Your Guide to Life Purpose

Although most people desire to genuinely live their life purpose, there are many misconceptions about what that means. This article will help you discover what your life purpose is, and give you some inspiring self improvement principles for making it a reality.

So, what if you aren't sure what your purpose is? This can be a daunting question if you believe that your life's purpose needs to singularly shape the entire focus of your life. If you look at people like Martin Luther King Jr. or Mother Theresa or Mahatma Gandhi as examples of purposeful living, it might make you wonder if you have anything worthwhile at all to offer the world.

But these kinds of comparisons can be crippling. These famous people based their purpose on their strong beliefs and combined it with an inner drive that compelled them forward. Acting on a singular driving purpose can obviously be world-changing. For many of the rest of us, our life's purpose may not feel quite as grand and compelling. Let's explore how you can discover and genuinely live your life's purpose.

"This is the true joy of life: the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of ...complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."  
- George Bernard Shaw

Life Purpose Gives Meaning

Your life purpose is not about what you achieve, it is about how and why you achieve at all. Knowing your purpose gives you a focus so that you can reduce the activities that overwhelm your schedule. With a focused purpose, you will have more time to do the things that matter most to you.

Your life's purpose does not have to be one big mission, firmly attached to a single, unwavering belief that drives you for a lifetime. Instead, it's more helpful to continually ask yourself "What will bring the most purpose or meaning to this moment?" When you do, you harness an incredible power that actually does have the potential to change the world - drop by drop over an entire lifetime.

If you want to actively live your life purpose, start by making every little thought and action purposeful.

Living your life from your purpose is one of the keys to discovering the meaning of life. But you get to create your own meaning of success and the standards you measure it by. If you're unsure of how to do this, consider hiring a life coach to guide you in setting realistic standards that will give your life more meaning. You can visualize yourself living a huge, heroic purpose, or simply create your purpose moment by moment. Heroic drama in your life is optional and isn't the only way to create a meaningful purpose for your life.

How do you Find Your Life Purpose?

The first place to look is wherever you feel passion or inspiration around something. If purpose was a car, then passion and inspiration would be like the accelerator. The amount of passion you hold for something is directly related to the strength of its purpose within you. Passion gives your purpose the energy it needs to respond to events from the fresh perspective of the present moment.

Take a look too, at the events you consider to be life lessons. Events that have shaped your life's path are also clues to finding your life purpose. Your life purpose may or may not be based on some inner conviction or belief you hold. It is usually more likely to appear as a natural outgrowth of your life's experiences. When you look where you've been, it is a pretty good indicator of the general direction of your life.

3 Reasons that can Prevent You from Living Your Life Purpose

1. Your fear of failure or the opinions of others.
2. Your desire to acquire more stuff.
3. Your past regrets and resentments.

Fear

Fears limit your ability to take risks. Your life purpose may require you to stretch yourself in ways that are not always comfortable. If you are fearful, you are more likely to miss opportunities when they appear. Caring too much about the opinions of others will prevent you from living your life according to your innermost desire for meaning and satisfaction. Or if you prefer the so-called security of the status quo, living from your life purpose could be difficult to sustain.

The Desire to Acquire

Chasing after more and more "things" in life will sidetrack your quest for more meaning and purpose. Having more stuff will not make you feel more secure or happy for very long. Many people use "things" to numb the reality that their life feels somewhat meaningless. While there is nothing wrong or undesirable about having wonderful things, it does take both time and energy to get and maintain many things. Focus on the purpose that gives your life meaning.

The Past

Realizing your life's purpose can also be derailed by resentment of another's wrongdoing toward you, or your own guilt from something you have done (or haven't done). Forgive yourself and others to free yourself from these prisons of the past. Just like some advertising disclaimers say: past results are not an indication of future profits. Finding your life purpose depends on your ability to let go of the limiting old stories that go round and round in your mind.

How to live a "Purpose Driven Life"

Think of your life purpose as a lens you view your world through. By looking at life from the perspective of your purpose, it gives you more drive and inspiration than blindly acting from a set of beliefs you hold. Trust that you will live to the best of your ability and in tune with your values. You can create the meaning for it all as you go. Your notions about what your purpose "should" look like are then free to change along with you.

What would it feel like to live a purpose driven life? Inspiration is (of course!) a key to being "driven" by your purpose. If your purpose feels more like something you "should" be merely interested in, it won't have the ongoing power to sustain you when the going gets tough. Let inspiration be your guide to living the life purpose that is in alignment with your true nature. Be bold enough to break a few conventions and rules. Ask yourself every day how you can use your inspired purpose to the fullest extent of your vision to make the world a better place. Who knows, you just might be the change the world is waiting for.