Creating more purpose and meaning in our lives with life purpose statements
Life purpose and career development often go hand in hand. Many of us want to feel that we have a mission in life that gives meaning to our lives. I am not necessarily talking about becoming the next Mother Theresa but something that has unique meaning to us as individuals and helps to give us direction.
So what exactly do we mean by life purpose
We like the following quote as a useful definition.
"Purpose is the conscious choice and expression of what, when, where and how to make a positive contribution to our world
or to ourselves. It is the theme, quality, or passion we choose to centre our lives around"
-- Richard Lieder, The Power of Purpose
We feel it safe to assume that the majority of people do have a mission or life purpose but it can be carefully hidden away, however, if it is fulfilled through ones work as it develops and changes over time it will give rise to optimum work satisfaction. We admit that it may take a little bit of time and soul searching to discover but this work is worth doing. Lack of fulfillment will of course be expressed in many different ways. Consider the following examples:
"I'm doing well at my job - I'm even considered a good employee and performer - but I feel like something is missing. I'm just not happy."
"I've been doing the same kind of work for twenty years now and feel bored with it, but I don't know what else I could do."
"I just kind of 'fell into' the jobs I have had, being in the right place at the right time. I've never really sat down and consciously designed or chosen my work."
"There's just no self-expression in this job, most days I don't really feel like I am free to be myself, I'd just rather be doing anything else than this, but what?"
Statements like these are sad to hear but all too familiar in today's world of work. By discovering and beginning to fulfill their life purpose, these people will finally feel the fulfillment that has eluded them up to now.
To further define a life purpose is to say that we each have a calling or a mission or an overall life theme that transcends our daily activities. It is the quality we are here to develop or the interest or pursuit that we feel passionate about following. It will consist of and contain our essential nature. It is a much broader definition than our job titles alone. Most of us will have at least five different careers in our lifetime but purpose is not found in a specific career or occupational area. Rather we use our career to accomplish our overall life purpose. For instance ones mans purpose was to promote peace. He did so by working as a mediator and also by consciously pursuing peaceful relationships with people. One lady discovered her life purpose was to nurture the earth. She learned all she could about conservation, worked for a park bureau and soon was in demand as a teacher for other agencies and associations. If you do not feel that you have experienced all that they are capable of or have felt that something is lacking or missing from their life then you may want to understand a simple principle.
People will tend to experience success and fulfillment in their life to the extent that they are clear about their life purpose. even if they cannot articulate accurately what it is, they know that at some emotional level their work has purpose or meaning to them
When we are carrying out our life purpose time goes by unnoticed. As a central theme in our life, our purpose helps us decide whether to accept a job or not, whether to volunteer for a particular cause or not and whether to become involved in certain relationships - professional and personal. Discovering one's life purpose can have a tremendous impact within an organization. If employees choose to work at a specific job and for a specific company because it fulfills and expresses their life purpose they will be more engaged, motivated and productive. When you discover your life purpose it gives you a reason for being and provides a sense of 'coming home' to yourself. However, you have to make a decision to find your life purpose and capture it in a statement, below are some questions to help you in making a start but please remember that the previous sections may have raised some important information that you can utilize particularly if you have worked through the section on values and have made a list of core values.
Listen to your intuition - Key aspects of purpose often surface through intuition. Do not neglect intuition, it is powerful and conveys powerful internal signals to us that I have known many people ignore at their peril. We may experience it as an audible voice or a strong sensation, an urge to call or speak to someone or perhaps buy a particular book in a store. Of course nine times out of ten when we follow it the meaning later becomes clear.
Decide that you matter and that you can have clarity about your purpose You have to make a decision that it is important to discover your true calling and if there are obstacles in the way how do you go around them. You may even need to engage a life or business coach to assist you.
Discover some peace and solitude in your week - In you daily life or week do try to put aside some time to be alone and experience some quiet downtime and solitude -why? - because we need to let the tiny fleeting voice inside us be heard once in a while and we cannot listen if we are constantly bombarded by noise and other peoples intrusions upon us. Do a bit of yoga or meditation or just listen to some nice relaxing music and tune back into whatever is going on inside you. This quiet time of yours is not the time to solve problems or analyse things, it is time just to be you and to think about your essential self and nature.
Obstacles to discovering your life purpose - if discovering your life purpose was dead easy everyone would have done it, assuming they were aware of it in the first place. Even the ten questions to help clarify your purpose will not result in instant enlightenment for everyone. We must be patient with the process but determined and allow it to unfold at its own pace in a way that's right for you to integrate and understand. However, below are four common obstacles that many people have when trying to clarify some sort of life purpose.
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1. Overlooking the value of an interest, skill, or passion by assuming that everyone else has it - Certainly we all have different strengths and gifts but we often overlook the very things that others tell us we are good or gifted at. You could say that this in itself is a limiting belief that we might think about changing.
2. Insisting that ones life purpose be completely different from everyone else's.- Many of the activities and goals represented by a life purpose may be too large for one person to accomplish so it would actually be better if more than one person also shared a particular vision.
3. Feeling the pressures of just needing to make a living - this is a common trap and obstacle with everyone so busy these days. The pressures of an unexpected layoff or simply extra problems a t work may serve to defer people spending the time to discover life purpose however we can all decide to spend at least a few minutes a day tuning in to what we really want.
4. Thinking that only special people have a life purpose - well it's true that not everyone wants to be mother Theresa or could be another mother Theresa but the truth remains that everyone can discover of form a life purpose not just religious leaders or celebrities. Discovering it inevitably increases ones work and life satisfaction. Some people may choose to discover it early while others later in life but all can discover it and everyone is as important as everyone else.
Examples of Life Purpose statements
Your life purpose statement itself - if it is to be useful as the central theme of ones life - should be articulated in a specific format., divided into two parts:
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1. the essence, which is relatively unchanged over one's life and (2) the expression of it which could change as life circumstances change.. Following are some examples of essence portions- the hardest to initiate and think about.
To promote corporate integrity through…………
To be a positive influence on women and children through…….
To help working mothers find a balance through……..
To promote win-win conflict resolution through……
To find my own path and help others find theirs through……..
To provide an environment where self-healing can occur…………
The second part of the statement, the expression of it, tells you how you are going to execute the activities by the use of the word 'through'. For example, this is what a police officers statement looked like:
To promote fairness, justice and implement law and order for my community through the effective use of improved community relations and awareness and by doing my best to increase public confidence in the police force.
You see, you don't have to think that you are an extraordinary person to have a life purpose statement. Here's another<,/p>
A statement could include several things however. See below example.
To help people communicate better and leave a legacy through consulting with family owned businesses, conscious relationships with my partner and children, volunteering at non-profit organizations, and building my self-esteem through assertiveness training, physical fitness, and investing toward my retirement..
And below is my life purpose statement:
My life purpose is to work, as an independent facilitator, to introduce new, innovative and cutting edge concepts, principles and methodologies that will assist people to improve and/or heal themselves and enhance the quality of their emotional, physical and spiritual lives through a combination of one-to-one personal counseling and educational courses and workshops.
Some of you may have noticed that my personal core values are also embedded in the above statement - independence/autonomy, innovation/new ideas, helping others/contribution, spirituality/love, education/learning. This is another idea - to include your core values in your life purpose statement.
Here are ways to live a more purpose-centred life. Do activities related to your life purpose at your most productive time of day. This will allow you to concentrate more on what is important to you. before other distractions have time to pull you off course. Secondly if you have decisions to make ask which option will take you closer to your life purpose. You must also be willing to change anything that does not take you more towards living your life purpose. The main thing to get into your being is that your life purpose is used as an organizing principle for your life. We do not want the life purpose statement to be a passive statement but become an active force that is integrated into your daily life. This will bring maximum fulfillment and satisfaction. Of course a life purpose statement must be linked to a goal-setting method and put into small realistic and manageable enough chunks to not overwhelm you in order for it to manifest.