Summary:
We all know those people who seem to be on a never-ending quest to find their life’s purpose. They spend hours meditating and pouring through texts, brooding on how to find out why exactly they were put here on Earth.
My own personal philosophy is that you don’t find your purpose, you create it. And odds are that your purpose is less about yourself and more about how to best use your gifts to help others. This is why learning your calling often means getting out of your own head and heading out in the world to get busy. Read on to learn more on how you can uncover your purpose, without getting so mentally wrapped up in the quest that you find you aren’t getting things done.
Transcript:
It’s a well-documented trend by now that millennials are likely to frequently hop jobs. It’s hard to blame them given the erosion of pension benefits and stagnant wage increases at many companies. For many young workers, their best bet at earning a significant wage increase is to jump to another position.
But this restlessness may have less to do with earnings than the far more intangible notion of “purpose”. In studies, this demographic regularly ranks “meaning” as a higher consideration for employment with their position than the old standards of salary and title. In short, there are an awful lot of people out there who are increasingly searching for their purpose in life. And that search is extending to the workplace.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s certainly nothing wrong with having a purpose in life. I have just seen firsthand how a great number of people can become so bogged down with pondering their purpose in life that they neglect to take action to move forward.
It all depends on your personality. I am myself simply not the type to spend a lot of time reflecting on what my purpose in life should be. However, I do keenly take note of the activities and habits that seem to give me the greatest sense of fulfillment. I strive to provide value to others; colleagues, clients, connections; in all endeavors that I’m involved in. This gives me some insight that I could probably construe my “purpose” as helping others to grow wealthier and more financially self-sufficient. That said, I didn’t necessarily set out with this as a fixed idea for a purpose in my head – it organically grew out of the things that I enjoyed doing.
Be Out In The World And Become Active
As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others.” I agree with this advice. There is good that you can find in meditating and reading, but make your default mode one that leans toward taking action. By getting out of the house and staying active in a variety of endeavors, you will gain a far greater understanding of what you could fashion your purpose to be.
It also can help to create a visual representation of what you think your purpose is, something that acts a touchstone when you need a reminder of what you are working toward.
A famous example of this involves a fellow Canadian, Jim Carrey. Long before he made moviegoers laugh all the way to box office records, he was another struggling comic. He had grown up with a burning desire to be in show business and make other people laugh, imaging himself as a guest on the Carol Burnett Show. But the odds were plainly stacked against the purpose that he had set for himself. When he was finally old enough to strike out on his own, he followed his dream to Los Angeles, but being that much closer to the action just made him more aware than ever of the distance that separated him from the opportunities that he was seeking. As the story goes, he drove up into the Hollywood Hills on one dejected night in 1990, in search of inspiration, in search of a reminder for why he had chosen such a difficult path for his own purpose. Sitting there with hardly a nickel in his pocket and overlooking the city that was crushing his dreams, he took out a personal check and made it out to himself, for $10 million dollars. He wrote in the notation line, “for acting services rendered.” He dated it Thanksgiving 1995. He placed it in his wallet and drove home.
By the time 1995 rolled around, Carrey was coming off of the resounding success of blockbusters like Ace Venture and Dumb and Dumber – and his fee per picture had ballooned to $20 million.
Don’t bounce any checks, but keep the basic concept in mind. Visualize your future and what you would like to see yourself doing then. Use a physical token or reminder, like Carrey did, if it helps you to better envision that future and what purpose you want to create for yourself.
It’s About The Freedom To Do More
The notion that money doesn’t buy happiness is half-baked. It plainly is possible to be miserable regardless of your stature in life and zeroes in your bank account are no assurance of changing that. But it’s demonstrably clear that having greater freedom and options available to you is an enormous benefit. Most people are clearly much happier when they are able to make decisions about how and where they spend their time, rather than being strictly tethered to a defined place and time for the majority of the year. So if your purpose in life ties into a goal of becoming financially independent, don’t be ashamed of that. It is certainly easier to help others and impact the world when you are financially free yourself.
My advice would start with getting yourself out of whatever small bubble or comfort zone that you have created for yourself. Just as Carrey made the long and solitary trek from Canada to Los Angeles to try his hand at pursuing his acting dreams, you need to get out into the world and travel to better reflect on what purpose makes you come alive.
The Need To Strive
Just as his journey wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, neither will your journey be. It is paradoxical that we yearn for meaning, yet also want to maintain a state of perpetual happiness. In his seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote, “What man needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling of some goal worthy of him.” Essentially his central insight that his own suffering had taught him was that our purpose is not to simply check off goals and achievements. Our purpose is to have something to strive toward, something that compels us to call upon all of our talents and keep moving forward.
This way of looking at life certainly relieves us of some of the pressure of being let down when we aren’t ever satisfied. Frankl reminds us that we are not intended to be satisfied. We were meant to explore and keep seeking new answers.
So strive to find a purpose worthy of you. Another house or car can be a good way to reward yourself, but it isn’t enough in itself to keep you motivated for the long haul. Serving others, making the greatest use of a natural talent, leaving your community or organization in stronger shape than when you found it. These are the types of purposes that can help you to live your most impactful life possible.
Think about and even write down how you describe the purpose of your life. Do you feel that you have a fleshed out notion of what it is or are you still in the mode of searching for a way to define why you get out of bed everyday, other than simple habit?
My advice is to simply get busy. Plunge into the activities and work that you are gifted at, that you enjoy. And keep an eye on how this work can positively effect others around you. Odds are that you will quickly be on the path to greater insight into what you have to offer the world and what your driving force should be each day. And who knows, you might even turn it into a significant cash flow stream.
You can also learn more by visiting my website: tonyneumeyer.com and registering to receive free trainings articles and more. Also subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Facebook. You can get your copy of The 7 Minute Millionaire and check out my other books here: https://tonyneumeyer.com/books/.
