6 Things to Consider Before Discovering Your Purpose

Celes — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:19:21 +0000

This is part 5 of a 7-part series on how to discover your real purpose in life.

Several self-help authors and writers recommend discovering your purpose by imagining you are at your eulogy – i.e., your funeral. What will you want others to say about you when you die? What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Personally, I do not agree to this method for two reasons:

Ego-based. By anchoring yourself on others’ perceptions of you, you are tapping into your ego and fear. A purpose is not about the leaving a legacy or making others remember you positively; it is about living your life in a way that you yourself will stand proud against
Short-term. Our existence between now and physical death is merely a very small speck in the larger spectrum of life. By defining our purpose in the context of our physical existence only, we are not living out our life in the fullest entirety possible.

How should my purpose be like?

Your purpose is what is going to guide you through every act in life, so it is critical that you define it accurately.

Here are a list of guiding principles on how your purpose should be like:

1. Resonates with who you are.

What do you absolutely relish doing? Your purpose should accurately reflect your passion, your desires, your core being and values. This requires that you to have reached a sufficient level of self-awareness. Ask yourself: “If I have to do something for the rest of my life, without getting paid a single cent, what would I want to do?” This is something true to yourself – it is your purpose, not other peoples’ purpose.

2. Limitless in entity, time and space.

Anchor it on ageless principles. Attempting to hinge your purpose on a particular entity (e.g., your family, partner, job, nation, etc), time (e.g., your physical life span) or space (e.g., a particular geographical location) makes your purpose one dimensional. Instead of orienting your purpose around your family, try to ladder it up to a higher order group, such as relationships. Instead of a specific religion, ladder it up to spirituality. Instead of defining within your physical life span, look towards the entire existence of life. Instead of a specific location, look at the entire universe and galaxy.

Make it an overarching theme that spans across (a) entity, (b) time and (c) space. It’s a message and not a medium. You can be more specific in laying boundaries when you plan goals based on your purpose. For starters, recognize that you are living at a point in the 13.7 billion life span of our current universe (which is also one of the many universes out there) and you are one of the 6.7 billion lives to walk earth right now. If you can live forever, and if you’re not bounded by geography, what would you want your purpose to be in the context of the entire universe? What will really be of meaning to you in this scenario?

Money and conferred statuses do not withstand this test because they are impermanent things that do not matter in the larger span of human existence (time). By using this principle, it allowed me to accelerate the discovery of the purpose that has real meaning for me, as I have shared in my personal story previously.

3. Visionary vs. uninspiring.

Think big. This is your guide to achieving your best possible life and highest potential beyond your imaginations. It should inspire, energize and stir up the essence of your soul! Forget social, physical or mental constraints in your life currently. What will you do if you will definitely succeed? “To be happy” is a half-baked purpose because it hinges on subjective emotional states as the determinant. You can consciously make yourself happy now if you choose to, without doing anything. Your purpose should be something that requires concrete action on your part to fulfill.

4. Specific vs. vague.

“To live life to the fullest everyday” or “Carpe diem” is self-looping. What does it mean to live life to the fullest? It does not say anything – purposes should be inherently fulfilling! Your purpose should be the identification of what specifically you feel you should do in order to live life to the fullest. What are things in life which give you the greatest gratification and meaning when you do them?

5. Direction vs. end state.

Avoid wrongly defining end states as your purpose. Goals are the milestones or destinations, your purpose is the direction to travel in. Antarctica is a destination, North is a direction. Likewise, becoming a teacher, president or singer are goals. Educating and growing people is a purpose.

6. Rooted in love vs. fear.

To truly empower your existence, your purpose should be liberating to your existence and aligned with the highest order emotion, which is love. Purposes like ‘to become wealthy’, ‘to be successful in endeavours’ or ‘acquire social status’ are fear-based and rooted in externalities, as we have discussed in the previous article ‘Why Earning Money Is Not Your Real Purpose (And How To Know What Is)‘. Your purpose should that emanates from within, like an inner state of being. It should not require affirmation from the outside world, such as physical possessions, status titles. Refer to the article for more information.

With the key principles of defining your purpose in place, we are now ready to finally move on to the next chapter on discovering your purpose!

This is part 5 of a 7-part series on how to discover your real purpose in life.

Personal Excellence » what a purpose should be