What Is Your Purpose?

Purpose is a word that gets thrown out into the universe often without clarity on what that word means or how we can find it. Purpose is simply the “reason something exists”. Why do you exist? What is your reason for being put on the earth?

Your job and your purpose do not have to be the same thing.

Your job can be an outlet for you to use your purpose. Or if you are in a job, you don’t like you can use your purpose to find fulfilment in that job. My wife is a great example of how her purpose is greater than her work. My wife went to school to work with children, she worked at a daycare for 10 years before being let go. Daycare had taken a toll on her, so she decided to get a housekeeping job at our local retirement community. While leaving daycare was difficult, my wife understood her purpose was more than cleaning rooms.

While my wife’s job is to clan residents’ rooms, her purpose and how she finds enjoyment is by “helping and serving people”. She treats all her residents as if they were her own parents and she gets to know them on a personal level. Does my wife like cleaning rooms?  Not necessarily, but she loves making connections with people and putting a smile on their faces. This simple understanding of her purpose helps her get out of bed every morning to clean rooms.

Look at your childhood.

Remember when you were a kid, or a teenager. Remember the feeling of being able to take on the world. No one could stop you! Then you grew up, bills started taking over, family obligations became bigger, work commitments became relentless, and you started losing that feeling.  Let’s go back to that time when you were a kid. There is a good chance that you were passionate about something. Was it helping the less fortunate, or maybe you created small jobs to earn money. Maybe you were so obsessed with singing, playing an instrument or maybe you really enjoyed art that is was all that you could think about.

Look at what you enjoyed and still enjoy as an adult. Now look deeper, do you enjoy creating art so you can give it to somebody and see them smile? If so, maybe your purpose is to make people smile. Do you have a passion to serve our military veterans? Maybe you can start a business who employees veterans. Maybe you’re a manager at a business and your purpose is to train and grow new leaders. You can use your position to help grow and train new leaders.

Once you find your purpose you can find fulfilment in everything that you do. It also allows you the freedom to say no to things that don’t align with your purpose. Find your purpose in everything that you do.