Discover Your Real Life Purpose

Posted Jan 20 2010 by Celes

This is part 6 of a 7-part series on how to discover your real purpose in life.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” Rumi
“Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it.” Brian Tracy

You have read the story of how I discovered my real purpose. You have read the 6 important factors in identifying your purpose. Now, it’s your turn to define your purpose for your life

Steps To Define Your Purpose:

Firstly, take out a piece of pen and paper. On top of the paper, write “My Real Life Purpose”
Now, think deeply over the following question: What is the purpose I want to define for my life? What do I want to live for?
Write down the all the answers that come to mind. If you ever find yourself stuck, just keep writing whatever random thoughts are on your mind. Think of it as retrieving the needle in a haystack. In order to get the needle, you need to get the hay out. All these random thoughts are the hay that are standing between you and the needle.
Keep writing and press on until you finally reach the answer that evokes your strongest emotions and resonates with the depth of your soul.

Notes:

There is no right or wrong answer: There is only the answer which is the most true for you. To date, I have never had any client with the same purpose statement as another. Some of their purposes are: “To love myself and others unconditionally”, “To live my best life via being persistent and taking continuous actions on my goals”, “To do the right things right”, “To be my best and touch others’ hearts”, etc. All of you are unique individuals and thus your purpose will be totally unique to you.
Taking time out to think: If you find you need more time to think, then take some time out to mull over it. Spend an hour, a day, or even a week. Bookmark this page and return to it when it’s time. But don’t overstretch the thinking process or complicate the thinking beyond what it should be. Because you are the person who determines what your life should be lived for. No matter who you are, when you are doing this or where you are in life right now, you already have the power and onus to define your own purpose for your life. Set a deadline on when you want to have the answer to this question and mark that on your calendar.

As you write your purpose, frame it into a purpose / mission statement. There are no hard and fast rules on how to do this, but below are some good pointers:

How To Write Your Purpose / Mission statement

Simple; 1-2 statements. It should convey 1-2 key points. Keep it within 1-2 statements. Your purpose should be long enough such that it means something to you and concise enough so it’s easy for you to remember.
Action-form. It should be framed as an action, such as “To live to my highest potential and be the best I can be”, “To bring love and joy to everyone in the world”, etc. Your purpose is trigger you into action continuously.
Use words that resonate with you. All the words used in your life purpose statement should ideally resonate with you.
Direction, not destination. Just like how you can never ever reach north, your statement should be an action which is an ongoing journey.

My Life Purpose

Here is my life purpose today, same as what I shared in my personal story. The purpose is two-fold:

1) “To unite the world as one single consciousness: To touch others’ lives, enable them to achieve their highest potential and live their best life.”

2) “To reach my highest level of consciousness: To achieve my highest potential and live my best life; To live consciously and freely in truth, love and power.”

After Defining Your Purpose

The most important thing to realize is even after defining your life mission statement, it will change in the future. Just like you evolve as a person throughout the journey, your perceptions of life’s meaning will change too.

Make sure to review your purpose statement periodically (e.g., every 3 months at the beginning, followed by 6 months, then yearly) to ensure that it resonates with who you are. It is possible that you have undergone changes or obtained new revelations in your world beliefs which makes your purpose irrelevant to you. This is just like how companies need to regularly review their mission statement to ensure that it has not been made obsolete.

Now that you have discovered your new found purpose in life, you need to start integrating it in your life. In the last part of this series, we will discuss on how to reconcile your current life with your new purpose.

This is part 6 of a 7-part series on how to discover your real purpose in life.