Designing Your Life Purpose: The What and the How
Posted on May 15, 2013 by Simone Ravicz, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
"pay attention to how much joy you feel when you sort through your memories"
We’ve all heard the saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” This obviously predated the development of the GPS for cars. But when applied to life, the saying is quite accurate. If you do not have an established plan, you have little to say about where you will end up. You will most likely be lost. If you are not in touch with your values you will be not only lost but also miserable.
You may already have a vision of where you plan to go in life. However, making a life plan is not a one- time activity. We need to do it at intervals and perhaps make some adjustments to ascertain if it is still applicable to the person we are at the time. Follow these suggestions below regarding the first phase of designing your life purpose and I think you will be pleased with the end result.
The first step is to ask yourself what provides you with the most pleasure in life. What in your life has given you the greatest joy and made you feel most alive? What has made you feel energized, fulfilled and generous of spirit? Close your eyes if that feels comfortable and let your mind visit the different time periods within your life when you felt the most happiness and gratitude.
You will probably think of a number of times you were a child. Go with that. Suspend judgment and visualize joyful, actualizing times. Perhaps as a child you loved listening to your grandfather’s stories. As an adult, you might visualize sitting around, talking and laughing with friends. Now, take the second step. This involves looking for commonalities amongst these experiences and times. Look for repetitive themes among your feelings and the activities or actions. These will be included in your life plan.
When I did this exercise, the answers that came to me sounded as though I were trying out for a Miss America spot. It was not that I was aiming for world peace and the abolishment of all illnesses (although I heartily hope for those to manifest), but my preferences and actions certainly sounded like positive ones to me. What turned up is that I experience the greatest passion and fulfillment when I am being of help and use to others. You will see how that plays a dominant element in my completed life purpose statement later.
When you do this exercise pay attention to how much joy you feel when you sort through your memories. The greater the joy, the closer the experiences are to your life purpose. Imagine how and if you could format your activities in such a way so as to be able to make a living doing them. Be cautious of using “making money” as a singular goal for your life plan since you run the risk that in the future you may end up with more money but emptiness in your mental, spiritual and emotional dimensions. Complete this exercise and write down the feelings, images and themes you come up with for my next blog. There are three specific steps we will add to today’s information before you complete the design of your life plan. Until then, remember to use your level of joy as a GPS for your journey on your road to success.