Discovering your life's purpose is more like putting together a big puzzle then it is finding a needle in a haystack. Like a puzzle, you need to fit the right pieces together and in time a picture starts to emerge. The picture that emerges will be made up of your special interests and talents and preferences. It will represent the whole of your life. Every piece is needed.
Unlike a puzzle you buy off a store shelf with all of the pieces already contained in the box, the pieces to your life purpose puzzle come to you one at a time, over a period of time. You will get each new piece when you are ready for it and not a day sooner. And unlike the puzzle you buy off the store shelf which supplies a picture of what the finished puzzle should look like, your life purpose puzzle has no such guide available. The picture that emerges will be one of a kind and each new piece will add depth and meaning to the whole.
The following experts have written about discovering your purpose in great detail. Below is a condensed version of their formulas and philosophies for discovering your life's purpose.
Richard Bolles
Richard Bolles is most famous for his yearly job-hunting book, What Color is Your Parachute.
His formula for discovering your life's "mission" is as follows:
1. To stand, hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your Mission is derived.
2. To do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place, following the leading and guidance of God's Spirit within you and around you.
3. a) to exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use ? your greatest gift, which you most delight to use,
b) in the place(s) or setting(s) which God has caused to appeal to you the most,
c) and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.
Whew! That's a mouthful. Basically he is saying we all come here with a purpose to somehow SERVE our fellow man. We are given unique talents that, when leveraged, will be HOW we serve our fellow man. Our talents will provide the vehicle through which we express and share our gifts with others.
Special note: In What Color is Your Parachute the following quote can be found which offers a simple formula for discovering your purpose:
"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Fred Buechner
Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield is America's Success Coach and co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Canfield sums up purpose this way:
"You were born with an inner guidance system that tells you when you are on or off purpose by the amount of joy you are experiencing. The things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose"
He states what you are here to do is what will give you the greatest amount of joy when you are doing it. In his book, The Success Principles, he offers the following Life Purpose Exercise:
1. List two of your unique personal qualities, such as enthusiasm and creativity.
2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others, such as to support and to inspire.
3. Assume the world is perfect right now. What does this world look like? How is everyone interacting with everyone else? What does it feel like? Write your answer as a statement, in the present tense, describing the ultimate condition, the perfect world as you see it and feel it. Remember, a perfect world is a fun place to be.
Example: Everyone is freely expressing their own unique talents. Everyone is working in harmony. Everyone is expressing love.
4. Combine the three prior subdivisions of this paragraph into a single statement.
Example: My purpose is to use my creativity and enthusiasm to support and inspire others to freely express their talents in a harmonious and loving way.
Finally, he states that without a purpose in life, it's easy to get sidetracked on your life's journey. It's easy to wander and drift, accomplishing little.
But with purpose, everything in life seems to fall into place. To be "on purpose" means you're doing what you love to do, doing what you're good at and accomplishing what's important to you.
Richard Leider & David Shapiro
In their book, Repacking Your Bags: How to Live with a New Sense of Purpose they write:
"Purpose is your reason for being, your answer to the question, "Why do I get up in the morning?" It is the spiritual core that helps us find the aliveness in all our day-to-day experiences."
They go on to say, "You use your purpose to set your course in life. It's the qualities around which you center yourself. Without a clear sense of purpose, you are at the mercy of shifting terrain of the outside world. Having a purpose, though, enables you to refind your direction and then direct your way there.
They offer the following formula for discovering your purpose:
(Your Talents + Your Passions + Your Preferred Environment) x Your Ideal Vision of Life = Lifestyle Rich in Purpose
Discover your unique talents and passions. Understand which environments you like to work best and put these things together in a way that serves the vision you have for Life.
How to Discover Your Life's Purpose
The first step in discovering your life's purpose is to believe there is a purpose to your life. The second step is to keep asking what that purpose is.
Nothing is going to drop from the sky announcing a grand purpose for your life. That is something you get to decide. You'll discover your purpose when you put the unique puzzle pieces of your life together in a way that makes sense to you.
Each of the experts above has their own formula for discovering your purpose but they all have these things in common:
1. When living on purpose you are living from your center, your spiritual core/you are somehow connected to God
2. Living on purpose requires you to discover what makes you unique; talents, passions and values
3. Living on purpose requires you to leverage what makes you unique for the sake of serving others / making the world a better place.
4. When you live on purpose, your life will be filled with meaning and joy.
Discovering your purpose is a worthwhile pursuit and once you discover it your life will feel very on track. You will still need to do the work to bring your purpose to life. But your actions will be filled with meaning. There will be a depth to your life.
As Joseph Campbell writes in The Power of Myth, "We are having experiences all the time which may on occasion render some sense of this, a little intuition of where your bliss is. Grab it. No one can tell you what it is going to be. You have to learn to recognize your own depth."
Copyright (c) 2007 Cari Vollmer
Many spiritual traditions revolve around one central question: ?Who am I ?? Even the business world ponders this crucial matter. According to business gurus, the first step on the road to success is asking yourself this very question:?What's my mission? What on Earth am I doing? Am I in the right place??
If you can't answer these questions, then you are wasting 90% of your time and energy doing things that are neither your mission nor your business! You will feel an inner anxiety, urging you to search for the deeper meaning of your life.
If you consider living to be painful, if you feel dissatisfied, if you feel ?there must be more than this?, if you feel out of place in this world, then you have not yet found the purpose of your life.
If you are questioning the meaning of life, if you can't find inner peace, if you are not satisfied with choices you've made in life, if you don't know which way to turn, if you feel your life is stuffed with things that aren't of your choosing and that don't satisfy you, if you often feel burdened and bad-tempered, if you ?have everything to feel happy? but don't, then it is time for you to discover your true self!
Human beings want to feel useful. We long to give our lives some deeper meaning. As long as you have not discovered this deeper meaning, you feel frustrated and on the wrong track.
We want our lives to be worthwhile. This does not mean we need to achieve ?great feats? or become world famous. We just need to feel in place and do the right thing surrounded by the right people. It's about finding out our mission. It's about finding ?inner peace?.
Our mission on Earth is twofold. The general aspect is that we are here to learn to bring more love into the world. The personal aspect is that everyone has its own peculiar, unique way of doing this.
Your mission represents the central piece of your life. The surrounding pieces represent your family, your relationship, your kids, your job, your home, your health, your friend, and so on. The centerpiece holds all of this together. That centerpiece, that's you. You are the most important person in your life, and you came to this world to do something important. Otherwise you simply would not be here!
As long as you haven't identified the centerpiece, you'll be wrestling with dissatisfaction, powerlessness, frustrations and fatigue. Some people solve jigsaw puzzles by first fitting all the pieces on the borders, and then squeeze in the piece in the middle. That's putting the cart before the horse.
These people reason: ?When I find the right partner, find the right job, get paid a good salary, have some kids, have my own house, meet some friends, stay healthy, then I will be happy!? But that's not the way things work.
As long as the centerpiece is missing from the puzzle, you too will feel empty inside. It is your responsibility to discover your mission and get things under way.
Even the cells of your body react to this lack of purpose, this feeling of emptiness. They suffer from spiritual malnutrition, feel useless and bored, resulting in a physical state of sluggishness and lethargy. This physical state will eventually cause several physical discomforts and complaints.
Occupying yourself with ?your disease? and ?feeding? yourself with medication or other such products is just another attempt at filling the void inside. This is because the status of ?being ill? allows you to identify: ?I am allergic to this or that, I am a cancer patient, I am an Alzheimer, I am?? Once you have started identifying yourself by your disease, it will certainly be on your mind day and night.
If you are not in touch with your own desires, you will easily fall prey to expectations projected upon you by your environment. If you are not following your own path, then you must be following someone else's! If you are not clear on your own life mission, you will find it hard to say ?no? to what other people want you to do. This undecidedness makes you available for all who cross your path and want a piece of you, draining your energy.
As long as you are not clear on the shape of that centerpiece, you are submitted to others who may not care about what's best for you. Just like disease, these kinds of negative relationships are a manifestation of low-level energy, showing that you have lost focus and have strayed from your own golden brick road.
Your self-esteem is probably pretty low and you suffer from serious doubts and fears. The longer you put of the search, the more the feeling that something is missing will devour you. Your self-esteem will only decrease.
The best way to rebuild your fragile self and re-establish an inner sense of security is to make the search for your life mission your number one priority, and subsequently fully dedicate yourself to it.
Why is this so important? Because you can only find real joy in life by discovering and living according to the unique way of your personal evolution.
But, maybe you think, can't I just continue living life the way I have been all along? My life may not be all that exciting and rosy, but it's still doable. Can't I just try to hang in there and keep the status quo?
The answer is ?yes?. You can keep living your life in a monotonic, sad, senseless way. But don't expect any real satisfaction. The need to feel useful is so fundamental that you cannot feel happy as long as you have no clue what you are here for.
That's exactly the difference between humans and animals. For an animal it may suffice to just sleep, hunt and eat, but humans look for the deeper meaning of life. Humans ?know? that we are here on Earth for something more important than just eating, sleeping and working.
Your mission gives meaning to your life. Your mission IS your very reason for existence.
You are not alone in this search. This mission is also looking for you. It wants to be fulfilled by you and by nobody else. It is your personal mission. Nobody else is equipped to do it for you. Your mission will keep haunting you until you take it seriously and start implementing it.
Going against your mission is going against yourself. This is the same as ignoring the call of your soul, as ignoring your strongest desires, as signing a contract for eternal discontent?
You can't escape your mission. One day you will have to start dedicating yourself to it. Has this day come for you now? After all, you are reading these lines which shows your honest desire to start looking for the deeper meaning of your being.
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Both Cari Vollmer & Ineke Van Lint are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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