4 Ways to Finding Purpose in Life

Finding purpose in life gives you direction and guidance. It channels inner forces and energy to overcome outer circumstances and conditions. It’s at the crux of leading your life, instead of having life lead you.

Are you doing what you love? Are you living on purpose?

Here are 4 ways to finding purpose in life:

.1. Introspection..

Spend some time with yourself. Examine your life and get in touch with those thoughts and feelings that are important to you. Reflect on past experiences and ask yourself:

* When do I feel that my life is most meaningful?
* What do I enjoy doing the most?
* What activities bring me the most passion and energy?
* What are my true priorities?
* What is the deepest purpose I would like to express in my life?

Write down the answers to these questions. Just reading this is not going to cut it.

Find a quiet space and take 15-20 minutes to really answer these questions. Spend some time and really think about what brings you joy and happiness in your life. Reflect back on your life and write down the answers that come to you.

.2. Environment..

You see, you occur to people a certain way. The way you see yourself may be different than the way others see you. The way you occur to others is a reflection of your inner self.

The people in your life are reflective of your way of being. They see things that you don’t. The clues to finding purpose in life can be found in the people that are closest to you.

Consider 5 people in your life that are close to you: your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or other important friends or family members in your life. Sit down with them and ask them these questions:

* What do you think comes most naturally to me?
* What do you think are my special talents and gifts?
* What do you think I am really good at?
* What do you think is really important to me?
* When do you find that I’m the happiest and what am I doing?

Again, just reading this is not going to cut it. Write out the answers and review them. Compare the answers you received from the introspection method to the environment method, then look for patterns.

* What are the similarities?
* What patterns do you see?
* What qualities, character traits and values seem to be repeated over and over again?

This is a clue. Your patterns are an indication of what is unique and special about you.

.3. Natural Ability, Not Skill..

When looking for answers, consider natural ability and not skills. Skills are those actions that you’ve perfected over time; they’re external and not necessarily unique to you. Skills are important to executing a well crafted life purpose but are secondary to natural ability.

Look for natural ability; this comes from the inside. Everyone’s got it - you’ve got it. Your natural ability is an act of creative contribution that ignites you. It’s natural to you because it’s part of who you really are. Look for natural ability when examining your life with the questions above.

.4. You’re Inspired..

When you’re inspired, your “in spirit,” and spirit is who you really are. Inspiration is the act of expressing that which is within you.

Again, your environment is a reflection of who you are. Consider the people, mentors, heroes and superstars in your life that are an inspiration. The reason they are inspiring to you is because you see some of yourself in these other people.

When I watched Rocky II recently it really touched me. It really stirred some strong emotions in me; emotions of love, passion and purpose. I love the Rocky movies because they demonstrate the power of the human spirit and the human heart. And that’s what I’m all about. My purpose is to teach and inspire others to love and live life by following their hearts desires.

What is your purpose? Consider these questions:

* Who are some of your heroes and what is inspiring about them?
* Who are the teachers, coaches or mentors that inspire you the most?
* Which movie stars, musicians or performers are inspiring to you?

Again, it’s all about recognizing the patterns. Look for those areas in your life where you see a common thread. These are the clues to realizing and finding purpose in life.

Author's Bio
You know how some people are unhappy, wasting time and energy married to their job? What I do is provide coaching and tools to help people take the right steps towards a new career or business.


by Stephen Martile
Article from selfgrowth.com

Would You Like to Stop Worrying about What Others Think?

Do you often walk away from people thinking, "Did I say the right thing?"; "Did I offend someone?"; "Should I have said or asked...?"?

Do you frequently hear that "little voice" in your head saying, "What will they think?"?



Do you often feel you need to be a certain way, and you can't just be yourself?

Most people are concerned about what others think about them, and many say and do things just to get the approval of others. These thoughts and behaviors seem to be so much a part of who we are and are so common in others that we assume that they are just part of being human.

However, you can eradicate these thoughts and behaviors forever.

How? By eliminating the beliefs that cause them. Although this problem can be caused by different beliefs in different people, there is one specific belief that anyone with this problem almost certainly has: "What makes me good enough is having people think well of me."

Today I'm going to tell you how this belief is formed, why so many people have it (maybe even you), and how getting rid of this belief will transform your life.

Early in life, many of us form negative beliefs about ourselves, like "I'm not good enough." (Almost every one of the 13,000 clients we've had from 34 countries around the world has had this belief.) Because most parents expect children to do things that are unrealistic for their age (such as be neat and quiet and come when called at the age of three or four), and because most parents get frustrated, annoyed, or angry when their children don't do what they're told, most children conclude "there must be something wrong with me" if Mom and Dad are upset with me so often, or "I'm not good enough."

Because our beliefs about ourselves are usually formed during the first six years of life, most of us already have this belief when we leave our homes and go out into the world of teachers, other kids, school, etc. Obviously a belief like this would make us think as we start school, "How will I get people to like me, and how will I make it in the world if I'm not good enough?"

And those thoughts, in turn, would lead to us feeling "not okay" about ourselves and anxious to some extent.

And then one day a solution appears. We do something that our parents (or perhaps a teacher or coach) like, and they give us a very positive response. How does that make us feel? Happy and very good about ourselves.

The first few times that happens, we feel good but don't make anything of it. And then after this progression of events occurs a few times we conclude: If I didn't feel good about myself, and then after getting praise and/or positive attention I do feel good about myself, what that means is "what makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me."

This is a very special type of belief. It is a belief that tells us what needs to happen in order to experience being okay. And when it doesn't happen, we don't feel very good about ourselves.

Well, if we don't experience being good enough the way we are and we need something outside ourselves to become good enough, how often would we want that outside something to occur? All the time! Any time anyone doesn't like us, rejects us, or thinks poorly of us, we have lost our "survival strategy," our method for making us feel good about ourselves. At that point the underlying belief "I'm not good enough" is uncovered and stares us in the face, leaving us feeling not good enough and producing some level of anxiety.

As a result, the need to have others think well of us is experienced like a drug addiction by many people. When they achieve it, they feel good for the moment, but it's only a matter of time before they need another "fix." At that point they become obsessed about getting it.

There are other "survival strategy" beliefs, such as "What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly"; "What makes me good enough is being successful/wealthy" (Can you see now why some people are obsessed with this?); and "What makes me good enough is taking care of others." And it's possible to have more than one. But based on our experience in our private practice, "having people think well of me" is the most common.

It now should be clear why so many people are obsessed about what others think about them: Most people have the belief "I'm not good enough" (or some variation of it), and "having people think well of me" is the remedy most of us have found to cover up the anxiety that stems from having that belief.

If the obsession about having people think well of us is a direct result of having several beliefs, the way to get rid of the obsession is to get rid of these beliefs.

- By Morty Lefkoe

About the Author:
Morty Lefkoe is president and founder of The Lefkoe Institute. He is the creator of a series of psychological processes (The Lefkoe Method) that result in profound personal and organizational change, quickly and permanently. He created a revolutionary way to deliver his method online that you can sample free by going here.