How to Identify Your Purpose in Life
Have you ever asked yourself why I am here or what your life purpose is? Does this sound like you? If so, this article will focus on identifying your purpose in life.
We will discuss guidelines you can use to help you live your life with purpose and meaning. I hope you will come away with actionable steps to start taking control of your life and begin living instead of just existing.
The five guidelines we will review include the following:
- Defining who you want to be
- Investing in your passions
- Creating your life’s mission statement
- Overcoming your fears
- Changing your focus
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Now, let’s get started with the guidelines to identify your purpose.
Define who you want to be
There is a tendency for us to let other people define who we are. So, for example, when you decide to attend college or pursue a vocation that you are interested in, someone may say to you that the particular field you are interested in does not pay much money or there may not be a future in it.
Then they may direct you to a different career path or a job that can lead to a more lucrative income or better advancement opportunities.
There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money or advancing within your job; however, sometimes, you can find yourself pursuing a path that does not satisfy your innermost joy and happiness.
Defining who you want to become helps clarify how you want to view yourself instead of how you want to be viewed by others.
Think of it as being confined inside a box. As long as you live within the parameters of the box, you make others happy.
However, in this scenario, your personal growth and development can become limited by the box’s boundaries, which can hinder you from exploring new things.
However, if you move outside the box, you increase your options to expand and grow with no limits except those limits you impose on yourself.
Defining who you want to be will allow you to stretch and extend yourself to accomplish those things that are important to you and bring you happiness.
Invest in your passions
We all have different skills or talents that are unique to each individual. Could you imagine what life would be like if everyone were the same?
Just visualize everyone being created on a car assembly line to look alike, behave the same way, and even think the same way. Life would be boring if we were all the same.
Investing in what you are passionate about involves taking risks to do the things you have a natural gift or desire to do. Your passion may not always resemble your family, friends, or employers’ passions.
Your passion may involve being an entrepreneur or entertainer, starting a bakery, designing clothing, or creating a computer game.
Following your passion for doing things you are interested in, which makes you curious to learn, explore and develop, can help provide clues about what you love.
Your passion may be a hobby with little or no pay. But on the other hand, it may even lead to opportunities to start a business or pursue a different career path that you may not have considered before.
Taking time to become more involved in your passion may require taking classes, reading books, or reaching out to a mentor who can teach and guide you.
View following your passion as an investment in yourself to pursue things you enjoy doing.
Create your life mission statement
A business uses a mission statement to define the company’s purpose, values, and goals.
Like a business, we can use a mission statement to define our life. At the end of your life, how do you want to be remembered?
In developing a mission statement for our lives, we define ourselves and the goals we want to achieve. Therefore, your mission statement should encompass your values and describe who you strive to be.
So, create your life mission statement by writing down what you believe in and want to accomplish.
Overcome your fears
Fear is a part of life. We all will face fear in various phases of our lives.
As a child, you may experience the fear of falling off your bike, the fear of failing an exam, or losing your job. Still, yet, the fear that we are not capable of following our dreams because it seems impossible.
Other fears involve our circumstances in life. For example, single parents trying to raise their kids with little free time to invest in themselves fear being overwhelmed with too many things on their plate.
There is also fear of the unknown when you want to find purpose but are afraid to seek help.
Whatever your fear, some solutions help you develop a pathway to make changes. InnerTalk has many books, audio, and video materials that provide solutions for getting started with discovering your purpose.
However difficult it may seem, fear can be conquered by having faith in God, our creator. By faith, you can overcome your concerns, recognizing that there is a greater power than yourself.
Change your focus
We have become a society where we focus more on ourselves than others. For example, eating at a restaurant, shopping at a clothing store, and purchasing a house or a car, we have become accustomed to being served by another person.
In these examples, we are a patron of the business establishment and should expect to be served based on the situation. However, there are times in life when we can help others.
We can find joy and fulfillment by shifting our focus to helping others. Volunteering yourself to help in your community, assisting someone with a particular need, or taking time to smile or show a kind gesture can go a long way.
Changing our focus to being of service to others in a capacity that brings about a positive outcome can uncover our life’s purpose.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have reviewed guidelines to help you identify your purpose in life. In addition, we have discussed defining who you want to be, investing in your passions, creating your life’s mission statement, overcoming your fears, and changing your focus.
The next step is to take action and apply these guidelines to your life. Finally, let me know how this has helped you in your journey to identify your life purpose.
Please feel free to leave feedback and comments. I appreciate your support.