I had a great conversation with Liv and Colleen from Get Real My Talk Radio 107.1 the other day (you can download it here), about discovering and living your life purpose, and I got to thinking that this idea that we need to discover our life purpose is a pretty pervasive one these days, and so a lot of us are on this big mission to find our life purpose. But did you ever stop and ask yourself what the purpose is of finding your life’s purpose?
Think about it… Why do you want to find your life purpose? For what purpose? What do you hope that will get you? And what do you hope that will get you?
Driven by fear
Sometimes I see people trying to find their life’s purpose because they don’t like themselves and their lives and they feel that they’re not good enough. They’re hoping that they’ll feel good enough once they’ve found their life’s purpose.
Sometimes I see people trying to figure out their life’s purpose in the belief that they’ll then be able to map out goals and a plan for their future and then feel much more certain about their future. Having long-term goals offers the illusion of certainty about the future, but this is short-lived and it brings opportunities for great frustration and disappointment if your future doesn’t go exactly as planned – which is the likeliest scenario.
If your reasons for trying to find your life purpose are fear-based, like wanting to not hate your life so much, or wanting to not feel so uncertain and scared about your future, then everything you do to try to discover your life purpose will only highlight and reinforce your fears and end up getting you more of the feelings and experiences you don’t want.
Experiencing, creating and being more of what you love
If you want a useful reason for discovering your life’s purpose, then do it for the sake of having a richer, more enjoyable, more alive life right now – even as you pursue your life purpose. If the activities you’re doing, in your pursuit of discovering or living your life’s purpose are making your life richer and more enjoyable right now, then keep going, but if you’re hating every moment and doing it in the hope of the promise of feeling better about your life and yourself one day, then don’t waste your time. Drop that and go and do something more enjoyable right now… because you know, enjoying your life may be your life’s purpose.
Great insight!
It took me a while to reach the same conclusion, but now I firmly believe it’s true: wanting to find your life purpose can come from a place of neediness and low self esteem. Only when you perceive you and yourself as having intrinsic value, your life purpose become a way to grow, not to fix.
.-= Eduard @ People Skills Decoded´s last blog ..Why being yourself is hard and how to actually achieve it =-.
I had a similar realization not to long ago. Last year I spent a long time on a sort of pilgrimage looking for my true passion….
Then one day I realized…wait a minute… What am I really looking for? An external motivator like more money?? I had everything else I needed… And like Eduard said above, the intrinsic motivation was there.
Suddenly the pressure was off. My passion was the life i was already living. I could fool myself till the cows come home thinking my passion could be more well definied or more clearly specified….but the trickery comes from things like the desire for more money or extrinsic motivators.
I think others are in a similar position except there’s something in the way blocking their vision.
Great stuff
Thanks
Noah
.-= Noah fleming´s last blog ..Prove It =-.
Eduard and Noah: Sorry I missed your comments earlier. Eduard, I like that line; “You life purpose becomes a way to grow, not to fix…” Perfectly said.
Noah, I think you’re spot-on that people often equate their life purpose with money and other circumstantial/ tangible stuff and then they think they haven’t found their life purpose yet if they don’t have that tangible stuff. Glad you’ve found your own way to what’s most important to you and living a passionate life. Thanks for sharing!
.-= CathD´s last blog ..Why Do You Want To Find Your Life Purpose? =-.