One of the earliest identified human needs to be happy and fulfilled is to find our place or purpose in life.
Without a purpose driving us, we feel lost, unfulfilled, and find it very hard to get motivated. Those feelings, of course, continue to spiral out of control until we find our daily habits have become focused on just trying to get through the day.
So how do we escape the challenge of being stuck in a rut with a lack of focus and lack of purpose in life?
1. What Makes You Lose Track Of Time?
For me, the single best way to identify what I should be spending my time on and how I can help both myself and those around me to excel at this life is to look back at activities that made me lose track of time. Surely you can relate to this as well? When you are bored out of your skull the minutes on the clock can’t tick away fast enough. It’s almost as if time stands still. But when you are engaged, doing something that you really love, are happy and are involved with people you love to be around time literally flies by doesn’t it? So, what are the 3 or 4 things you can think of that when you spend time on them, you lose track of time? For me, they were: music (nearly anything to do with music from playing instruments, learning new songs, writing, to editing and even helping others fill their clubs around town), learning (anytime I was learning new things I felt ALIVE and time just flew by, teaching – again, if I was involved in teaching and helping others (on almost any subject) I felt alive and lost track of time, and finally – selling…oddly enough that’s because I saw selling in its purest form a method of teaching and influencing others. What is your list?
2. Who Do You Admire And Why?
List 3-4 people you really admire. These could be people you know or people you have learned about through biographies, seeing them at a seminar or watching them on YouTube. Now, list the top 3-4 reasons that you admire them. It could be their enthusiasm, their passion, their honesty, their influence, etc…By listing what it is about these people you admire the most you will begin to see the factors that you must consider when finding your purpose – making sure that your purpose in life is aligned with the elements that you admire in others is a great way to help you define your journey.
3. Try More Things…
Many of the people I know now that have found their ultimate passion and purpose in life have done so after trying dozens and dozens of things. I call this the “fail fast” process of identifying your ideal future. This especially applies to you if you are sitting there reading this today not having a clue about what your purpose in life really is or should be. What you want to do is go out and try something new each week. Try new hobbies, join clubs, attend group meetings, take a course online – just try as many things as you can. You will learn something important from every experience that will lead you closer to your purpose in life.
4. How Can You Help People In A Way That Would Really Make You Happy?
There are so many ways we can help people and so many requests for help coming from all around us, but to really match your passion, skills, strengths and energy with a cause, it’s important that you find out what contribution you can make that would really make you happy. For example, one way you could really help people is through sharing your art or by teaching a non-profit class to a group of teens, etc… By creating your own contribution to the world in a way that fulfills your purpose helps both you and society and gets you one step closer to your purpose in life
We aren’t used to thinking about what our ultimate purpose could or should be. So many of us have passed that point in our lives where we believe it is even possible to live out our passion.
Not true, in fact there is no time better than the present and now it is within your reach – use these 4 methods and uncover your true purpose in life. We are all waiting to see the best in you – so let yourself be free to live beyond what you are settling for today.
Leave a Comment