Step 4: Discover Your Purpose

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.” – David Viscott

There are four aspects to consider when thinking about our life purpose. The first is ‘What do you love?’. Often it’s the things we are passionate about that reveal our deepest purpose in life. We might say we love pizza and our children in the same sentence but hopefully one of those ‘loves’ carries a much greater weight than the other! Take a moment to evaluate what, or more likely who, you love most and take time to evaluate how your life purpose might line up with your deepest loves.

The second is ‘What are you great at?’ If you’re not sure you can think about what people most often compliment about you regarding your skillsets. Or you can think about what you are trained in. What are you an expert at? What did you go to school for? They say it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to become an expert. Maybe you haven’t done anything long enough to be great at one thing, but what are you intentionally training to be great at? Be someone with integrity who is constantly working to improve in specific areas of passion.

Third, ‘What do you get paid for?’ Most of us are working at a job. This has some level of reflection on what we are good at and what we were made for. Hopefully you love your job and are saying an emphatic YES! to this idea. Sadly, many of us do not necessarily think our jobs reflect our life purpose. Still, can you find the redeeming aspects in your occupation? What attracted you to the job in the first place? How can you live out some portion of your life’s purpose in your career? Maybe what you love to do most has nothing at all to do with your job. If this is the case, you have two options. View your job as a funding project for your real passions, or brainstorm with friends until you find an innovative way to make money doing what you love!

And finally, ‘What does the world need?’ Abundant living requires us to think outside our own wants and needs. What are we capable of that will benefit the rest of the planet? This can be as simple as a statement like ‘The world needs more good people.’ And so as a first grade teacher you will teach children to become the kindest, most selfless people you can in order to benefit the world. However, this is also an opportunity for us to think bigger. Taking a percentage of our income and giving every month to support people who are making the world a better place is a powerfully effective way of impacting the world outside ourselves. Finding opportunities to volunteer in our local communities can also make a big impact. Whether we think we are capable of great things or small things we are right. We need to believe we are capable of making an impact outside the nucleus of our existence.