What Do You Want Your Life To Be About?

Many of us ponder over our purpose in life and get really stuck in thinking that we should have a slick definition that gives us lifelong direction and meaning. In fact, we can spend so much time pondering and searching that it becomes procrastination. After all, there’s no point in doing anything until we know our purpose, is there?

This is all driven by our need to believe that our lives matter. The paradox is that our lives won’t matter unless we do something. It’s what we do with our life that makes it matter, or not!

Our real problem is that we are approaching this from the wrong direction. We are assuming that our purpose has to come first and it is somewhere “out there” waiting for us to discover it in some sort of blinding flash of inspiration.

Purpose is not “out there”, nor can we calculate it or take a psychometric test to find it. You can decide what you want your purpose to be and start living it. You get to choose who you want to serve and who you need to become to achieve that.

And it is not necessarily a once in a lifetime decision. The world is constantly changing, your circumstances will change and your priorities will change several times in your lifetime. 

Of course, decisions take time to gel so don’t even think about searching. Start with what you know about yourself. What are your strengths? What are you curious about? Find out what you are good at. Gather experiences.

And if you want additional input to help you along the way you might like Richard Jacobs’ book “What’s Your Purpose?” He poses seven thought-provoking questions to guide you in finding your purpose. It is not a “tick box” exercise the presents a solution. You have to do the thinking and make your own decisions on what you want your life to be about.