7 Tips to Finding your Purpose

Following last week’s post I felt that there was something missing, that even though your purpose should be simple it needs to be explained.

1. Your purpose is not your job. Your job is an avenue to get to your purpose.  Although it may seem to be the same, understanding the difference is critical. Your job does not determine your purpose but it can help you get there.  Stop trying to find a job that fits your purpose exactly and bring your purpose to your job.

2. Your purpose can change. Too often we get caught up in the belief that we need to find a perfect silver bullet for our lives that consumes us and that we just know it is the right thing. This is what makes finding purpose so hard for so many people. We put it out there as the Holy Grail spend our whole lives trying to find it, dying of thirst when all we need to do is try and create something, and change it when the time comes.

3. Your purpose is simple. My purpose is to help people understand how amazing they are and that they have limitless potential. Just thinking about it, gets me so excited. Do not over think it, it is going to be simple, clear and concise. Listen to your gut or to your heart.

4. Your purpose is beyond you: If you truly want to come alive with your purpose, it needs to be bigger than you and impact and serve more people than you. Your purpose is not to make money, be popular or be a boss. Those all end with you.

5. Your purpose should excited you to do work. People that live on purpose and that have a purpose have to do work. I know, some of my closest friends excel at leading and living their life on purpose. They are not just eating bon-bons and Cheetos all day. It is hard work but that should excite you. It is long hours, days and nights. It is never ending because there are so many opportunities.

6. You are ready for your purpose. You are ready now, like right now. This very instant you are ready. No amount of training can make up for the ability to go and try.

7. You can never be too good: You always have an opportunity to learn and to become better. It may seem this contradicts six but it supports it. While you will always be ready, you can always be better and you should want to always get better. When an opportunity to be more educated about your purpose comes up, take it. It does not mean you are not smart enough, it means you want to get better.

What else would you add?

Productivity vs Purpose

There are a lot of articles that help you focus on being more productive, but one thing that they do not hit is purpose.

Without purpose productivity is pointless.

An example, email, everyone has too much and it is a never ending battle. For every email that you delete two more come in its place. There are plenty of very helpful tips and tricks on how to manage your inbox. What is the purpose? If you are doing it just to say you have a clean inbox while the rest of your life passes you by, then you productivity is pointless and is a huge waste of time.

However if you keep a clean inbox to help you stay organized be responsive and create traction than your emails have a purpose.

Purpose is a double edged sword; it is both a long-term and short-term goal that causes a lot of frustration, anxiety and self-doubt. Your purpose can change from day to day and over your life time as well. What matters is that you have one, you pursue it and you are open to change.

Use your purpose to define what you will focus on. There are a lot of great plans out there that help you focus what you should work on. I have tried a lot of them and what keeps missing for me is a purpose.

Grab a notebook and write your life’s purpose on it. Do not think about it, just write it on the first sheet and visit it daily. Each day write how you will help yourself live on purpose. This will become your daily purpose; it will give you the mindset to live in the moment and to be ready to live.

When you have a big project, it is easy to get caught up in everything that needs to be done and easy to get lost in the purpose of the project. We become so focused on getting things done and checking them off the list that we forget why we started and where the finish line is.

When you start a new project, write out what the purpose of the project is. List the tasks that you need to accomplish to complete this project. They key is to not think about an order or how they all fit together but to focus on getting as much as you can down. Keep going until you have run out of ideas. Take that list and put it in order of what will be the most impactful to the purpose and put that at the top and create a list from most impactful to least impactful.

When you do this at least two things should happen. You should gain a clear understanding of what will be the most impactful; giving you direction and you will also start to realize everything that goes along with the project.

Your purpose  should not overwhelm you, it should make things clear.

For the love of the game.

Have you ever met someone and noticed how much passion and drive they have for being successful and wanted to be like them? I have and one of the things that I have noticed is their passion and love for what they do, it is something that cannot be made up or you can spot a phony from a mile away.

Notice a clear distinction, I did not mention that they just had a passion but they had a passion for what they do. The excuse that I am just not that interested in a subject so I will try less hurts no one but yourself. Life is full of shit that you do not want to do but you have a choice, you can do it with passion or you can half-ass your way through it, use your whole ass. Successful people know that you need to be all in, all the time.

What I see about these people is that they are not so obsessed about a successful moment but rather are very obsessed with the constant opportunity for success and for the ability to grow from it. They are not obsessed with success but they are obsessed with becoming better at every chance they get.  They realize that championships, multi-billion dollar companies and to be the best is not made when everyone is looking but rather when no one is looking. It  is made when it is easier to quit, to give up when the pain sets in or when you would rather be doing something else.

A friend runs a business that sells nuts, bolts and fasteners to medium sized businesses. It is hard to believe that anyone could really get that excited about it and yet he thrives in the environment. It goes beyond what his company does, he has a passion for being the best, working hard and making amazing things happen, with that attitude you can be successful anywhere. These are all about the attitude not skills or talents. Anyone can learn to live with passion if they want to.

Have you ever heard someone say “All it would take is one big break and I would be set?” This is an example of looking for just a moment of success. They are not so much obsessed with what they are doing but rather with just being successful so they can be done. People that are focused on the growth want that big moment to propel them to even bigger moments of more growth and opportunity. They are not obsessed with winning but they are obsessed with improving everything that they can to win more. Many of us get it wrong; we spend all this time trying to be successful without putting the effort into what will make us successful. You win a football game by scoring more points than the other team, what this means is that you need to not only score but you need to stop the other team from scoring. To break it down further what this means is that you need to practice the components that make up your offensive and defensive line. That is how you win and that same concept is how you become successful

Michael Jordan made a multi-million dollar salary for numerous years. Even getting paid  $10,000,000 would for most people be making it big but he kept going and at his peak he made $33,000,000 in one year but that did not stop him. He had a love for the game he was playing, not for being successful. Clearly money did not drive him but what drove him was his desire to be the best. 

Warren Buffet has been named one of the richest men in the world, and still working at 85 has a love for the game. He could have quit years ago and lived easily off what he worked so hard to get and yet he did not, he kept going and kept creating more success. He loves the challenge and the ability to grow from what he takes on.

Oprah Winfrey is one of the few people whose first name is a household brand. She is a multi-billionaire who has mastered the media for years. She could have given up years ago and retired but she is still in the game, even without her television show. While she may have experienced plenty of success, she was not looking for a onetime event but rather a lifetime of growth.

Focus on growth.