Life Purpose Week | Day 2: Reflection

Welcome to Day 2 of your life purpose discovery journey.  

What did you get out of the experience of connecting with your intuition on Day 1? If there were any challenges, what can you do to overcome them?  Remember that creating easier access to your inner wisdom requires mindfulness, which takes practice and patience.  If it makes you relax even more, the process of practicing mindfulness can be beneficial by itself.  This is because you are essentially training your brain to pay closer attention to your thoughts, thus separating your "thinking mind" and your "observing mind". 

On Day 2, I'd like to share with you a series of questions to help you gain further clarity on your life purpose.  Before we start, it’s essential for you to understand the following:

Don’t sell yourself short

If you don't think you are unique enough, remember that this is not a time to be humble!  You don't need to be the best at something in your entire company of 500. As long as you are drawn to a subject or an activity, like doing it, are better than the average Joe, you already have a better chance of being more compelling when promoting your idea, more innovative in solving problems and more persistent when facing challenges. 

Don’t worry about the “what-if’s”

“What if I don’t have the resources, courage, skills or experience to fulfill your purpose yet?” you asked.  Set those questions aside for now.  Visualize what kind of impact the most resourceful, courageous, skillful and experienced future self could make, and let me share with you some tips on how to get there later this week.   

Ask people around you

Whether or not you are struggling with answering the reflection questions, it is always a good idea to ask people around you for answers to the above questions.  You could try interviewing both those who have known you for a long time and those new to your circle to get a sense of any similarities and differences in their responses.

Reflection questions

Now get ready for some introspection!  Again remember to situate yourself in a quiet place and reflect on the following.  The most effective way is to write down your answers with pen and paper.

• What are your unique talents?
• What are the most unusual aspects of your background or experience? What could they enable you to do?
• What is, or what can be, your unique contribution to your family, your work, your community? Or, what kind of difference do you want to make with your life?
• What have always been a passion for you?  How about hidden passions that you told nobody about? 
• What’s something you’ve always yearned to do?  You may have forgotten about it, but it keeps resurfacing?
• What are the activities that energize you? 
• What are the projects that energize you?  
• What are the areas you have accomplishments in? What skills allow you to be successful in them?
• What are the typical things people come to you, or count on you for?  
• What do people always say about you, especially something that they say you are/will be great at?
• What are your hobbies? What are the common theme among those hobbies? (Don’t forget to include hobbies that you had when we you were a child or teenager and extracurricular/volunteer activities.) 

Life purpose statement

What came up in this exercise?  What are the few common themes? What are the words that keep coming up?  Which ones resonate with you? Ask the same friend or a coach to brainstorm with you.

After this exercise, if you have a decent idea of the difference you want to make, try creating your life purpose statement in the following format. 

I am the (something/somebody) who (creates a certain impact).

For example, a life purpose statement for an environmental activist could be, “I am the warrior who fights for the well-being of Mother Nature.”  Usage of the present tense “am” helps you start living a life honouring your life purpose NOW.  Adopting a metaphor creates a more vivid image and helps you feel the energy you need to adopt in order to live that purpose.

Now go back and try again 

Defining your life purpose is a process that usually takes time and requires a combination of different methods.  In addition to reflection, journaling and interviewing others, visualization is another tool we will explore tomorrow (Day 3) to help you tap into your subconscious, a magical world we rarely venture into.

This post belongs to a series of blog posts starting from Find Career Passion & Direction by Exploring Your Life Purpose.