Discerning Your Purpose in Life

The idea of a life purpose can seem overwhelmingly vast, abstract, and elusive. But essentially, it’s about aligning your actions with your deepest values and passions and living in a way that feels authentic and fulfilling.

Just as explorers depend on the North Star when there are no other landmarks in sight, the same relationship exists between you and your right life—the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness.

I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot. You can find your purpose by learning how to read your internal compasses, articulate your core desires, and identify and repair the unconscious beliefs that may be blocking your progress.

Listening to Your Essential Self

Back when I wrote Finding Your Own North Star, I differentiated between your “social self” and your “essential self.” If you’re talking about all human beings and all our creations, this translates to the rule of nature versus the rule of culture.

If you’ve ever tried to become a morning person when your body is a night owl, or tried to focus on filling out forms when your brain is naturally inventive, you’ve fought the fight between culture and nature. And you know this: Nature always wins.

One of the first steps in finding your life purpose is to stop listening to the voice of culture and re-establish the natural rhythm of your essential self. It’s not about working harder, smarter or faster; it’s about working in harmony.

The rhythm of our essential selves is like almost every other rhythm in nature. It has two phases which I call “rest” and “play.” When you rest in harmony with your essential self, you feel as drowsy and contented as a cat in the sun.

As you stay connected with your essential self through rest, there will come a moment when something piques your interest. You’ll want to get up and investigate, or you’ll be thrilled to explore some area of your life—familiar or unfamiliar.

This is your signal that the essential self has finished resting and wants to play. Let it. It wants to guide you to your purpose.

Overcoming Uncertainty

When I coach clients who are unsure of where they are supposed to be in life, they usually say their path forward looks fuzzy. They think it’s because they’re in confusing or difficult situations, but the fuzziness tends to be in the way they are seeing, not in their surroundings.

At moments when your life appears bleak and the way forward indistinct, the same thing is almost certainly happening to you.

Most people try to think their way out of this kind of problem. Finding your purpose and power requires stripping certain thoughts away. My job as a coach is to help clients peel away illusions until the true paths to their purpose emerge.

3 Ways You’re Holding Yourself Back from Your Purpose

Seeking approval from others

One such obstacle is what psychologists call the “generalized other”—our unconscious assumptions about how other people judge us. Usually a client’s problem isn’t lack of achievement; it’s the need for someone else to tell them their achievements are worthwhile.

If you’re struggling with the same issue, try this:

List 100 things you’ve accomplished, big or small, in all areas of your life, that are clearly valuable to you. Don’t consider what anyone else may think, just you. This can give you clues about your true purpose.

If you feel you haven’t done enough, achieved enough, become enough, you won’t fix the problem by doing more. You’ll need to drop the perceptual lens that says, “Impressing others will make me happy.”

A joyful life isn’t about others; it’s about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that replaces thinking with pure flight and pure joy.

Listening to your inner critic

Sometimes a client will use the self-defeating logic of what I call the “Clever Critic.”

Creative work can be incredibly hard, and the odds of failure astronomical. To avoid this grueling, scary road, many geniuses think themselves into paralysis, finding reasons to abort their ideas almost before conceiving them.

Does this sound like you? If so, there’s only one thing to do about it:
Start working. Immediately. Daily. Religiously.

If you feel like you’ve been wandering in circles forever trying to find your purpose, one way to open to a promising future is by dropping all excuses and putting your hopes and talents on the line. Your purpose will be revealed to you if you do the work. Start today.

Thinking Small Instead of Dreaming Big

Perhaps you feel in your bones that you have a big role to play in the world, but humility or worry is causing you to push the truth away.

You may recognize your gifts and talents, but you minimize them—you think of them as small or inconsequential, when your heart knows otherwise.

Your essential self will feel confined and restless when you play small like this, and it may come out in dozens of small complaints or repeated dissatisfaction.

It’s only when you drop your “humble” glasses and see things as they really are that you can begin to step into your true purpose.

I can tell you this: Your life is not little, and playing small doesn’t serve the world. Living large, on the other hand—being your true self despite fear, fatigue, doubt, and opposition—will serve the world more than you can imagine. In fact, it may help save it.

So find the places where your beliefs are distorting your vision, and peel away those thoughts like the ill-fitting eyewear they are. Then you’ll be free to embrace the rapture, do the work, and accept your hero’s quest.

3 Steps to Start Following Your Purpose

Finding your life purpose is akin to tracking an animal in the wild—the tracks are unique and sometimes subtle, but they always lead to something significant.

These tracks often appear as moments of joy, fascination, and a sense of meaning in your life. Reflect on past experiences that brought you joy and fulfillment, and look for patterns that reveal your true interests and passions.

First we must learn to recognize the tracks left by our purpose. Then we must follow those tracks no matter where they lead, stop and reconsider when we inevitably lose the track, and take the time to reestablish our connection with the right path.

Here’s how to get started:

Go off by yourself.
Even if you can only get ten minutes of quiet time in the middle of the night, it’s worth it to gain the solitude and silence in which you can feel your inner compass.

Get still. Breathe deeply and relax your muscles.

Feel for any sense of comfort, curiosity, joy, or fun.

Sometimes you’ll feel it clearly. At other times, the signals may be subtle. Start by standing up straight (but relaxed) and think about a decision you’re making. Focus on one option.

If your true nature likes that option, you’ll feel your body sway forward an inch or so. If that choice is wrong for you, your body will pull backward.

Write down whatever is pulling you forward.

This may be something you aren’t expecting: learning to play the trombone, going for coffee with a friend, sleeping ten hours a night. Resist cultural judgments. Just read the compass.

Set off—slowly—toward your own true north. You don’t have to radically change your life. Just add a little of what pulls you forward, and subtract a little of what pushes you backward, every day.

Finally, accept that you may change course at any time. You might get blown off course. You may realize your signals have gotten scrambled. Re-establish your path to your purpose by repeating the steps above whenever you feel off course, unhappy, bored, or aimless.

I don’t do this perfectly, not by a long shot. But I do it as often as I can, as well as I can. It has brought me here, to this odd, fascinating, wildly fulfilling job. Where will it take you? I can’t tell you that. No one can. Only your own heart knows for sure.

5 Paths to Your Purpose Masterclass

As you continue on your journey, remember that your purpose is not a destination but a lifelong pursuit. Embrace it fully, and you will find that your life becomes richer and more meaningful as you go along.

We humans don’t want our puzzles fully assembled, or our crime novels solved on page one. We love the wondering, the wandering, the finding and losing and finding again. This can be the way you find—and live—a purpose-driven life. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. Every day.

If you’re ready to dig deeper into finding your purpose, I’d love for you to take my free masterclass, 5 Paths to Your Purpose. 

Inside this free Masterclass you’ll discover:

• The map you need to start living your life “on purpose” and get clear about your life’s mission (or missions!)
• Ways to recognize where you are on your path to your purpose and how to keep going successfully
• How losing your purpose is exactly what you need to start finding it again
• How aligning with and living your purpose can bring abundance to all areas of your life

Remember: You are here to bring something unique into the world—yourself. By listening to your inner compasses, overcoming blocks, and taking inspired action, you can align your life with your true calling.

Making small choices toward your own joy, now, keeps you on track for the most fulfilling life you can live. You can begin now: What in this article lifts your heart, and what doesn’t? Which ideas feel true, and which don’t?

Choosing to accept and absorb the former while rejecting the latter is the way you can start tracking your purpose, right at this very moment.

Discover your purpose, sign up for my free 5 Paths to Your Purpose Masterclass.