Apparently, the root of all inspiration, change, self improvement and progress in life is the appealing, yet mystical act of finding your purpose in life.
If it were that simple rates of depression, disease and unhappiness would drop faster than the reputation of Justin Bieber.
But it’s not that simple is it?
For someone like us who has been living life more or less as we are told…go to school, graduate, get any part-time job we can scrape up, make some contacts, perhaps go to post-secondary school and be trained in a profession that seems like it has a reasonable amount of appeal and can pay the bills and then – if you are lucky, get a job working your way up within that industry.
At the same time, you try and adapt your personality to society, meet someone special, go out on a few dates and perhaps find yourself in a long-term relationship that ends in marriage followed by children, a mortgage, bills and about 30-years of living life pretty much as everyone expects.
The problem is that so few of us align this script with our true passions and purpose in life.
Nowhere did the script call for us to spend months looking deep inside and picking our course in life based on our passion or purpose.
Nobody was willing to support us for the years it may take to turn our passion and interests into something that paid the bills.
Our teachers weren’t interested in helping us find our passions, they were too busy trying to make it through yet another year of teaching standard curriculum.
It’s no wonder so many of us never get a handle on our purpose in life until we reach a tipping point, a stage in our life when we just can’t stand where we have ended up and need a change. We realize that the change must be of our making and that it needs to be in a direction that helps us achieve more fulfillment and happiness. Everywhere we look, we are told to find our passion and purpose in life…but how can we do that after the years of programming we must leave behind?
Inside Attracting Greatness, one of the 5 Pillars to reaching true achievement (internal and external) is locating your inner purpose and passion…let’s dig into this here and share some of our best techniques with you here.
5 Questions To Help You Re-Discover Your Purpose In Life
Chances are you had a better idea of your passion and perhaps even your purpose in life when you were a young teen when the you could dream and everything seemed within reach. Of course, that was easier in my generation when we weren’t bombarded by scheduled activities and technology (the internet, smart phones, tablets, social networking, etc…). So chances are that the problem of not getting in touch with our purpose will loom larger in the years to come.
So here are a few questions that will help you to get back in touch with what is most important (according to your values and beliefs) in your life.
1. Looking Ahead 20-30 Years, What Is Your Life “Movie” Like?
I really like this exercise, you get to create your own idea “movie” about your life where you set the entire plot (what you will be doing), location (where you will live), characters (who will you spend the most time with each day) and interesting developments (key events, activities and stories that will make your movie interesting). Don’t edit as to whether you feel it is possible or not, just go ahead and create your ideal movie…you can re-run that movie again and again until it becomes a reality
2. What Did You Enjoy Most When You Were 12-years old
It’s amazing to me that anyone who is now living their dreams can put their finger on the specific interest and passion as far back as 12-years old (maybe even earlier if we could remember back that far). It seems at that point in our lives we have enough experience to know what we love to do but have not yet been stifled by conditioning – for a few years we get to live life on-purpose, so recalling our interests and passions back then is very powerful. Perhaps it was sports, selling from a lemonade stand or garage sales, working with animals on a farm, teaching kids in the neighborhood, working with computers or playing an instrument. These will give you serious clues as to your passions and direct you to finding your true purpose in life
3. What Do Others Find In You?
While relying on the opinion of others around you to boost your self esteem or guide you in life is generally a bad idea, there are those people you feel most close to or that you feel really connected to in life that you should spend some time recalling what they especially saw in you. It may have been a special teacher, coach, relative, friend, or even stranger that made a serious impact on you…why? What was it about how they saw you that made that impact on you. This often leads you directly to what you value most in life
4. What Are You Good At?
Everyone is good at something (often more than one thing)…for many they just haven’t realized or found it yet. When I say “good at”, I’m not talking only about skills, intelligence or specific knowledge, I am including things like…
- relating or influencing people
- uncovering answers to questions or problems
- explaining complicated things so people understand
- making others feel comfortable
- having fun…seeing the lighter side of life
- an art (visual arts, music, performing, etc…)
- math or science
- writing
- etc…
What you are good at is a clear indicator of what you value in life, what you are passionate about, what makes you happy and how you see your contribution to those around you. While the link between what you are good at and how you can incorporate more of that into your life may not be readily obvious, knowing what your strengths are is a critical first step
5. What Hits You Emotionally?
What gets you angry? What makes you cry (with joy or sadness?) What do you find makes you argue with other people versus those things that you just let pass? You will find that deep inside your subconscious knows what your purpose in life is and defends that purpose with vigor. So you will find that the closer to your purpose and passion you get, the more natural emotion will come.
Reversing years of conditioning that has distracted us from recognizing, and therefore living in tune with, our main purpose in life takes some “sneaky” methods. Our true passion and purpose is buried deep within us, like a locked door that we are unaware of where to find the key, uncovering the amazing inner power of purpose takes some key techniques and tactics, but can be reached with some effort.
Once you unearth this treasure of passion and interest you can truly reach amazing levels of self improvement, happiness and fulfillment in your life while you reach results that far exceed your wildest dreams.
Are you searching for your purpose in life? Let us know your progress…
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