"Purpose is profoundly motivational. It can be found in anything that is important to us from our career to our relationships & our spiritual understanding which provide the foundations for our role in life.
An especially important question for us to address NOW is what legacy do we hope to leave when we are gone?
Whatever it is, without understanding our Purpose and the Values which underpin it, true happiness is more likely to elude us.”
Our Purpose doesn’t always speak loudly by shouting to us what it is we must do with our lives. Instead, it often starts off as a subtle whisper in our ear or a stirring in our heart. It is my job as a coach to help my clients to become more aware of this whisper and help them to listen to and decode what it is trying to say to them.
So, if our Purpose is so important, why do so many of us end up never finding it? The truth is that many people are living a life that they thought they ought to live. If we have taken on the 'purpose' allocated to us by others, we may have been following paths prescribed for us rather than doing what is right for us. This has compromised our self-efficacy. Although we may have experienced a nagging feeling that we are not fulfilling our true Purpose, we block this out through fear of change or economic pressures or appearing selfish...
A deeper truth is that when we are happy and fulfilled we can serve others far better than when we are feeling depleted. There is a saying, ‘You can’t pour from an empty cup’ and that is certainly a guiding principle of self-fulfilment that can help us better serve our Purpose…
Could these 6 STEPS to finding your purpose be YOUR pathway to a better life? You won't know unless you take action ..........
1. Rediscover your passions. Ask yourself, what is it that lights you up and gives you joy? This can often reveal passions that have lain buried since childhood or have been set aside to accommodate life’s increasing obligations.
2. Identify what gives your life meaning. For example, is it helping and inspiring others? Or is it perhaps overcoming challenges or spending more time with those you love?
3. Purpose often lies at the place where our talents and our passions collide. So what are your unique talents and gifts? How can you give them to the world? Are there any that you have been suppressing for too long? Again, these are often things that are evident in our early years but can then become locked within the prison of obligation.
4. Get out of your head and into your heart. Ask yourself ‘what gives me the greatest joy, satisfaction & fulfilment?’ Write down the answers without judging or analysing what you write. Let your intuition guide you. This process is helped by putting yourself [or getting your Coach to help you] into a ‘meditative state’ where you are set free to explore your unconscious mind; a place where you are not restrained by the barriers of conscious cognition which often develops into over-thinking, catastrophizing and consolidating limiting beliefs. When we connect more deeply with our intuition, we start noticing subtle signs that can lead us to our Purpose.
5. Step out of your comfort zone. Sometimes you just need to try new things to discover your gifts and what it is you really want to be doing, which can lead to you literally stumbling upon your Purpose. What you find may surprise you!
6. Overcome your fear of change. Sometimes you will gain clarity about Purpose through self-discovery, but this self-discovery can be enhanced and facilitated faster if you use the services of a skilled NLP creative solutions coach. The fear of actually taking the steps to make those changes often requires careful unravelling within the non-judgemental, safe environment of the coaching relationship. In this case, I will often start by asking a Client 'How will you feel if you arrive at old age without having found your purpose?'
Take a moment now and write down an answer to the next two questions -
What difference will it make to your life when you discover and fulfil your purpose? How is your purpose linked to your values? This can provide powerful insights that will act as a springboard to taking action.
I have found these steps to be very powerful and through practising them myself I subsequently discovered my own passion for facilitating insights in others.
Finding out where your Purpose could lead will help you to take control of transforming your life.