“Why are you asking such a difficult question” – was one of my friend’s responses when I asked her what her life’s purpose was.
Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. Even after we finish school. Even after we get a job. Even after we’re making money.
Part of the problem is the concept of “life purpose” itself. The idea that we were each born for some higher purpose and it’s now our cosmic mission to find it.
Here’s the truth. Things that we do in our entire life can be categorized as “Important” and “Unimportant”. And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The unimportant ones basically become daily routines not adding much value to our life.
So when people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is: “What can I do with my time that is important?”
This is an infinitely better question to ask. It’s far more manageable. It is easier to discover what feels important to you.
For some people, the purpose is connected to vocation—meaningful, satisfying work. For others, their purpose lies in their responsibilities to their family or friends. Others seek meaning through spirituality or religious beliefs. Some people may find their purpose clearly expressed in all these aspects of life.
The purpose will be unique for everyone; what you identify as your path may be different from others. What’s more, your purpose can actually shift and change throughout life in response to the evolving priorities and fluctuations of your own experiences.
I have compiled a list of questions to figure out life’s purpose. Hopefully, it will be useful to you in finding your “life’s purpose” as it has helped me.
1) Do you have a list of “Important things”?
There are a thousand things that you do or want to do in your life. But there will be few that will make you feel fulfilled and happy.
Start with a list of all such things. The list may contain few or as many as tens of items.
2) What cost are you willing to pay?
Everything sucks, some of the time. Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all of the time. So, the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.
3) “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner”!
We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up in something that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner.”
Supposedly, in his prime, Isaac Newton’s mother had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because he would spend entire days so absorbed in his work that he would forget.
For you, it could be something else. Maybe it’s organizing things efficiently, or getting lost in a fantasy world, or teaching somebody something, or solving technical problems. Whatever it is, don’t just look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.
4) Are you ready to face embarrassment?
Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we must go against the herd mentality. And to do that is scary.
Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.
5) If you know you are going to die in one year, What would you do every day?
Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting.
It makes us re-evaluate our priorities.
Discovering one’s “purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things that are most important to you.
It’s not about some great achievement, but merely finding a way to spend your limited amount of time on earth well.
Have you found your life’s purpose yet? I would love to hear your “Life purpose” in the comments below.
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