Steps To Finding Purpose In Life
I’m sure many of us struggle to find purpose in life. Especially with the current successful tech culture and social media culture. Everyone is showing their most glamorous part in life. It gives majority people a false sense of direction, that once you find “purpose” you will truly and always be happy. Do not believe in this fairy tale! Life is full of challenges and never perfect! But you can make the best of it!
So How to find purpose of life and live a fulfilling life?
The answer is easy, but the solution is hard. You stop trying to live someone else’s life, and you stop believing “finding purpose” is the solution. You just LIVE! Go naturally do the things you love to do! Or even try something new, put yourself out there and explore what the world has to offer you.
Eventually, that passion or purpose will arise and will grow within you. But if you’re always looking, you will also expect more even when you find it.
Think about children. Why are they so easily happy? Yes, one can argue they don’t have financial pressure, they are less knowledgable, and so on. But if you look close, it’s because children live in the moment. They simply chase after what they love and push away what they don’t.
Why do we not do that as adults?
Maybe being a child is the answer to finding purpose in life?
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Know your priorities and eliminate false objectives
In order for you to live an extraordinary life, you need to be living YOUR life and not someone else’s.
Go and work for your happiness, fight for it!
Many of us live our lives how others want us to live. And we do so by accommodating to family, friends, or how society wants us to be.
Build a life around what matters most to you. Be authentic and honest to yourself. This is how you will find purpose and fulfillment. Otherwise you are always looking on the other side or wishing you can be what your family wants you to be.
All my life my father wanted me to be an engineer like him. Grilled me in math, pushed and pushed. But that wasn’t me, and it didn’t make me happy. I found my passion in business and pursued that.
I like to think I’m decent at what I do. More importantly, I love doing what I do whether successful or not. If I became an engineer making a quarter million a year, I would still be miserable.
Learn to say no when it comes to your happiness. Don’t let others tell you or show you what will make you happy.
You already know, you just need the courage to admit it.
In today’s high-pressure world, it is very easy to stray away from your true priorities and build a life around false objectives. False objectives are goals that you work so hard for, but really don’t matter to you because it doesn’t align with who you are and who you want to be.
For some, they may think climbing the corporate ladder and buying a larger house, nicer car is what they want. They feel an instant gratification when friends or family compliment the nicer things they have. But at the end of the day, they still feel an emptiness in their mansions.
Maybe their true calling is not having a huge mansion and work such long hard hours, but to travel the world and be free.
In order to feel fulfilled, it’s important to closely evaluate your life and be 100% honest with yourself on the following questions:
What matters most to you?
What false objectives are you working toward?
Identify the problem and eliminate it.
Once you rid of those false objectives, you will slowly discover what you really want to focus your life on and what matters the most to you.
2. Visualize The Life You Desire
Once you have an idea what your priorities are to find happiness. You need to execute, turn this vision into reality.
How will you build your life around your priorities?
There is a solution to everything. Doesn’t mean it is easy, but it’s there for you to figure it out.
Stop making excuses for yourself! I hear it so much and hate it! If traveling is your passion, go make it happen! Don’t say you have work, no time, not enough money, etc. Poor college kids figure a way out to travel.
Maybe you aren’t in the position to travel in luxury, but you can still travel.
Map out what it takes for you to travel once a year, twice a year, three times a year and so on. How much money do you need to save. What kind of job will allow you to life the lifestyle you want?
Whatever you do, BELIEVE you can do it!
Because when you are feeling defeated, you will lose motivation and eventually quit! Then you are back to square one, lost in life….no purpose, and slowly, you will fill your head with excuses why it didn’t work.
What you believe about yourself
What you believe is possible for yourself
This will truly affect how you show up every day to achieve those biggest goals in life.
Be clear about the life you desire, and work on believing it’s possible to achieve it.
3. Hope is not a strategy. You’ll need a plan.
You need to develop a plan whether it’s for your career, changing habits in your lifestyle, or personal relationships.
Hope is not a strategy. You need to take things in your own hands and make it happen.
Develop a long term goal and break it down into small goals that you can achieve so you know you are on the right path.
Create a specific plan and give yourself deadlines to achieve it.
Back to the children example. Most kids like myself didn’t enjoy school. We hated school, but loved meeting up with our friends.
The school system broke down these goals for you to achieve your dreams to get into a good college.
You chose your own courses, you know what is need to get a good score and what needs to be done to get into a good university.
If you knew the path, you mapped it out, maintained it regularly and along the way you had fun. It wasn’t a perfect route, but you knew what to do.
It’s same with life, except you decide what that goal is this time.
4. Obstacles In Life
It’s not a smooth journey. I’m dealing with it as well, and I’m sure other successful people have their own issues as well.
Many of the obstacles are mental:
Fear of failure
Fear of success
Fear of standing out from the crowd
Fear that what you believe is possible maybe isn’t really possible for you
Feeling tired or unmotivated
Distractions
Interruptions
You will be bombarded every day with many things that attempt to distract you away from your true priorities.
You need to focus on what matters to you. Have your eye on the prize!
And it really helps to surround yourself with people that support your vision, bring you happiness.
You know who brings your mood down. You can feel the ones un-motivating you, making you feel worst in the name of “helping you”.
It’s not that they are doing it intentionally. It’s because their vision doesn’t align with your vision.
Stay on track during those tough times. Have a friend our group of friends as support to fight through those moments.
Trust Your Plan
When you’re clear about what you truly desire and what matters most to you, and you develop a plan to achieve your big vision, everything changes.
You will feel more focused and you make decisions that align with your true priorities.
You find the purpose of life.
You show up with more passion and enthusiasm.
You build your life around what matters most to you, and life becomes very fulfilling.
I chose to make “the world my playground”. How will you create yours?
