Chapter Nine: Finding Our Purpose

Have you ever thought to yourself whether you are truly living a life that is purposefully yours? Are you using your heart to guide your decision making for what is right for you? Do you ever hold yourself to old standards in how you used to be rather than what you can become? Instead of saying “I can’t” say “I will” and watch your world begin to change. 

Transcript

Chapter Nine

Finding Our Purpose

Positive Affirmation: My life has great value and purpose, and I am capable of fulfilling both.

How does one find one’s purpose in life? This is a question that had me chasing my tail for many years and almost always caused me pain. I had a feeling that my life was on pause and I could not move forward until I knew, in intricate detail, what my purpose was so I could start my life. I thought finding my purpose was going to be a defining moment in my life, as if God would separate the clouds on a rainy day and speak to me in a grand voice. 

I also thought that once I knew my purpose, I would have clear instructions on what I was to do with the rest of my life, and I sought out great teachers and seers to help me. I assumed that everything that had happened before I found my purpose was preparing me for what I needed to know and, once I knew what my purpose was, every moment thereafter would be defined as “After I found my purpose.” But the whole concept was just a fantasy that my mind had created, and the teachers and seers could only give me just about as much information as I already had. 

As a culture, we start asking children at a very young age the big question: What are you going to do when you grow up? This question was asked of me hundreds of times during my youth but, at age nine, the only thing I wanted to do was build forts in the woods and effectively not get caught peeing outside. This repeated questioning landed a belief in me that I should know what my purpose was right from birth and, because I did not know the answer, that question tore at my self-worth. Within the question is an underlying pressure that we must do something. 

In the end, nobody had the answers I was looking for. I needed to change my approach and look in a different direction. 

The Search for Purpose

I count myself privileged that I found my career at an early age and, for years, it seemed that I had found my place in life and that I was well suited to my vocation. By my early twenties, I had acquired all the material things that one would want in a normal middle-class life. I owned my own home, a car, a vacation property, and had filled my life with a great many meaningless objects. 

However, under the surface, I still questioned myself. Am I fulfilling my true purpose in life? Even with all these things in place, I still could not help but wonder: Is this all there is? Is this what my life is about? I was haunted by these questions. As comfortable and great as my job of being a tattoo artist was, it did not feel like my ultimate purpose. It felt like I was putting in time until I found what I was really looking for. 

In my mid-twenties, though, I had what I would call a spiritual crisis. Nothing and nobody I had met thus far in my life seemed to have the answers I was looking for, so I decided to turn to spirituality. I read tons of self-help books, met some interesting people, and studied all kinds of religions and philosophies from different cultures of the world. After investigating and studying, what seemed to have the greatest allure to me was meditation.

In the end, after all that, I still had not found an answer to my question. The strange thing was, it did not seem to bother me as much. Spiritualty was a great distraction.Eventually, I gave up my pursuit of finding the answer. 

Then one day it all became clear to me. Each step of my journey was my purpose. I had finally discovered what I had been looking for most of my life. My life was already full of purposeful moments. There was no great epiphany that was going to tell me what my ultimate purpose is. At every twist and turn of my life, I was automatically fulfilling my purpose when I learned to stay present with the moment and serve what was in front of me. I discovered that our purpose is ever-changing according to the moment we are in. 

By placing our attention to the moment at hand and responding to what is in front of us, we automatically fulfill our purpose. There is no longer a question of whether we have a purpose or what that purpose is. We have all kinds of purposes. Life is full of opportunities to fulfil our purpose from one moment to the next. 

 Instead of our purpose being one giant thing, it is made up of all the endeavours we engage in. The questions we need to address are: What am I drawn to and what excites me? Do my pursuits have purpose to me?  We all have a myriad of things that we are naturally good at, and there is a good chance that what we are really good at is all part of our purpose in life.

Living Another’s Purpose

Never settle for a life that is less than purposefully yours.

It is not uncommon for us to live another person’s life. Our family and friends can have a huge influence on what we do or do not do, and what we are exposed to often has an impact on the choices we make. 

We search for our likeness in our circle of friends—that’s what usually draws us to befriend another. Once we find a person who shares a common trait, we then align ourselves as friends. But often our friends will expect us to stay the same or, at the very least, to not move beyond them or be different from them. The problem is, we sometimes outgrow our friendships and begin to curb our needs in order to meet the approval of others. This behaviour can cause us to fall into the trap of living another’s purpose and can bear even more validity when the person we have outgrown happens to be our partner. 

For years I tried to live my parents’ life. I started to follow in their footsteps rather than my own. The longer I worked at doing the same type of work they did, the more discontented I became. In my heart I knew what I was doing was never going to get me where I wanted to be in my life. In fact, part of the angst I was feeling about finding my purpose came from not being honest with myself. I was going against what I knew was right for me. I was living another’s purpose, and I was going against my own heart’s wisdom. It was a recipe for clinical depression. 

Moving Toward Our Purpose

Our purpose in life is to live. I mean to really live. If someone came up to you and asked: “How do you live a full and purposeful life?” what would you say? Your answer to that question would be the answer to what your purpose is. 

I consider my dreams to be like movie trailers. They are previews of what I can live if I choose to live my dreams. Yes, I did say “choose.” If you think life is hard for you, you are right. Life is hard. The real question is: When do you plan on changing that? 

The answer: When your life hurts enough, you will change it. 

This anecdote about a dog lying on the nail by Les Brown illustrates my point.

The Dog on the Nail

There was a young man walking down the street and happened to see an old man sitting on his porch. Next to the old man was his dog, who was whining and whimpering. The young man asked the old man “What’s wrong with your dog?” The old man said “He’s lying on a nail.” The young man asked “Lying on a nail? Well, why doesn’t he get up?” The old man then replied “It’s not hurting badly enough.”

When the voice in your head says, “I can’t,” replace that with “I will.”

 Our life is meant to be lived to the fullest and we must follow our heart’s wisdom. It should not be controlled by our deepest fears, nor should we strive for what we think the minimum life has to offer. History has proven time and time again that the human spirit is capable of just about anything. There is no difference between you and your greatest hero. That is the basic premise of the age-old story of heroism. One sets out on an impossible journey and wins.

As we discovered earlier, one of the ways we discover our peace is by learning how to follow and listen to our heart. The more I stripped away the layers of things that I was not, the more my purpose became more apparent. I now think there was a part of me that was hiding from my purpose, because it meant that I would have to step into my greatness. I would have to let go of all the things that I wasn't. I believed for a long time in this sad and twisted story about myself. I believed that I was not good enough, strong enough, or smart enough. But every one of those negative thoughts was just my mind running away on me and driving me further away from living my purpose. It is not that I needed to find my purpose. I just needed to live my purpose. Inside, I already knew what to do from one moment to the next. I just had to be quiet enough to listen to what my heart was trying to tell me.

How to really live your purpose:
 1. Learn how to let go of your thoughts.
 2. Follow your heart and listen to its wise instructions.
 3. Only live the life that is purposefully yours.
 4. Live deeply in this moment and watch for how you can serve the world rather than how the world can serve you.
 
 

Living these four steps will not only drive you toward your purpose but will create a meaningful and peaceful life for you. With the inclusion of love in these steps, your life will be full of purpose. 

Every great adventure begins with the courage to face the unknown.

 Be your own support team in life. Why look to others for encouragement? People won’t encourage you to do things that they are afraid of. My time working in a factory showed me that very clearly. “I am going to start my own business,” I used to say. To which many of my co-workers would respond, “What about the benefits here? What about the guaranteed paycheque?” 

I have a thousand more benefits that come with my current job and lifestyle. As for the guaranteed paycheque, the factory I used to work in is now closed. It is not that other people do not want good things for you so much as they cannot see you doing better than themselves. If they could see a way out of their own situation, they would do what you are doing. Go after your dreams. Start moving forward in your life so you are really living. That is living a truly purposeful life. 

Our purpose can materialize more swiftly when we maintain our focus on what we want.

Moving Beyond Our Purpose

We have come to this earth to live, love, expand our consciousness, and, most importantly, to awaken our soul. We have a great deal of opportunity to explore this great plane of demonstration. This earth is the ultimate playground, and we were never meant to set borders or find ways to divide ourselves from each other. We are here to live as one, love as one, and grow as one. There is so much purpose in life that is hidden from us. Our purpose is not about extracting worth from the things that we do. It is about our authentic engagement with life.

            Rather than: What is my purpose? I think the real question is: How can my life serve a purpose? A purposeful engagement with life involves surrendering and serving whatever shows up in front of us. All that we ever need is on its way to us and could be landing at our feet at this moment.  

Wake up daily and ask yourself, “How can I make a difference and an impact on the world?” We ask this question not to be known as a hero but to actually become one. True heroes have no agenda for self. They are much too busy serving the world to spend a second of their time looking at how they are being perceived.  

Life will hand us all kinds of unique experiences, some pleasurable and others not so much. As I reflect on the passing tides of my life, I am filled with gratitude for all that I have experienced so far. I sit with great anticipation and willingness to fully respond to the moment I am in. We can count the days that have passed in our lives, but we cannot count the ones that lie ahead of us. Place yourself in the moment you are in so you don’t miss a single moment of your life. That way you will fulfill your purpose.

Tools to Deepen Your Experience of This Chapter

1. Ask yourself: “What is my purpose?” Write down the things that come to mind when you ask yourself this question.

1. Identify where you may be following in your parents’ or a friend’s footsteps. Keep in mind that this is not necessarily bad if you are consciously choosing this for yourself. 

1. Set aside excuses as to why you cannot live your life. Then identify if you are going against what you really want in your life. 

1.  Become aware of friendships that no longer serve you. It is not a good thing to banish people from your life, but if someone is holding you back, let them go with love.

1. Answer this question: How do you live a full and purposeful life? 

1. Remove all the obstacles that are preventing you from following your dreams. Do you believe in your dreams? If not, why not? 

1. Become aware of how often you say, “I can’t.” Are you willing to have enough courage to replace that with “I will”?

1. Become aware of where are you holding yourself back from living your purpose. Do you have old stories about yourself that might no longer be true? 

1. Take notice of how and why you hold yourself back from following your heart. Is it because others won’t approve or support you?