What is your purpose?

Overview

Take some time to discover your purpose. Here I outline a method for working out it all. I see your purpose as the starting point of your future. You need to know where you are starting from before you can choose the path to your destination.

Why bother with a purpose statement?

Most of us meander through life hoping that somehow we will get lucky and things will work out. It’s a basic belief that the gambling industry – one of the biggest industries in the world – exploits for its own gain. Perhaps this will be the week that your lottery numbers will come up and life will improve for you. However there are a few who have grasped the simple truth that life is not about getting lucky breaks from nowhere but is about making your own lucky breaks.

Of course life is harder for some than for others but just because life is tough doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful – it might just take a little extra effort!

The place to start is with understanding yourself and what you are about. How can you ever make a decision, or know how to spend your valuable time if you don’t know what your priorities are and what talents you can use to achieve your goals?

A purpose statement is about taking some time to reflect on who you are. You examine your various qualities, what talents you might have and what things you value. At the end of the process you should have a clear idea of what you stand for. Although its possible to arrive at a similar statement to others what it means to you will be unique.

Then you should remind yourself regularly what you purpose statement is. It will help you prioritise your time and encourage you to employ your talents wisely.

Doing what’s important is what’s important

I’m sure we could all relate stories about stuff we have spent hours doing which turned out to be a complete waste of time. Wasting time has to be one of the biggest problems in anyone’s life. The problem is that too many of us have no idea what is important and so we waste time on what other people think is important.

Remember also that just because something is urgent doesn’t mean it is important. This is a big mistake that we all make from time to time. We assume that a sense of urgency means that something must be important.

Throughout today ask yourself the question of everything you do: Is this important?

Ask it about everything you do. Ask it about the things that are urgent as well as the things that are unimportant.

It will be tough to decide what is important but I will provide more help on this in my next post. For now though simply use your intuition to decide.

Your purpose is revealed in …

We all need to discover our purpose. Our purpose defines who we are and why we exist. This quest for purpose is apparent in nearly every religion and philosophical system. The sense that there is something bigger than our own existence and that we somehow play a part in some great story that is being worked out. Even if you don’t have a faith in something no one can deny that our actions have a much wider impact than our own small part of the world. Who knows what influence we have on other people? A simple word of encouragement or even discouragement could have a profound effect on another persons life.

So how do we discover what our purpose is?

Your purpose is revealed in your talents. If you believe your talents are given you by a higher power then they are given for a reason. If you believe talents are based on your genetics or simple psychology then it is still your talents that defines what you can achieve in life.

If you want to know your purpose – and I mean your specific purpose – then work out what your talents are and you will have gone a long way to solving your purpose riddle.

Your purpose is in who you are not who you wish you were.