“Yes – a new day! I can’t wait to wake up every morning, I was born to do this!”
Do you ever hear this outside a sales pitch? Does part of you think you should feel this? Guess what…it is kinda possible. I mean, if you are importantly skeptical, think of it like this:
You can unequivocally, absolutely move to the right even if you don’t live in a utopia of joy all the time, the key is to spend more and more time living where you love what you are doing.
Maybe some of you already do, but for the rest of us need to build our way there. Luckily, there are some ideas that help.
Beware the Traps
1. You don’t get to pick anyone’s life.
The universe is not an aisle at Costco. “Yep, I really like Elon Musk or maybe an Oprah Winfrey, I’ll take that life and just pop it in my cart here.” You are not them. Heck they are not them, they are them + their circumstances. If their genetic duplicate started from your exact shoes they would NOT have exactly the same life they do now.
What do you have? You have you & you are the only one of you that has ever existed, so you have got to work with what you’ve got. You’ll be happy you did, plus we all need you to be you anyway, stick with yourself.
Can I throw an exception in here? This doesn’t mean you should not be inspired by others like Musk or Winfrey, if you are … it usually means there is something that they are doing that gives you a clue about your own purpose. AND don’t be afraid to think big like your heroes may have too.
2.You can’t really pick anything and be happy about it.
If you imagine living a life outside of some key principles, even if you win it won’t be great. So live the golden rule & treat other people like you’d want to be treated, you’ll be glad you do.
3. Fear is not a bad sign.
Fear, purpose & passion hang out together. You can’t really get one without the others. If your life goals sound easy and there is not that twinge of excitement (that we label fear sometimes) you probably are not thinking big or unique enough.
You should feel something like, “Whoa, I think I could do that & it’d be awesome!”
Follow Some Guidelines
1. Interest > Passion
Forget about a beam of inspiration changing your life in one moment forever. Instead look at what you are really, really interested in. If you are older, there are some advantages since you’ve got a lot of data to look back on. The truth is most people don’t change that much so the kinds of things that interested you as a kid are probably similar. If you are younger you still have a ton of years to pattern match to, there is insight hiding in plain sight.
2. Care for your foundation.
Remember that purpose land is at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy, there is some common sense to this. If you are in physical danger, hungry, totally alone, it is hard to think & feel clearly about big purposes.1And to be fair sometimes that also sharpens a purpose it like nothing else can.
3. Truth is not a label.
Finally, remember that label is not the truth; truth is the thing the label describes. A can of beans with a lucky charms label on it is still a can of beans.
That means to love what you do, love the thing you spend your time doing! When you are living your purpose, what are you doing on a random Wednesday morning? What are you doing for most of your waking hours? That is the thing that should be aiming for.
That means don’t fall for the rewards of achieving something. Your purpose is not to consume copious amounts of Twinkies from inside your Lamborghini. People think they want tons of money, but have you ever spent a couple hours really thinking about what it would feel like to have whatever sum you want? Mark out an hour and just imagine having that amount in your bank, buying everything you want, having everyone’s eyes get big when they talk about you. You still wake up on a normal weekday with annoyances, things to do, life angst, and probably wondering who you are not richer than. It is worth at least using your imagination to see if this is what you really want. When it comes down to it, it is the creative act of building something & really helping others that drives deep meaning.
Ok, so what, let’s do this thing!
1. Get calm, get quiet, get present.
You gotta listen to “you” here and drown out the whispers of a 1,000 people who have told you what you “should” do. This sucker is going to come from the deepest parts of you, so…
2. Look for emotion
When it comes to life purpose stuff, you are going to need to get a little dramatic to create the drive that’ll last for your lifetime.
3. Start listing
Just get out some writing material and without thinking too hard start writing quantity over quality. Write what comes to the top of your mind in these categories & if you run out of thinking jump to the next category:
- things I’ve been interested in since I was a kid
- things I am interested in now
- things I’ve always wanted to do
- people I admire
- “transactions” I’d love to spend my life doing
This is an important primer so after you’ve brain barfed everything you can think of above, move to the last step.
Now just keep writing this statement below until you find the thing that makes you feel the most2I love this last step from www.stevepavlina.com, and the prior steps really helped frame it.:
The purpose of my life is to…
You got it didn’t you? Some of you got close huh? You all have important things to do don’t you? I’m pumped up for you to make a difference. take that interest, that passion and start building, we need you to make the world a better place.
