Finding Life’s Purpose: How To Know Your Life’s Purpose (Part One)
Posted on | April 19, 2009 | No Comments
What is my purpose in life?
If you cannot answer that question, someone else will answer it for you. Tired of living someone else’s life purpose? Well, let’s take a look at some exercises, tips and techniques to help you find your life purpose.
How Do You Find Your Life Purpose?
First, you have to understand why having a “life purpose” is a key ingredient to success and happiness.
If you look back over the course of human history, anyone that has ever accomplished any great feat (good or evil) had a life purpose. Whether it was Adolf Hitler or Jesus Christ, each were driven by a unique life purpose.
If you have done great things, then you surely had a life purpose. If you have a life purpose, you will do great things.
All people who accomplish great things rise each day with a sense of direction and determination to do what it takes further their life path.
Let’s look at a few of the principles underlying the successful application of purpose in one’s life.
Focus On Others And Personal Rewards Will Follow
Zig Ziglar once said:
You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
Indeed, everyone throughout history who achieved greatness focused upon getting what they wanted by focusing on what other people wanted – Dave Thomas (Wendy’s), Ray Craft (McDonald’s), Walt Disney. All of these men were immensely successful because they gave the customer what they wanted in each of their respective fields.
The same can be said of the “great” evildoers of the world as well. Adolf Hitler rose to greatness by giving the German people what they wanted – a sense of nationalism and the Jewish people as a scapegoat upon which to heap all of the blame for the state of their country.
In return, the German people gave him absolute power.
When you seek your life purpose, it is imperative that you seek that which creates the greatest good for all.
The YOU will take care of itself.
When you have a well defined life purpose, you will reap the personal benefits you seek.
Every successful venture should begin with a purpose that aims to help others (usually the customer) first. The customer is excited, the employees get excited about the customers getting excited. You get excited about all of the above.
The Mission Statement: A Concise Statement of Your Purpose For Life
In industry, the company’s “life purpose” is often called a “mission statement.” This allows the business to remain dedicated to accomplishing its definite chief aim. You can bet Microsoft has a mission statement (and so does Apple!!!). Ultimately, you need to reduce your life purpose to a single mission statement. It takes time, sometimes years, but with each revision, you become more focused.
Before you can set out on any journey, you need a destination. Otherwise, how will you plan to get there?
Once you have a destination, need a map to plan the most efficient way to make the trip. Will you still occasionally get lost? Sure you will. But, without a map, you are sure to end up somewhere you do not want to be.
Your life purpose is your destination. It is the reason you are making the trip. If you know your destination, you have a good reason to keep driving.
This is also why so many people, not having a life purpose, simply pull over to the side of the road exhausted and out of gas.
Without A Plan, Plan to Fail
In the movie, The Secret, Jack Canfield said that you can travel from San Francisco to New York City in the dark by seeing just the amount of the road illuminated by your headlights. However, Canfield would be the first to agree that you also need a map, or you will find yourself wandering aimlessly in the dark
Have you spent the “best years” of your life wandering aimlessly in the dark? On your deathbed are you going to look back over your life glad that you skipped your children’s ball games to spend an extra hour or two at the office? Probably not. Without a life purpose and a plan to get there, you are like a hound following his nose. Sooner or later, he ends up in lost but he never catches the rabbit.
So how do you set a destination that will create a trip worth taking?
Sure, you might be lucky enough to stumble upon your life purpose, but most likely, without some effort, you will meander on an off your life path throughout your life.
Are you on your path right now? The way to tell if you are living your life purpose is to look at the results and work backward. Don’t like the results? Then reexamine your destination and/or the map you are using to get there.
In Part Two of this article, I will take a short look at excatly how to go about determining your skills, strengths and talents. I will then touch upon how to craft a personal mission statement that reflects your life purpose.
Finding Life’s Purpose: How To Know Your Life’s Purpose (Part Two)
Related posts:
- Finding Life’s Purpose: How To Know Your Life’s Purpose (Part Two)
- Finding Life Purpose in a World Full of Confusion
- Finding Your Life Purpose
Tags: finding life purpose > Life Purpose > living life on purpose > purpose of life
