yourself. Are you proud of yourself? Are you going to feel content and secure within yourself as a result of the path you want to follow?
Your purpose may not be one place. It’s going to be a journey of growth.If what you want is a higher career and you know you have roadblocks to get there, it’s time to start putting on that climbing gear and climbing over every single one of those blockages in your way.You have that power to do that, and as long as you are seeking help and support along the way, you’re going to get there.
