6 Things To Consider Before Discovering Your Purpose

  •  Updated:
  • Jul 1, 2022

This is part 5 of a 7-part series on how to find your life purpose.

Some self-help authors recommend thinking about your purpose by imagining you are listening to your eulogy at your funeral. What do you want others to say about you when you die? What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Personally, I do not agree with this method for two reasons:

  1. Ego-based. By basing yourself on others’ perceptions of you, you are tapping into your ego and fear. A purpose is not about leaving a legacy or making others remember you positively. It is about living your life in a way that you will be proud of.
  2. Short-term. Our existence between now and physical death is merely a small speck in the spectrum of our spiritual existence. By defining our purpose in the context of our current physical life only, we are not living our lives in the fullest possible way.

How to Define My Purpose Then?

Your purpose will guide you through every step in your life, so it is crucial to define it properly.

In part 6 of this series, you will be doing an important deep-dive to uncover your life purpose. Before you do so, let’s lay down proper guiding principles on how you should approach your purpose, as they will set the stage for everything. Here are my 6 principles to define your purpose.

1. Resonates with who you are

What do you love doing? Your purpose should reflect your passion and values. This requires a certain level of self-awareness because you can’t know what your passion and values are unless you have ventured out before. Ask yourself: “If I have to do something for the rest of my life, without getting paid a single cent, what would I want to do?” This is something true to you — it is your purpose, not other people’s purpose.

2. Limitless in entity, time and space

You should anchor your purpose on ageless principles. Do not base your purpose on a particular entity (e.g. your family, partner, job, or country), time (e.g. your physical life span), or space (e.g. a geographical location), as this will make your purpose one dimensional. Meaning,

  • Instead of basing your purpose on your family, ladder it to a higher order group, such as all human relationships or relationships with all living beings.
  • Instead of basing it on religion, ladder it up to spirituality.
  • Instead of defining it within your life span, look at the entire spectrum of life — human life or life on Earth as we know it.
  • Instead of fixing it on a specific location, look at the entire world, universe, or even the galaxy.

Your purpose should span across (a) entity, (b) time, and (c) space. It is a message, not a medium. You can be more specific when you set goals based on your purpose. For starters, recognize that you are living at a point in the 13.7 billion life span of our current universe (which is one of the many universes out there). You are one of the 7.4 billion lives to walk Earth right now. If you can live forever, and you’re not bounded by geography, what would you want your purpose to be in the context of the entire universe? What would be the most meaningful thing you could do?

Money and statuses do not withstand this test because they are impermanent things that do not matter in the larger span of human existence. By using this principle, I was able to accelerate the discovery of my life purpose, rather than only waiting 10, 20, 30 years later to realize I was chasing a moot point. This is something I shared in my purpose story.

3. Visionary

Think big. Your purpose is your compass to achieve your highest potential and best life beyond your wildest imagination. It should inspire, energize, and stir your soul! Forget the social, physical, and mental constraints in your life currently. What would you do if you would definitely succeed? “To be happy” is a cop-out answer because it hinges on subjective emotional states as the determinant. You can force a smile and make yourself happy now if you choose to, without doing anything. “To enjoy life” is a non-answer because the nature of a life purpose should fulfill you. Your purpose should be something that requires your concrete action to fulfill.

4. Specific (not Vague)

“To live life to the fullest” or Carpe diem is a looping answer. What does it mean to live life to the fullest? It does not say anything — our purpose should be inherently fulfilling! Your purpose should identify the specific thing that will allow you to live life to the fullest. What gives you the greatest gratification and meaning when you do it?

5. Direction (rather than End state)

Avoid defining end states as your purpose. Your goal is your milestone or destination. Your purpose is the direction you want to travel in. Antarctica is a destination while North is a direction. Likewise, becoming a teacher, president, or singer are goals. Educating and helping people is a purpose.

6. Rooted in Love, not Fear

Your purpose should liberate you and be aligned with the highest level of emotion, which is love. Purposes like “to become wealthy,” “to be successful in endeavors,” or “to acquire social status” are fear-based and rooted in externalities, as we have discussed in Part 3: Why Earning Money Is Not Your Real Purpose (And How To Know What Is). Your purpose should emanate from within, from your inner state of being. It should not require affirmation from the outside world, such as physical possessions or statuses. Refer to part 3 for the differences between false and real purposes.

Now that you know the 6 principles to define your purpose, we are now ready to discover your life purpose! :) Read Part 6: How To Discover Your Real Life Purpose in 30 Minutes

This is part 5 of a 7-part series on how to find your life purpose.

4 comments
  1. VickiB 11 years ago

    I’ve read this before and was pleased to come across it again.

    What I have seen is that my purpose remains the same even though the expression of it, or the way I pursue it, changes.

    My life purpose is to make the world a better place. That is the purpose behind all of my career choices and activities, family decisions, etc. For instance, I worked for the Mental Health Center as a therapist for Chronically Mentally Ill adults. I worked for social service agencies. I provided training for adoptive and foster parents Now I teach Spanish and do some work as a translator/interpreter. I became an adoptive parent myself and later a foster parent to 24 children (not all at once!). In all of these ways, I made the world a better place for someone. (I should say that WE became adoptive and foster parents; I didn’t do it alone.)

    Now I spend a lot of my time caring for my husband, who has serious health problems. I believe that the world is a better place with him in it! Also that the world is a better place because of the encouragement that it gives others to see someone like him who is successfully negotiating the challenges of several serious illnesses.

    And that long-lasting loving relationships make the world a better place.

    When I realized that doing what I do serves my life purpose, it helped me relax about what I “should” be doing. I don’t have to get a job at a social service agency again or start doing foster care again in order to serve my purpose.

  2. Celes
    CelesAuthor 17 years ago

    @Keith: Thanks, I’m really happy that you have found your real purpose that guides you through life :)

  3. Keith 17 years ago

    These are really excellent points on a “life purpose.” Too often people sell themselves short by attaching their purpose to something external to their being, and then find they are not fulfilled at some point.

    For me, I look at it as a way of being, and that way of being has certain desires and goals which emanate out from itself. That’s what guides my actions in life, and I think that’s what gives it its inherent power in my life as well.

    I’m glad that you’ve put so much consideration into this post, I hope that more people discover what you’re talking about here rather than these externally-directed, or ego/fear-based versions of “life purpose” you so often hear or read about in so many other places.

  4. SHIMURE 17 years ago

    Good article….. especially about finding something which you would do for all eternity…..

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Hi! I’m Celes. Thanks for reading. Personal Excellence is where I write about how to live our best life as we tackle life’s challenges. About Me »

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