There are many avenues to explore when it comes to discovering your life purpose. Unfortunately, though, nobody else can find it for you. Since your life purpose is unique from anyone else’s, it’s a mission that you – and only you – can complete. There is a purpose for your life, whether you believe it or not. You may be aware of this, you may simply sense this, or you may be struggling to go deeper and truly figure it all out. You may have to take several paths, but with a little digging, you can find where you’re meant to be.
In your quest for passion, concentrate on enjoying the journey itself. Sometimes when you stop stressing about what you are here to do, it will find its way to you and fall into your lap! Have you ever sat down and really reflected on what you love to do? Grab yourself a pen and paper, and let’s start this journey.
There are gazillions of possibilities, so start with the gifts and talents you already know were born with. From there open up to messages that come your way in various fashions, and figure out what you love to do that requires using those gifts and talents.
Here are some ways to explore uncover hidden thoughts and emotions:
Journal Your Feelings
This has always been a foolproof method for me to gain clarity, and even though I know this, it’s not something I always remember to do. Try journaling with a pen and paper, or grab your laptop and just start pounding into the keyboard.
Write about how you truly feel, where you are right now with your emotions and what you would like to see happen. Express all of your thoughts, don’t hold back. And don’t judge your emotions, either. However you are feeling is perfectly fine.
Go back and reread your entries every so often. Many times this process can bring you new realizations that you didn’t think of when you were writing it in the first place.
Explore and Follow Your Passions
In this day and age, almost anything you are passionate or on fire about can be made into a career or hobby; even if it’s only on the side (like blogging! 😉 Make a list of all the things that set you on fire.
Set a schedule for yourself to make time for each one, even if only 15 minutes, once per week. Engage in activities that are personally meaningful to you. You will very soon find how much you truly want to dedicate to each thing! Trial and error, baby. Each day of your life will suddenly take on more meaning.
Tap Into Your Natural Talents
Think about the areas in which you naturally excel and see if you can turn these skills into something meaningful for you. Many people are drawn to a life purpose that makes them feel like they’re making a true difference in the lives of other people – but here is where I will go back to the previous point about passions.
Some people are good at helping others, but leave the moment feeling drained or unfulfilled. If there is ever anything you do that leaves you feeling this way, re-organize and re-assess. This is a not always a quick process, but in every action, tune into how you are feeling with what you are doing.
Talents are not always passions. That said, there can be a balance found between what we love to do, and those things that come so naturally to us we barely need to think about them or plan them out. Once you nail down what these things are, you know you have found a golden nugget.
Engage with People That Inspire You
While you might not be interested in the same things, you can talk about how they discovered their joy and their purpose. Their triumphs and struggles will make good lessons for you in your journey. Read the bios of authors, bloggers, small business owners, artists, athletes … all of those kinds of people that you ‘look up to’.
This is not in any attempt to mimic someone else’s journey, and be careful of falling into the trap of the green-eyed-monster. Reading about the journeys of others, and chatting with them when given the opportunity, will help to shed some light on the struggles and bumps in the road that others have encountered in finding themselves. Allow others’ stories to inspire you and catalyze you, and remember that we are all human.
Tap Into Your Deepest Inner Joy
Reflect on the moments in your life when you’re most happy, and write them down. What are you doing at these times? Think back to your childhood. What activities did you engage in, without thinking about them, that kept you focused, playful and joyful for hours?
Maybe you’re most happy when you’re just sitting at home with your family, or when you are spending quality time with your friends. Maybe you are happiest when in movement, and can spend hour upon hour inside of your own body, exploring its breath and movement. Perhaps you are most happy and at peace when you are spending time in the great outdoors. Knowledge of these things is a wonderful gift!
Remember that you’re not necessarily searching for something exotic! Your purpose may already be right at your fingertips. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of spending more time with it, and allowing it to take you where it’s meant to.
Learn to Embrace and Welcome Shifts and Changes
Sometimes – and often, most times! – the thing that holds you back from an intimate journey of self-discovery is a fear of change. There’s comfort and safety in not taking risks, but as the saying goes, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were built for”. (No, I’m not calling you a ship. But you get the idea 😉
Life is constantly in motion, and the only constant in life is change. Do whatever you need to in order to begin embracing this inevitable movement – this is where I will emphasize the importance of a regular yoga practice or dance practice.
Yoga allows you to explore what is happening inside of you while you move through prescribed postures, and dance (ecstatic dance, movement meditation, and the like) allows you to explore the movements of your body in space and time on its own terms. Both are incredibly powerful, with slight differences in their frameworks.
Stay True to Yourself & Your Values
We all have a set of values that we adhere to in life. These values can be ones that have been instilled in us in childhood, and that we have continued to allow to influence our decisions and directives. We may also hold values that we have come to know upon our journeys through our teenage years, young adulthood, and full on adulthood. You can use your values as a starting point to discovering your purpose.
Take yourself on a journey, using journaling, to explore the values that have affected you and that you have chosen to keep. Once you have brain stormed a bit and written freely, make a list of your values with your most important ones at the top. These values have stuck with you, and will flow from you naturally every single day whether you are conscious of them or not.
This is a power that you can harness on your journey of self-discovery and bringing clarity to your life purpose. Think about what you can do to honor those values in life every day and give thanks for them, knowing that they are tools of empowerment, available to you within your ‘tool kit’.
I have a gift for you today – a free printable worksheet!
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