Discovering your life purpose

Pretty big words, and many connotations that come behind that.

‘What am I here to do’?

‘Am I even on the right path’?

‘Run now….. things are getting too deep….’

‘I’ve been looking, but I don’t know, and I don’t know if I ever will know’?

Well firstly what is ‘Life Purpose’ and why is there so much hype around it at the moment?

What is ‘the meaning of life to you’ is really what it all boils down to. There are many ideas on where this can lead - down the philosophical, scientific, theological and metaphysical speculation, however different cultures and people believe different things and therefore have different ways to come to a conclusion.

I am not going to try and explain all these that even I don’t fully understand, but to put it briefly.

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the “good life", or the positive aspects of the human experience that make life worth living (Martin Seigleman). Seigleman looked at "using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification". Seigleman said that there were 3 divisions -

1. Pleasant life: examines how people optimally experience the positive feelings and emotions as part of normal and healthy living (e.g., relationships, hobbies, interests, entertainment, etc.). Because this tends to be transient its the least important of the 3.

2. Good Life: Looks at when people experience being in ‘Flow’ . You may find being in a state of Flow when there is a positive match between your strengths and the current task you are undertaking, when you are feeling confident of accomplishing a task. You may sense Flow when you get entirely immersed in an activity and so caught up because you are enjoying it so much.

3. Meaningful Life: or "life of affiliation", looks more so into how individuals discover a positive sense of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose from being part of and contributing back to something larger and more permanent than themselves (e.g., nature, social groups, organisations, movements, traditions, belief systems).

So what does this mean for you now?

Well…. it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything you’re doing to go and leave your career and lifestyle to go and clean the oceans permanently or go and re-forest the planet. However it may just mean finding out what is truly important to you, on a larger scale, and maybe starting to incorporate this into your life, even in a minor way.

For example - If you discovered your life’s purpose was ‘cleaning and helping the environment’, something small that you could start doing could be as small as attending litter picks at the local beach, or even just collecting rubbish from the marinas and water ways, or by finding a charity that does exactly what you are interested in, and supporting them and reading more into their beliefs/values and manifestos.

So how do you go about finding your Purpose?

Firstly, don’t feel pressured. Some people discover their life purpose early on, while others take years to discover what it is that gives them purpose, and others may pass away never knowing.

There are many ways to do many things in life, and this is just one.

Even if you don’t entirely discover your true purpose, you will have created awareness around some things that are important to you, and you can start by doing small things to contribute to these in the best way you can.

The Process:

I found this best done with some ‘background study/focus music on, and just allow yourself to write/ or type what ever you are most comfortable with.

Step 1. The Best Possible Future Self Exercise, by Dr Laura King. This has been shown to improve overall happiness and reduce goal conflict, plus a host of other benefits too. So firstly, for 20 minutes, without any self-editing at all, without limitation and with inhibition write the response to this:

“Think about your life in the future you are 109 years old. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realisation of all of your life dreams. Now, write about what you imagined”

DO NOT READ ON :) If you can help it. Please just do step one first, now.

Step 2: And here again be as open and as possible.

“Imagine that 109 year old self had access to a time machine. They jumped into that time machine and arrived to this very moment in time. They climb out, sit next to you and give you advice. What would they say?” Please write down everything (no self editing, criticism, limitation setting etc).

Step 3. Now take that advice and create a list of actions points from it. Simply focus on the top three action points every day.

That’s it, you’re on your way.

What you will see begin to emerge is, in essence, what gives your life some sense of meaning (Laura King’s exercise) but, crucially what you have also articulated is a series of ‘today-steps’ that ensure that meaning does not stay in some far off, never attained future (Tal Ben Shahar’s exercise).